New risen from the waters! and the cry

  Of Light and Truth, of Love and Liberty,

  Is heard in lordly Genoa, and where

  The marble spires of Milan wound the air,

  Rings from the Alps to the Sicilian shore,

  And Dante’s dream is now a dream no more.

  But thou, Ravenna, better loved than all,

  Thy ruined palaces are but a pall

  That hides thy fallen greatness! and thy name

  Burns like a grey and flickering candle-flame

  Beneath the noonday splendour of the sun

  Of new Italia! for the night is done,

  The night of dark oppression, and the day

  Hath dawned in passionate splendour: far away

  The Austrian hounds are hunted from the land,

  Beyond those ice-crowned citadels which stand

  Girdling the plain of royal Lombardy,

  From the far West unto the Eastern sea.

  I know, indeed, that sons of thine have died

  In Lissa’s waters, by the mountain-side

  Of Aspromonte, on Novara’s plain—

  Nor have thy children died for thee in vain:

  And yet, methinks, thou hast not drunk this wine

  From grapes new-crushed of Liberty divine,

  Thou hast not followed that immortal Star

  Which leads the people forth to deeds of war.

  Weary of life, thou liest in silent sleep,

  As one who marks the lengthening shadows creep,

  Careless of all the hurrying hours that run,

  Mourning some day of glory, for the sun

  Of Freedom hath not shown to thee his face,

  And thou hast caught no flambeau in the race.

  Yet wake not from thy slumbers—rest thee well,

  Amidst thy fields of amber asphodel,

  Thy lily-sprinkled meadows—rest thee there,

  To mock all human greatness: who would dare

  To vent the paltry sorrows of his life

  Before thy ruins, or to praise the strife

  Of kings’ ambition, and the barren pride

  Of warring nations! wert not thou the Bride

  Of the wild Lord of Adria’s stormy sea!

  The Queen of double Empires! and to thee

  Were not the nations given as thy prey!

  And now—thy gates lie open night and day,

  The grass grows green on every tower and hall,

  The ghastly fig hath cleft thy bastioned wall;

  And where thy mailèd warriors stood at rest

  The midnight owl hath made her secret nest.

  O fallen! fallen! from thy high estate,

  O city trammelled in the toils of Fate,

  Doth nought remain of all thy glorious days,

  But a dull shield, a crown of withered bays!

  Yet who beneath this night of wars and fears,

  From tranquil tower can watch the coming years;

  Who can foretell what joys the day shall bring,

  Or why before the dawn the linnets sing?

  Thou, even thou, mayst wake, as wakes the rose

  To crimson splendour from its grave of snows;

  As the rich corn-fields rise to red and gold

  From these brown lands, now stiff with Winter’s cold;

  As from the storm-rack comes a perfect star!

  O much-loved city! I have wandered far

  From the wave-circled islands of my home;

  Have seen the gloomy mystery of the Dome

  Rise slowly from the drear Campagna’s way,

  Clothed in the royal purple of the day:

  I from the city of the violet crown

  Have watched the sun by Corinth’s hill go down,

  And marked the “myriad laughter” of the sea

  From starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady;

  Yet back to thee returns my perfect love,

  As to its forest-nest the evening dove.

  O poet’s city! one who scarce has seen

  Some twenty summers cast their doublets green,

  For Autumn’s livery, would seek in vain

  To wake his lyre to sing a louder strain,

  Or tell thy days of glory;—poor indeed

  Is the low murmur of the shepherd’s reed,

  Where the loud clarion’s blast should shake the sky,

  And flame across the heavens! and to try

  Such lofty themes were folly: yet I know

  That never felt my heart a nobler glow

  Than when I woke the silence of thy street

  With clamorous trampling of my horse’s feet,

  And saw the city which now I try to sing,

  After long days of weary travelling.

  VII

  Adieu, Ravenna! but a year ago,

  I stood and watched the crimson sunset glow

  From the lone chapel on thy marshy plain:

  The sky was as a shield that caught the stain

  Of blood and battle from the dying sun,

  And in the west the circling clouds had spun

  A royal robe, which some great God might wear,

  While into ocean-seas of purple air

  Sank the gold galley of the Lord of Light.

