My brow with hopes of triumph,-let them go!
Such are the last infirmities of those

Who long have suffer'd more than mortal woe,
And yet being mortal still, have no repose

But on the pillow of Revenge-Revenge, Who sleeps to dream of blood, and waking glows With the oft-baffled, slakeless thirst of change, When we shall mount again, and they that trod Be trampled on, while Death and Até range O'er humbled heads and sever'd necks-Great God! Take these thoughts from me-to thy hands I yield My many wrongs, and thine almighty rod Will fall on those who smote me,-be my shield! As thou hast been in peril, and in pain, In turbulent cities, and the tented fieldIn toil, and many troubles borne in vain

For Florence. I appeal from her to Thee! Thee, whom I late saw in thy loftiest reign, Even in that glorious vision, which to see

And live was never granted until now,

And yet thou hast permitted this to me.
Alas! with what a weight upon my brow
The sense of earth and earthly things come back,
Corrosive passions, feelings dull and low,

The heart's quick throb upon the mental rack,
Long day, and dreary night; the retrospect
Of half a century bloody and black,

And the frail few years I may yet expect
Hoary and hopeless, but less hard to bear,
For I have been too long and deeply wreck'd

On the lone rock of desolate despair
To lift my eyes more to the passing sail

Which shuns that reef so horrible and bare;

Nor raise my voice for who would heed my wail?
I am not of this people, nor this age,

And yet my harpings will unfold a tale

Which shall preserve these times, when not a page
Of their perturbed annals could attract

An eye to gaze upon their civil rage,
Did not my verse embalm full many an act
Worthless as they who wrought it: 't is the doom
Of spirits of my order to be rack'd

In life, to wear their hearts out, and consume
Their days in endless strife, and die alone;
Then future thousands crowd around their tomb,
And pilgrims come from climes where they have known
The name of him-who now is but a name,
And wasting homage o'er the sullen stone,
Spread his-by him unheard, unheeded—fame;
And mine at least hath cost me dear: to die
Is nothing; but to wither thus-to tame
My mind down from its own infinity—

To live in narrow ways with little men,
A common sight to every common eye,

A wanderer, while even wolves can find a den,
Ripp'd from all kindred, from all home, all things
That make communion sweet, and soften pain-

To feel me in the solitude of kings

Without the

power that makes them bear a crown— To envy every dove his nest and wings

Which waft him where the Apennine looks down
On Arno, till he perches, it may be,

Within my all-inexorable town,

Where yet my boys are, and that fatal she,5

Their mother, the cold partner who hath brought Destruction for a dowry-this to see

And feel, and know without repair, hath taught

A bitter lesson; but it leaves me free:
I have not vilely found, nor basely sought,
They made an exile-not a slave of me.

NOTES TO CANTO I.

Note 1, page 9, line 11.

Midst whom my own bright Beatrice bless'd, etc.

The reader is requested to adopt the Italian pronunciation of Beatrice, sounding all the syllables.

Canzone, in which Dante describes the person of Beatrice, strophe

third.

Note 3, page 11, line 15.

I would have had my Florence great and free: etc.

in which he represents right, generosity, and temperance as banished from among men, and seeking refuge from love, who inhabits his

bosom.

VOL. VII.

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