Ravenna

I

    • A year ago I breathed the Italian air,-
    • And yet, methinks this northern Spring is fair,-
    • These fields made golden with the flower of March,
    • The throstle singing on the fathered larch,
    • The cawing rooks, the wood-doves fluttering by,
    • The little clouds that race across the sky;
    • And fair the violet’s gentle drooping head,
    • The primrose, pale for love uncomforted,
    • The rose that burgeons on the climbing briar,
    • The crocus-bed, (that seems a moon of fire
    • Round-girdled with a purple marriage-ring);
    • And all the flowers of oar English Spring,
    • Fond snow-drops, and the bright-starred daffodil.
    • Up starts the lark beside the murmuring mill,
    • And breaks the gossamer-threads of early dew;
    • And down the river, like a flame of blue,
    • Keene as an arrow flies the water-king,
    • While the brown linnets in the greenwood sing.
    • A year ago!- it seems a little time
    • Since last I saw that lordly southern clime,
    • Where flower and fruit to purple radiance blow,
    • And like bright lamps the fabled apples grow.
    • Full Spring it was- and by rich flowing vines,
    • Dark olive-groves and noble forest-pines,
    • I rode at will; the moist glad air was sweet,
    • The white road rang beneath my horse’s feet,
    • And musing on Ravenna’s ancient name,
    • I watched the day till, marked with wounds of flame,
    • The turquoise sky to burnished gold was turned.
    • O how my heart with boyish passion burned,
    • When far away across the sedge and mere
    • I saw that Holy City rising clear,
    • Crowned with her crown of towers!- On and on
    • I galloped, racing with the setting sun,
    • And ere the crimson after-glow was passed,
    • I stood within Ravenna’s walls at last!

II

    • How strangely still! no sound of life or joy
    • Startles the air! no laughing shepherd-boy
    • Pipes on his reed, nor ever through the day
    • Comes the glad sound of children at their play:
    • O sad, and sweet, and silent! surely here
    • A man might dwell apart from troublous fear,
    • Watching the tide of seasons as they flow
    • From amorous Spring to Winter’s rain and snow,
    • And have no thought of sorrow;- here, indeed,
    • Are Lethe’s waters, and that fatal weed
    • Which makes a man forget his fatherland.
    • Ay! amid lotus-meadows dost thou stand,
    • Like Proserpine, with poppy-laden head,
    • Guarding the holy ashes of the dead.
    • For though thy brood of warrior sons hath ceased,
    • Thy noble dead are with thee!- they at least
    • Are faithful to thine honour:- guard them well,
    • O childless city! for a mighty spell,
    • To wake men’s hearts to dream of things sublime,
    • Are the lone tombs where rest the Great of Time.

III

    • Yon lonely pillar, rising on the plain,
    • Marks where the bravest knight of France was slain,-
    • The Prince of chivalry, the Lord of war,
    • Gaston de Foix: for some untimely star
    • Led him against thy city, and he fell,
    • As falls some forest-lion fighting well.
    • Taken from life while life and love were new,
    • He lies beneath God’s seamless veil of blue;
    • Tall lance-like reeds wave sadly o’er his head,
    • And oleanders bloom to deeper red,
    • Where his bright youth flowed crimson on the ground.
    • Look farther north unto that broken mound,-
    • There, prisoned now within a lordly tomb
    • Raised by a daughter’s hand, in lonely gloom,
    • Huge-limbed Theodoric, the Gothic king,
    • Sleeps after all his weary conquering.
    • Time hath not spared his ruin,- wind and rain
    • Have broken down his stronghold; and again
    • We see that Death is mighty lord of all,
    • And king and clown to ashen dust must fall.
    • Mighty indeed their glory! yet to me
    • Barbaric king, or knight of chivalry,
    • Or the great queen herself, were poor and vain
    • Beside the grave where Dante rests from pain.
    • His gilded shrine lies open to the air;
    • And cunning sculptor’s hands have carven there
    • The calm white brow, as calm as earliest morn,
    • The eyes that flashed with passionate love and scorn,
    • The lips that sang of Heaven and of Hell,
    • The almond-face which Giotto drew so well,
    • The weary face of Dante;- to this day,
    • Here in his place of resting, far away
    • From Arno’s yellow waters, rushing down
    • Through the wide bridges of that fairy town,
    • Where the tall tower of Giotto seems to rise
    • A marble lily under sapphire skies!
    • Alas! my Dante! thou hast known the pain
    • Of meaner lives,- the exile’s- galling chain,
    • How steep the stairs within king’s houses are,
    • And all the petty miseries which mar
    • Man’s nobler nature with the sense of wrong.
    • Yet this dull world is grateful for thy song;
    • Our nations do thee homage,- even she,
    • That cruel queen of vine-clad Tuscany,
    • Who bound with crown of thorns thy living brow,
    • Hath decked thine empty tomb with laurels now,
    • And begs in vain the ashes of her son.
    • O mightiest exile! all thy grief is done:
    • Thy soul walks now beside thy Beatrice;
    • Ravenna guards thine ashes: sleep in peace.

