XXII.

All things have their alloy; go southwards on,
See Italy, with varied landscapes gay,

A waste of sweets; the sun ne'er shone upon
A lovelier country with a brighter ray!
Her very winter's softer than our May.

What are its natives now, but imps from hell
Peopling a Paradise? Though kinglings pray,
Those who degrade the human mind, as well
As Satan's self, 'gainst God's high purposes rebel !

XXIII.

Great Loyola, how well thy sons succeed,
Dwarfing man's intellect to tread him down!
'Tis not enough that he must toil and bleed
To win for fellow-man, perchance a crown:
But Superstition scares him with her frown.
Poor wretch to beg, to flatter, stab, or steal,
(Such are the vices Jesuits spare,) alone

He loves; alas, to whom shall we appeal?
Oh! when will monarchs learn to prize the general weal?

XXIV.

Here is Religion, robed in rich attire,

To please the eye, not meliorate the heart;
Her pageantries, her glittering shrines inspire
Devotion, in which morals have no part.
Does God delight in works of human art?

He heedeth not the labour of man's hands ;
He loves a soul devoid of guile and art;

Fear him, and love him, honour his commands,
But his all-perfect state no earthly pomp demands !

XXV.

Quick are the Italian's feelings, prompt to wrong;
Why may they not be then alive to good?
In this sweet land of Music and of song,

The powers of the mind cannot be rude.

What then doth breed revenge and deeds of blood? The vivid spirit that delights the muse,

Not the less willing when she's fiercely woo'd. Those impulses, how dangerous their abuse, Which when directed well heroic acts produce!

XXVI.

'Twas here the light of science first broke forth

Amid the Gothic gloom of former ages;

What change! that light's diffused throughout the earth,

Yet Barbarism's evil genius rages

E'en in a country long since famed for sages.

Invasions, civil wars, the jealous strife

Of princes, sully here the historian's pages.

Awake, Italia's sons, awake to life;

Throw off your foreign yoke, but scorn the inglorious

knife!

XXVII.

Where Mind to Marble gives a living grace—
Where Music's inspiration's fully felt-

Where Poetry all passions doth embrace

In language form'd to rouse the soul or melt—
Where too the Muse of Painting long has dwelt ;-
Can there be wanting courage-wakening men
Who have not to imperial tyrants knelt ?

Be what ye were in ages past again,

Brave Milanese, the spoilers must re-seek their den.

XXVIII.

And he who mid dark cypresses and urns
Mourns o'er the buried mighty ones, in verse
Plaintive as nightingale's sweet song-he burns
To avert from Lombardy's fair plains the curse
Of foreign slavery; what plague is worse?
In vain Bologna boasts her learned youth;
In vain Firenze is of arts the nurse;

The prisoner hates the light; and lovely truth,

When seen and not embraced, heightens our woes in sooth.

XXIX.

But Leopold's kind genius yet presides
O'er rich Etruria's gardens: there is man

Comparatively happy; there resides

Smiling Content. Though short may be the span

Of life, when princes do what good they can
They live for ever, not in marble busts,

While the poor subject's looks are pale and wan― Not in some courtly verse that lauds their lusts, But in that general wealth the stranger ne'er distrusts.

The exuberant produce Ceres here brings forth, (For here if husbanded she cannot fail,)

Shows him at once the patriot monarch's worth. The numerous houses, studding hill and dale, The fattening olive with its foliage pale, The cheerful peasantry, (for years must pass Ere laws that tend to improve mankind can fail In doing good, though scarce observed, alas!) Honour his memory more than monuments of brass.

XXXI.

I dream not of Utopias, nor a race

power

Of patriot kings; men may be better'd yet : If be but administer'd with grace, Let monarchs shine in robes all gorgeous; let The statesman boast his star and coronet : But as for those who first insult and scorn, Then catch within their Machiavelian net The freeborn mind, though diadems adorn Their brows, they hardly rank o'er knaves ignobly born.

Oh ITALY! rich in thy wood-cover'd mountains, Thy rainbow-crown'd falls, and their ever-green fountains; Thy skies in the thunder-storms, even, are bright, With the rapid effulgence of rose-colour'd light; Thy shores do embrace, with their vast arms, the deep, On whose blue tranquil bosom the sun loves to sleep; While silvery mists round its islets are gleaming, And gauze-clouds along the horizon are streaming; And Horace yet lives near his favourite hill; (The delicate air breathes his poetry still ;) Thy temples decay; still their ruins are seen, Half grey through old time, or with ivy half green; The fig-tree, pomegranate, pinastre, and vine, The blossoming almond-tree's blushes, are thine: But thy heroes are dust, and thy spirit is fled, And the last of thy warriors, the White-Plumed, is dead!

XXXII.

Amid rich orange-trees, whose beauteous fruit Glows like the western sun with deepen'd hue; Where carelessly the southern plants up shoot, Their green contrasting with the sky's deep blueThink ye to find Arcadian fables true?

Vain hope! pale misery sallows every face, Yet still to Nature's works full praise is due : Oft in the peasant's wretched looks ye trace Some lineaments unspoil'd as yet of manly grace.