Louder and louder, gathering round, there wandered Over the oracular woods and divine sea Prophesyings which grew articulate They seize me I must speak them—be they fate! STROPHE α. I. Naples thou Heart of men which ever pantest The mutinous air and sea: they round thee, even Long lost, late won, and yet but half regained! Bright Altar of the bloodless sacrifice, Which armed Victory offers up unstained To Love, the flower-enchained! Thou which wert once, and then didst cease to be, STROPHE B. 2. Thou youngest giant birth Which from the groaning earth Leap'st, clothed in armour of impenetrable scale! Last of the Intercessors! Who 'gainst the Crowned Transgressors Pleadest before God's love! Arrayed in Wisdom's mail, Wave thy lightning lance in mirth Nor let thy high heart fail, Though from their hundred gates the leagued Oppressors, ANTISTROPHE α. What though Cimmerian Anarchs dare blaspheme A new Acteon's error Shall their's have been - devoured by their own hounds! Be thou like the imperial Basilisk Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds ! Gaze on oppression, till at that dread risk ANTISTROPHE B. 2. From Freedom's form divine, From Nature's inmost shrine, Strip every impious gawd, rend Error veil O'er Ruin desolate, O'er Falsehood's fallen state, Sit thou sublime, unawed; be the Destroye And equal laws be thine, And winged words let sail, Freighted with truth even from the throne That wealth, surviving fate, Be thine. - All hail! ANTISTROPHE α. 7. Didst thou not start to hear Spain's thrilling From land to land re-echoed solemnly, Till silence became music? From the Ex To the cold Alps, eternal Italy Starts to hear thine! The Sea Which paves the desert streets of Venice la The viper's palsying venom, lifts her heel ANTISTROPHE B. 7. Florence! beneath the sun, Of cities fairest one, Blushes within her bower for Freedom's expectation: From eyes of quenchless hope Rome tears the priestly cope, As ruling once by power, so now by admiration, From a remoter station For the high prize lost on Philippi's shore : EPODE I. 8. Hear ye the march as of the Earth-born Forms Of crags and thunder-clouds? See ye the banners blazoned to the day, Inwrought with emblems of barbaric pride? Dissonant threats kill Silence far away, The serene Heaven which wraps our Eden wide With iron light is dyed, The Anarchs of the North lead forth their legions Like Chaos o'er creation, uncreating An hundred tribes nourished on strange relig And lawless slaveries, down the aërial regi Of the white Alps, desolating, Famished wolves that bide no waiting Blotting the glowing footsteps of old glory, Trampling our columned cities into dust, Their dull and savage lust On Beauty's corse to sickness satiatin They come ! The fields they tread look black from their red feet the streams r With fire EPODE II. ß. Great Spirit, deepest Love! Which rulest and dost move All things which live and are, within the Itali Who spreadest heaven around it, Whose woods, rocks, waves, surrou Who sittest in thy star, o'er Ocean's western Spirit of beauty! at whose soft command The sunbeams and the showers distil its fo From the Earth's bosom chill ; O bid those beams be each a blinding brand Of lightning! bid those showers be dews Bid the Earth's plenty kill! Bid thy bright Heaven above, |