  Yet here the gentle stillness of the night

  Brings back the swelling tide of memory,

  And wakes again my passionate love for thee:

  Now is the Spring of Love, yet soon will come

  On meadow and tree the Summer’s lordly bloom;

  And soon the grass with brighter flowers will blow,

  And send up lilies for some boy to mow.

  Then before long the Summer’s conqueror,

  Rich Autumn-time, the season’s usurer,

  Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,

  And see it scattered by the spendthrift breeze;

  And after that the Winter cold and drear.

  So runs the perfect cycle of the year.

  And so from youth to manhood do we go,

  And fall to weary days and locks of snow.

  Love only knows no winter; never dies:

  Nor cares for frowning storms or leaden skies.

  And mine for thee shall never pass away,

  Though my weak lips may falter in my lay.

  Adieu! Adieu! yon silent evening star,

  The night’s ambassador, doth gleam afar,

  And bid the shepherd bring his flocks to fold.

  Perchance before our inland seas of gold

  Are garnered by the reapers into sheaves,

  Perchance before I see the Autumn leaves,

  I may behold thy city; and lay down

  Low at thy feet the poet’s laurel crown.

  Adieu! Adieu! yon silver lamp, the moon,

  Which turns our midnight into perfect noon,

  Doth surely light thy towers, guarding well

  Where Dante sleeps, where Byron loved to dwell.

  Sen Artysty

  Or, The Artist’s Dream

  From the Polish of Madame Helena Modjeska

  I too have had my dreams: ay, indeed known

  The crowded visions of a fiery youth

  Which haunt me still.

  * * *

  Methought that once I lay

  Within some garden close, what time the Spring

  Breaks like a bird from Winter, and the sky

  Is sapphire-vaulted. The pure air was soft,

  And the deep grass I lay on soft as air.

  The strange and secret life of the young trees

  Swelled in the green and tender bark, or burst

  To buds of sheathèd emerald; violets

  Peered from their nooks of hiding, half afraid

  Of their own loveliness; the vermeil rose

  Opened its heart, and the bright star-flower

  Shone like a star of morning. Butterflies,

  In painted liveries of brown and gold,

  Took the shy bluebells as their pavilions

  And seats of pleasaunce; overhead a bird

  Made snow of all the blossoms as it flew

  To charm the woods with singing: the whole world

  Seemed waking to delight! And yet—and yet—

  My soul was filled with leaden heaviness:

  I had no joy in Nature; what to me,

  Ambition’s slave, was crimson-stainèd rose

  Or the gold-sceptred crocus? The bright bird

  Sang out of tune for me, and the sweet flowers

  Seemed but a pageant, and an unreal show

  That mocked my heart; for, like the fabled snake

  That stings itself to anguish, so I lay

  Self-tortured, self-tormented. The day crept

  Unheeded on the dial, till the sun

  Dropt, purple-sailed, into the gorgeous East,

  When, from the fiery heart of that great orb,

  Came One whose shape of beauty far outshone

  The most bright vision of this common earth.

  Girt was she in a robe more white than flame

  Or furnace-heated brass; upon her head

  She bare a laurel crown, and, like a star

  That falls from the high heaven suddenly,

  Passed to my side. Then kneeling low, I cried

  “O much-desired! O long-waited for!

  Immortal Glory! Great world-conqueror!

  Oh, let me not die crownless; once, at least,

  Let thine imperial laurels bind my brows,

  Ignoble else. Once let the clarion note

  And trump of loud ambition sound my name,

  And for the rest I care not.” Then to me,

  In gentle voice, the angel made reply:

  “Child, ignorant of the true happiness,

  Nor knowing life’s best wisdom, thou wert made

  For light and love and laughter, not to waste

  Thy youth in shooting arrows at the sun,

  Or nurturing that ambition in thy soul

  Whose deadly poison will infect thy heart,

  Marring all joy and gladness! Tarry here

  In the sweet confines of this garden-close

  Whose level meads and glades delectable

  Invite for pleasure; the wild bird that wakes

  These silent dells with sudden melody

  Shall be thy playmate; and each flower that blows

  Shall twine itself unbidden in thy hair—

  Garland more meet for thee than the dread weight

  Of Glory’s laurel wreath.” “Ah! fruitless gifts,”

  I cried, unheeding of her prudent word,

  “Are all such mortal flowers, whose brief lives

  Are bounded by the dawn and setting sun.

