SONNET XLV. ROME. THE world is grown enfeebled since its birth; The soil is worn, and barrenness and dearth Have follow'd the rank richness, that of yore Both weeds and plants of towering stature bore, Which threaten'd Heav'n and overshadow'd earth. Man now is shrunk and dwindled, and none dare In evil, or in good, to soar too high, And life is like the desert, dreary, bare, Where nought distinguishes the plain and sky, Save, looking, as no hands had plac'd them there, The relics of a mightier age gone by. SONNET XLVI. AT NAPLES. 'Tis even thus, and must it aye be so, That where the skies are brightest, earth most fair, Man the prime work of all, is foulest there? Can beauty and can virtue never grow In the same soil and climate? must we go Where tempests shroud the mountain tops, to find The blossom and the fruit of human kind? O Providence, thy counsels who can know? And then, perchance, 'twill be our happiness SONNET XLVII. AT TIVOLI. SWEET Sabine bard, if from my youth till now, Thy song has been my ever new delight; If I have breath'd it to Soracte's brow; If where the Anio with impetuous might Foams thro' Albanea's cave, if to the height Which Faunus lov'd, from Tibur's humid bowers I've traced thy steps, and call'd thy name aright, And crown'd Bandusia's fount with wine and flowers. Thy native lyre, I fain would waken mine, And in the accents of a ruder tongue, Breathe forth the gratitude so duly thine From all who love the Bard, and reverence the Nine. SONNET XLVIII. AT NAPLES. VIRGIL, I know not, reck not; who can know? If here thy clay has mix'd with baser earth; As little care I for thy place of birth; All Italy, from Tiber to the Po, Belongs to thee; from Mincio's windings slow To Ocean, and to Cuma's coast I find The monuments of thy creative mind: Within this hollow dell, this ruin low, 'Twere mockery thy mighty name to sound; To far Misenum's highest cliff I go, And there, while heav'n, and earth, and sea around, In rival beauty intermingled glow, I feel the power of song, that can confer A charm which makes the scene still lovelier. SONNET XLIX. MARCH, 1821. O IMPOTENT, yet cruel; proud, yet blind; Kings of the earth, where rush ye? Can it be, That you would still be scourges of mankind? Shall he, beneath whose stronger tyranny You crouch'd as low, as high you soar; shall he Have perish'd, nor have left this truth behind, That God has will'd his creatures to be free? What gave you back the sceptres you resign'd, But that he broke the charm which made his might, And would have held the world in thraldom; then Nations, not armies, rallied to the fight. And come ye still to bind your fellow-men? Myriads on myriads come!-God aids the right, Nor will repent him in his wrath again. E |