To Angelo Mai, on His Discovering the Books of Cicero on the Republic

Dauntless Italian! why dost thou not rest
From waking in the tomb
Our old forefathers? And why bid them hold
Discourse unto this age so lost in gloom
Of worn exhaustion? Wherefore, voice of old,
Appealest thou so often to our ears,
For centuries though dumb?
What is the reason of this mighty change?
As rapidly as lightning's flash, the page
Of sages we discover; to these years
The dusty treasures come,
Bearing enshrined the glorious wisdom's range
Of those ancestral minds. What daring rage
Doth Fate give to thy soul, Italia's pride?
Or is it Fate who vainly human worth defied?
Truly, it is by Heaven's high design
That in this hour when we
Are most oblivious of our old renown,
We should the ghosts of our forefathers see,
Who on the baseness of their offspring frown.
Kind Heaven still has mercy on our land,
And seeks Italia's weal:
For either this or none must be the hour
To give unto our shattered virtue strength,
Which long beneath a sable shade did stand;
And lo! the tombs reveal
The buried who cry out; in mightier power,
The long-forgotten heroes rise at length,
And of this period so remote they ask
If thou, my country, still must wear a coward's mask?
Thou glorious throng! dost thou for us yet cherish
A ray of hope? nor void
Are we of worth? To you, perchance, doth show
The future what it brings? I am destroyed,
Nor have I any weapon 'gainst my woe;
Dark are the years to come; and what I see
Is such that hope appears
An idle dream. Heroic souls august!
Within your homes a mob obscure and vile
Hath made its dwelling; by your progeny
In these disastrous years
All good is scorned; your old renown so just
Kindles nor love nor shame; and follies while
Our days away at your proud marble's base,
And we to future times are patterns of disgrace.
Thou noble mind! Now whilst the others heed not
Our parents of the past,
'Tis thine to heed, to whom Fate did inspire
Such favoured thoughts that by thy hand recast
Appears the time when from oblivion dire
Their laurelled brows the old immortals raised,
With learning long enshrined,
They, to whom Nature spoke full many a word
Without revealing where her being lay,
And who in Athens and in Rome were praised.
Oh times, so long declined
In sleep eternal! Then was not yet heard
Our country's final doom; nor every ray
Was spent of indignation at our shame,
And on the wind some sparks from this our soil yet came.
Thy hallowed ashes harboured latent heat,
Foe, nevermore resigned,
Of Fortune, thou to whose indignant smart
Much more dark Hell than this our world was kind;
Hell: and where shall we fail to see a part
Better than ours? And thy sweet-toned chords
Yet sounded to thy skill,
O tuneful lover, in thy love much tried!
Alas! from woe Italian song doth take
Its origin. And yet our woe affords
Less cause for grievous ill
Than weariness. O thou beatified,
Whose life was full of sorrow! But we make
Ourselves the prey of drear, fastidious scorn,
Our cradles and our graves thereby become forlorn.
Then was thy life with the ocean and the stars.
Thou dauntless Genoese!
When past Alcides' pillars and the shore
That feigned to hear the hissing of the seas
As sank the sun to rest, thou, 'mid the roar
Of wild waves cast, discoveredst the ray
Of the declining sun,
The dawn that blushes when we find the shade,
And overcamest Nature's wrathful frown.
An unknown mighty land was to thy way
The matchless glory won,
The perilous return! Alas! once made
The circuit of the world, it dwindles down,
And vaster far the earth, the sea, the sky,
Appeareth to a child's, than to a wise man's, eye.
Where is the pleasing beauty of our dreams
Of the abode unknown
Of races strange, or of the stars' retreat,
When glared the morn, or of the couch where shone
Aurora's beauty, or where chargers fleet
Did bear the chariot of the orb of day?
They vanished for all time!
The world is compassed in a narrow round:
All things are like; the more we shades dispel,
The more the void increaseth. Gone for aye,
Imagining sublime,
Art thou from us; though truth be scarcely found,
We bid thee an eternal fare-thee-well;
Thy former power is shattered by the years,
And the last comfort dieth of our woes and fears.
Meanwhile, for sweetest visions wast thou born,
And radiance fired thine eyes,
Prevailing bard of valour and love's joy
That in an age less full than ours of sighs
With happy errors banished life's annoy:
New hope of Italy! O halls! O towers!
O ladies fair! O knights!
O palaces! O gardens! Full of ye,
My mind is lost within a varied maze
Of vain enchantments. Fiction's fragrant flowers
And Fancy's daring flights
Were balm of yore to human misery:
Now we have driven them from our vision's gaze,
What is the end? Now that all things are plain?
The certain truth to know that all, save grief, is vain.
Torquato! O Torquato! Heaven then gave
To us thy lofty mind,
To thee nought else than agony and tears.
O thou unblessed Torquato! couldst thou find
Solace in song? The icy chill of fears
That froze the daring ardour of thy soul,
Which Tyranny did grieve,
And Envy, nought could banish. Love betrayed,
Love, last delusion of our earthly life,
Thy injured heart. An empty waste the whole
Vast world thou didst conceive
To be, and Vacancy a queenly shade;
Thine eyes were closed when tardy praise was rife.
To thee thy final hour gave balm. He prays
For death, who knows our ills, and not for glorious bays.
Return, return to us; arise from thy
Cold grave disconsolate,
If yet thou lovest grief, O much deplored
Example of deep woe. Worse is our fate
Than that which did unto thy heart afford
Such cause for long lament. O thou endeared!
Who would thy doom bemoan,
If, save themselves, for nothing else men care?
Who would not scorn on thy great sorrow cast,
If all that greatness and ambition reared
Be held as Folly's own?
If now obscure neglect fall to the share
Of the sublime, as envy in the past,
If higher than song we sordid grasping place,
Who would a second time thy brow with laurels grace?
From thee, until this hour, no man arose,
Thou prey to Fortune's rage,
Worthy of the Italian name, save one alone,
Alone superior to his craven age,
Ferocious Allobrogue; to whom was shown
Heroic fire from regions of the skies,
Not from the barren soil
Of this our weary land; whence, without shield,
Upon the stage on tyrants he waged war,
A memorable and a rare emprise!
This war, at least, be foil
To fruitless wrath, and some frail comfort yield.
He stood, the only champion, to the fore:
None followed him, for sloth and silence vile,
More than all other things, the hearts of men defile.
With scorn and indignation he pursued
His life august and grand,
And death preserved him from beholding worse.
O my Vittorio! this was not a land
Or age for thee; a loftier race should nurse
Illustrious minds. Now we, who nothing heed
Save dull repose, live bound
By mediocrity; the learned fall,
The rabble rises to an equal plain,
Making the world as one. Oh, still proceed,
Discoverer renowned,
To rouse the dead from their funereal pall,
Because the living slumber; make again
Old heroes speak, so that this age at last
May rise to glorious deeds, or blush for errors past.