  The anger of the noon can wound the rose,

  And the rain rob the crocus of its gold;

  But thine immortal coronal of Fame,

  Thy crown of deathless laurel, this alone

  Age cannot harm, nor winter’s icy tooth

  Pierce to its hurt, nor common things profane.”

  No answer made the angel, but her face

  Dimmed with the mists of pity. Then methought

  That from mine eyes, wherein ambition’s torch

  Burned with its latest and most ardent flame,

  Flashed forth two level beams of straitened light,

  Beneath whose fulgent fires the laurel crown

  Twisted and curled, as when the Sirian star

  Withers the ripening corn, and one pale leaf

  Fell on my brow; and I leapt up and felt

  The mighty pulse of Fame, and heard far off

  The sound of many nations praising me!

  * * *

  One fiery-coloured moment of great life!

  And then—how barren was the nations’ praise!

  How vain the trump of Glory! Bitter thorns

  Were in that laurel leaf, whose toothèd barbs

  Burned and bit deep till fire and red flame

  Seemed to feed full upon my brain, and make

  The garden a bare desert. With wild hands

  I strove to tear it from my bleeding brow,

  But all in vain; and with a dolorous cry

  That paled the lingering stars before their time,

  I waked at last, and saw the timorous dawn

  Peer with grey face into my darkened room,

  And would have deemed it a mere idle dream

  But for this restless pain that gnaws my heart,

  And the red wounds of thorns upon my brow.

  Hélas!

  To drift with every passion till my soul

  Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play,

  Is it for this that I have given away

  Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control?

  Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll

  Scrawled over on some boyish holiday

  With idle songs for pipe and virelay,

  Which do but mar the secret of the whole.

  Surely there was a time I might have trod

  The sunlit heights, and from life’s dissonance

  Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God:

  Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod

  I did but touch the honey of romance—

  And must I lose a soul’s inheritance?

  Eleutheria

  Sonnet to Liberty

  Not that I love thy children, whose dull eyes

  See nothing save their own unlovely woe,

  Whose minds know nothing, nothing care to know—

  But that the roar of thy Democracies,

  Thy reigns of Terror, thy great Anarchies,

  Mirror my wildest passions like the sea

  And give my rage a brother—! Liberty!

  For this sake only do thy dissonant cries

  Delight my discreet soul, else might all kings

  By bloody knout or treacherous cannonades

  Rob nations of their rights inviolate

  And I remain unmoved—and yet, and yet,

  These Christs that die upon the barricades,

  God knows it I am with them, in some things.

  Ave Imperatrix

  Set in this stormy Northern sea,

  Queen of these restless fields of tide,

  England! what shall men say of thee,

  Before whose feet the worlds divide?

  The earth, a brittle globe of glass,

  Lies in the hollow of thy hand,

  And through its heart of crystal pass,

  Like shadows through a twilight land,

  The spears of crimson-suited war,

  The long white-crested waves of fight,

  And all the deadly fires which are

  The torches of the lords of Night.

  The yellow leopards, strained and lean,

  The treacherous Russian knows so well,

  With gaping blackened jaws are seen

  Leap through the hail of screaming shell.

  The strong sea-lion of England’s wars

  Hath left his sapphire cave of sea,

  To battle with the storm that mars

  The stars of England’s chivalry.

  The brazen-throated clarion blows

  Across the Pathan’s reedy fen,

  And the high steeps of Indian snows

  Shake to the tread of armèd men.

  And many an Afghan chief, who lies

  Beneath his cool pomegranate-trees,

  Clutches his sword in fierce surmise

  When on the mountain-side he sees

  The fleet-foot Marri scout, who comes

  To tell how he hath heard afar