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.
