II.

A massy tower yet overhangs the town,
A scattered group of ruined dwellings now.

Another scene ere wise Etruria knew

Its second ruin through internal strife, And tyrants through the breach of discord threw

The chain which binds and kills. As death

to life,

As winter to fair flowers (though some be

poison)

So Monarchy succeeds to freedom's foison.

IV.

In Pisa's church a cup of sculptured gold
Was brimming with the blood of feuds for-

sworn

At sacrament: more holy ne'er of old

Etrurians mingled with the shades forlorn Of moon-illumined forests.

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V.

*

And reconciling factions wet their lips

With that dread wine, and swear to keep each

Was Florence the liberticide? that band

Of free and glorious brothers who had planted,

Like a green isle 'mid Ethiopian sand,
A nation amid slaveries, disenchanted
Of many impious faiths-wise, just-do they,
Does Florence, gorge the sated tyrants' prey?

VII.

O foster-nurse of man's abandoned glory, Since Athens, its great mother, sunk in splendour;

Thou shadowest forth that mighty shape in story,

As ocean its wrecked fanes, severe yet tender :

The light-invested angel Poesy

Was drawn from the dim world to welcome

thee.

VIII.

And thou in painting didst transcribe all taught

By loftiest meditations; marble knew

The sculptor's fearless soul-and as he wrought, The grace of his own power and freedom

grew.

And more than all, heroic, just, sublime, Thou wert among the false-was this thy crime?

IX.

Yes; and on Pisa's marble walls the twine
Of direst weeds hangs garlanded-the snake
Inhabits its wrecked palaces ;-in thine

A beast of subtler venom now doth make Its lair, and sits amid their glories overthrown,

And thus thy victim's fate is as thine own.

X.

The sweetest flowers are ever frail and rare, And love and freedom blossom but to wither; And good and ill like vines entangled are,

So that their grapes may oft be plucked together;

Divide the vintage ere thou drink, then make Thy heart rejoice for dead Marenghi's sake.

XI.

No record of his crime remains in story,

But if the morning bright as evening shone, It was some high and holy deed, by glory Pursued into forgetfulness, which won

From the blind crowd he made secure and free The patriot's meed, toil, death, and infamy.

XII.

For when by sound of trumpet was declared
A price upon his life, and there was set
A penalty of blood on all who shared

So much of water with him as might wet His lips, which speech divided not—he went Alone, as you may guess, to banishment.

XIII.

Amid the mountains, like a hunted beast,

He hid himself, and hunger, toil, and cold, Month after month endured; it was a feast Whene'er he found those globes of deep-red gold

Which in the woods the strawberry-tree doth bear,

Suspended in their emerald atmosphere.

XIV.

And in the roofless huts of vast morasses,
Deserted by the fever-stricken serf,

All overgrown with reeds and long rank grasses, And hillocks heaped of moss-inwoven turf, And where the huge and speckled aloe made, Rooted in stones, a broad and pointed shade,

XV.

He housed himself. There is a point of strand Near Vado's tower and town; and on one

side

The treacherous marsh divides it from the land,
Shadowed by pine and ilex forests wide,
And on the other creeps eternally,

Through muddy weeds, the shallow sullen sea.

XVI.

Here the earth's breath is pestilence, and few But things whose nature is at war with lifeSnakes and ill worms- -endure its mortal dew. The trophies of the clime's victorious strifeWhite bones, and locks of dun and yellow hair, And ringed horns which buffaloes did wear

*

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XVII.

And at the utmost point [of land?] stood there The relics of a weed-inwoven cot,

Thatched with broad flags. An outlawed murderer

Had lived seven days there: the pursuit was

hot

When he was cold. The birds that were his

grave

Fell dead upon their feast in Vado's wave.

XVIII.

There must have lived within Marenghi's heart

That fire, more warm and bright than life or

hope,

(Which to the martyr makes his dungeon
More joyous than the heaven's majestic cope
To his oppressor,) warring with decay,-
Or he could ne'er have lived years, day by day.

XIX.

Nor was his state so lone as you might think. He had tamed every newt and snake and

toad,

And every seagull which sailed down to drink Those [marshes ?] ere the death-mist went abroad.

And each one, with peculiar talk and play,
Wiled, not untaught, his silent time away.

XX.

And the marsh-meteors, like tame beasts, at

night

Came licking with blue tongues his veinèd feet;

And he would watch them, as, like spirits bright, In many entangled figures quaint and sweet To some enchanted music they would danceUntil they vanished at the first moon-glance.

XXI.

He mocked the stars by grouping on each weed
The summer dewdrops in the golden dawn;
And, ere the hoar-frost vanished, he could read
Its pictured footprints, as on spots of lawn
Its delicate brief touch in silence weaves
The likeness of the wood's remembered leaves.

XXII.

And many a fresh Spring-morn would he awaken

While yet the unrisen sun made glow, like iron