The urnèd ashes of the mighty kindle The great soul to great actions, Pindemonte, And fair and holy to the pilgrim make The earth that holds them. When I saw the tomb Where rests the body of that great one,{1} who Tempering the scepter of the potentate, Strips off its laurels, and to the people shows With what tears it doth reek, and with what blood; When I beheld the place of him who raised A new Olympus to the gods in Rome,{2}-- Of him{3} who saw the worlds wheel through the heights Of heaven, illumined by the moveless sun, And to the Anglian{4} oped the skyey ways He swept with such a vast and tireless wing,-- O happy!{5} I cried, in thy life-giving air, And in the fountains that the Apennine Down from his summit pours for thee! The moon, Glad in thy breath, laps in her clearest light Thy hills with vintage laughing; and thy vales, Filled with their clustering cots and olive-groves, Send heavenward th' incense of a thousand flowers. And thou wert first, Florence, to hear the song With which the Ghibelline exile charmed his wrath,{6} And thou his language and his ancestry Gavest that sweet lip of Calliope,{7} Who clothing on in whitest purity Love in Greece nude and nude in Rome, again Restored him unto the celestial Venus;-- But happiest I count thee that thou keep'st Treasured beneath one temple-roof the glories Of Italy,--now thy sole heritage, Since the ill-guarded Alps and the inconstant Omnipotence of human destinies Have rent from thee thy substance and thy arms, Thy altars, country,--save thy memories, all. Ah! here, where yet a ray of glory lingers, Let a light shine unto all generous souls, And be Italia's hope! Unto these stones Oft came Vittorio{8} for inspiration, Wroth to his country's gods. Dumbly he roved Where Arno is most lonely, anxiously Brooding upon the heavens and the fields; Then when no living aspect could console, Here rested the Austere, upon his face Death's pallor and the deathless light of hope. Here with these great he dwells for evermore, His dust yet quick with love of country. Yes, A god speaks to us from this sacred peace, That nursed for Persians upon Marathon, Where Athens gave her heroes sepulture, Greek ire and virtue. There the mariner That sailed the sea under Euboea saw Flashing amidst the wide obscurity The steel of helmets and of clashing brands, The smoke and lurid flame of funeral pyres, And phantom warriors, clad in glittering mail, Seeking the combat. Through the silences And horror of the night, along the field, The tumult of the phalanxes arose, Mixing itself with sound of warlike tubes, And clatter of the hoofs of steeds, that rushed Trampling the helms of dying warriors,-- And sobs, and hymns, and the wild Parcae's songs!{9} Notes: