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Lured by thy verse, behold once more
Thy friend fair Italy explore.
And tho’ by suffering taught I shun
Her unrelenting summer sun,
Yet now I woo its beams to cheer
The gloom of an expiring year;
Where, ‘mid the ruins round her spread
Borne proudly lifts her mitred head
Once circled by th’ imperial crown
To which the conquer’d world bow’d down.
Feeble, though reverend in decay,
She claims not now her ancient sway,
But begs a homage, freely paid,
Less to the living than the dead,
Whose honoured tombs now mouldering round
Have power to consecrate the ground,
And though a thousand Domes arise,
More sees the Memory than the eyes.
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| 370 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
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Yet here, the work of modern hands,
In state the noblest temple stands
That to his great Creator’s praise
The piety of man could raise;
Here, too, as breathing nature warm,
Dwells many a bright angelic form,
Hewn from the rock by matchless skill,
Once Gods, and almost worshipped still.
And here the pencil’s magic hues
Along the walls their spells diffuse,
Calling saints, heroes from the grave
Again to teach, again to save.
The Eternal City as I trace
The Present to the Past gives place,
The spirits of the dead appear
And sounds divine transport my ear.
I listen, heedless of the throng,
Or at the storied arch I view,
Gaze at the Triumph winding through,
Or mark the horse and horseman leap
Fearlessly down the yawning steep,
Or him who singly dares oppose
(Striding the bridge) a host of foes;
Now shuddering, the stern Consul see
His rebel sons to death decree,
Or in the Senate hail the blow
That lays the Great Usurper low,
But who, on thrones and robed in state,
Sit silently and smile at Fate,
The conscript sires. Though fierce and rude,
The conqueror is himself subdued,
Drops his red spear and bends the knee,
Esteeming each a Deity.
Oh! how in latter life it cheers
To triumph o’er the power of years!
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| SHARP'S LINES ON ITALY | 371 |
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Calm’d, not exhausted, to perceive
That we can feel, admire, believe
E’en to the last, as in our prime,
Spite of the malice of old Time;
Not more our joy than pride to know
That the chill’d blood again can glow,
That fancy still has wings to soar
As high as she was wont before,
And Hope still listens to her song
As erst, when credulous and young;
That there are vales where smiling spring
Is lovelier than the poets sing,
And Nature’s bright realities
Transcend what painting can devise,
Where May can trust, in field or bow’r,
Her blossoms to the morning hour,
Nor dreads the venomous East should breathe
To blight the flow’rets in her wreath,
And scarcely swells a bud in vain
Of blushing fruit or golden grain.
Alas, fair land, that thy rich dower
Should be the prize of lawless Power!
Yielded to Vandal, Moor, or Gaul,
Or bigot sloth, far worse than all.
Oh, grief! that blessings too profuse
Should change to curses by th’ abuse
That virtue, freedom, still must fly
For shelter to a frozen sky.
Like gold, all good requires alloy,
And man must suffer to enjoy.
Once thy possessors, great in arms,
Defended and preserved thy charms,
Well taught (alas, in times gone by!)
Bravely to conquer or to die.
Then the rude Hun rude welcome found
And with his blood manured the ground,
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| 372 | ROGERS AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES |
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Though now, his haughty banner waves
High o’er his humbled fathers’ graves.
Now must thy sons thy fate regret,
The present bear, the past forget,
Blush when they hear their fathers’ fame,
And hide in smiles their grief and shame.
Not long—soon shall the smouldering fire
Explode in thunder or expire,
Oh, not the last!—in vain they dare
(The crown’d conspirators) to share
The world between them as their prey,
Willing to own their sovereign sway.
As soon shall they forbid the sun
His daily course thro’ Heav’n to run,
Arrest the ocean tides, or bind
The pinions of the wandering wind.
But let this pass, here still we find
Much to console the cultur’d mind;
Art, Science, Letters still survive
The Liberty that bade them thrive,
And many a poet of high name
Upholds his country’s ancient fame.
Thy last great theme: well chosen by thee
The bard inspired by Memory!
And greatly shall thy lasting lay
Her hospitality o’erpay,
Long long the rival to remain
Ev’n of her noblest native strain.
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