IV

    • How lone this palace is; how grey the walls!
    • No minstrel now wakes echoes in these halls.
    • The broken chain lies rusting on the door,
    • And noisome weeds have split the marble floor:
    • Here lurks the snake, and here the lizards run
    • By the stone lions blinking in the sun.
    • Byron dwelt here in love and revelry
    • For two long years- a second Anthony,
    • Who of world another Actium made!-
    • Yet suffered not his royal soul to fade,
    • Or lyre to break, or lance to grow less keen,
    • ’Neath any wiles of an Egyptian queen.
    • For from the East there came a mighty cry,
    • And Greece stood up to fight for Liberty,
    • And called him from Ravenna: never knight
    • Rode forth more nobly to wild scenes of fight!
    • None fell more bravely on ensanguined field,
    • Borne like a Spartan back upon his shield!
    • O Hellas! Hellas! in thine hour of pride,
    • Thy day of might, remember him who died
    • To wrest from off thy limbs the trammelling chain:
    • O Salamis! O lone Plataean plain!
    • O tossing waves of wild Euboean sea!
    • O wind-swept heights of lone Thermopylae!
    • He loved you well- ay, not alone in word,
    • Who freely gave to thee his lyre and sword
    • Like Aeschylus at well-fought Marathon:
    • And England, too, shall glory in her son,
    • Her warrior-poet, first in song and fight.
    • No longer now, shall Slander’s venomed spite
    • Crawl like a snake across his perfect name,
    • Or mar the lordly scutcheon of his fame.
    • For as the olive-garland of the race
    • Which lights with joy each eager runner’s face,
    • As the red cross which saveth men in war,
    • As a flame-bearded beacon seen from far
    • By mariners upon a storm-tossed sea,-
    • Such was his love for Greece and Liberty!
    • Byron, thy crowns are ever fresh and green:
    • Red leaves of rose from Sapphic Mitylene
    • Shall bind thy brows; the myrtle blooms for thee,
    • In hidden glades by lonely Castaly;
    • The laurels wait thy coming: all are thine,
    • And round thy head one perfect wreath will twine.

V

    • The pine-tops rocked before the evening breeze
    • With the hoarse murmur of the wintry seas,
    • And the tall stems were streaked with amber bright;-
    • I wandered through the wood in wild delight,
    • Some startled bird, with fluttering wings and fleet,
    • Made snow of all the blossoms: at my feet,
    • Like silver crowns, the pale narcissi lay,
    • And small birds sang on every twining spray.
    • O waving trees, O forest liberty!
    • Within your haunts at least a man is free,
    • And half forgets the weary world of strife:
    • The blood flows hotter, and a sense of life
    • Wakes i’ the quickening veins, while once again
    • The woods are filled with gods we fancied slain.
    • Long time I watched, and surely hoped to see
    • Some goat-foot Pan make merry minstrelsy
    • Amid the reed! some startled Dryad-maid
    • In girlish flight! or lurking in the glade,
    • The soft brown limbs, the wanton treacherous face
    • Of woodland god! Queen Dian in the chase,
    • White-limbed and terrible, with look of pride,
    • And leash of boar-hounds leaping at her side!
    • Or Hylas mirrored in the perfect stream.
    • O idle heart! O fond Hellenic dream!
    • Ere long, with melancholy rise and swell,
    • The evening chimes, the convent’s vesper-bell
    • Struck on mine ears amid the amorous flowers.
    • Alas! alas! these sweet and honied hours
    • Had ’whelmed my heart like some encroaching sea,
    • And drowned all thoughts of black Gethsemane.

VI

    • O lone Ravenna! many a tale is told
    • Of thy great glories in the days of old:
    • Two thousand years have passed since thou didst see
    • Caesar ride forth in royal victory.
    • Mighty thy name when Rome’s lean eagles flew
    • From Britain’s isles to far Euphrates blue;
    • And of the peoples thou wast noble queen,
    • Till in thy streets the Goth and Hun were seen.
    • Discrowned by man, deserted by the sea,
    • Thou sleepest, rocked in lonely misery!
    • No longer now upon thy swelling tide,
    • Pine-forest like, thy myriad galleys ride!
    • For where the brass-beaked ships were wont to float,
    • The weary shepherd pipes his mourning note;
    • And the white sheep are free to come and go
    • Where Adria’s purple waters used to flow.
    • O fair! O sad! O Queen uncomforted!
    • In ruined loveliness thou liest dead,
    • Alone of all thy sisters; for at last
    • Italia’s royal warrior hath passed
    • Rome’s lordliest entrance, and hath worn his crown
    • In the high temples of the Eternal Town!
    • The Palatine hath welcomed back her king,
    • And with his name the seven mountains ring!
    • And Naples hath outlived her dream of pain,
    • And mocks her tyrant! Venice lives again,
    • 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 noon-day 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 warrior 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 mailed 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 fortell 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”
    • From the hills of flower-starred Arkady;
    • 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 yet nobler glow
    • That when felt my 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 spend-thrift 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.