THE LOSS OF THE ANIO.
FROM THE FRENCH OF ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE.
I dreamed of yore, lulled in its foamy shades,
Pressing the turf which once a Horace trod,
In shadowy, old arcades,
Where, ’neath his crumbled temple, sleeps a God!
I saw its waters plunge to yawning caves,
Where danced the floating Iris on their waves,
As with some desert courser’s silvery mane
Wantons the wind, what time he scours the plain;
Then farther off on the green moss divide
In streamlets foaming still, the sheeted tide;
Shrouding the flowery sod with net-work frail,
Spread and contract by turns its waving veil.
And filling all the glade with voice and spray,
Sweep in its tides of quivering light away!
There with fixed gaze upon the waters lone
I watched them, following—losing them anon;
So the mind, wandering from thought to thought,
Loses—then lights upon the trace it sought!
I saw them mount, and roll, and downward glide,
And loved to dream bewildered by their side!
Methought I traced those rays of glorious fame
Wherewith the Eternal City crowned her name,
Back to their source, across an age of night,
Wreathing Tiburnine heights with ancient light.
While drank mine ear the deep complaining sound
Of billows warring in their caves profound,
In the waves’ voice, the wailing of the tide,
By thousand rolling echoes multiplied,
I seemed in distance, brought by silence near,
The voice of stirring multitudes to hear,
Which, like these waves, more vanishing than they,
Made vocal once these shores, now mute for aye!
River! to whom the ages brought—I cried,
Empire of old—and swept it from thy side!
Whose name, once sung by poet lips sublime,
Thanks to the bard, defies the lapse of time—
Who the world’s tyrants on thy shores didst see
Wander entranced, and crave their rest from thee;—
Tibullus breathing sighs of soft complaining—
Scipio the vulgar pomp of power disdaining—
In thy deep shades a Julius fled from fame,
Mæcenas claiming from his bards a name—
A Cato pondering virtue—Brutus crime—
What say’st thou, river, with thy ceaseless chime?
Bring’st thou the tones of Horace’ burning lyre?
Or Cæsar’s voice of soothing or of ire?
The forum of a race of heroes brave,
Where striving tribunes lashed the stormy wave
Which, like thy mounting surge in fury hurled,
Too mighty for its bed, o’erswept a world?
Alas! those sounds for ever now are mute,
The battle—the debate—the amorous lute:
’Tis but a stream that weeps upon the shore—
’Tis but thy voice, still murmuring as of yore!
Still? ah! no more on sounding rocks to moan,
From their drained bed thy waters too are gone!
These beetling crags, these caverns void and wide,
These trees that boast no more their dewy pride,
The wandering hind, the bird with wearied wing
That seeks upon the rock its wonted spring,
Wait vainly that the vanished wave restore
To the mute vale its voice and life once more;
And seem in desert solitude to say,
“Thus pass terrestrial pride and pomp away!”
Ah! marvel we no more that empires fall,
That man’s frail works speed to destruction all,
Since nature’s fabric, built to outlast the skies,
Sinks by degrees, and like a mortal dies!
Since this proud stream, which centuries have seen
Foaming and rushing, quits its ancient reign.
A river disappears! these thrones of day,
Gigantic hills, shall sink in turn away;
In yonder heaven thick sown with gems so bright,
Extinguished stars shall leave the desert night;
Yea, perish space itself, with all that live,
And of whate’er has been, shall nought survive.
Nought shall survive! But Thou, of worlds the source,
Who light’st heaven’s fires, and giv’st the waves their course,
Who, on the wheel of time bid’st years go round,
Thou shalt be, Lord!—For ever changeless found!
These planets quenched, these river murmurs checked,
These crumbled mountains, worlds in ruin wrecked,
These ages whelmed in Time’s immensity,
Even time and space, annihilate in Thee,
Nature, who mocks at works her hand did raise,
All—all are fleeting tributes to Thy praise;
And each existence here to death betrayed
Thy Being hymns, which knows nor change nor shade.
Oh, Italy! thy hills of beauty weep,
Where the world’s histories, writ in ruins, sleep!
Where empire, passing on from clime to clime,
Hath left impressed so deep his steps sublime!
Where glory, emblemed once in thy fair name,
Hides with a shining veil thy present shame!
Lo! the most speaking of the wrecks of years—
Weep! pity’s voice shall answer to thy tears!
By empire, by misfortune sacred made,
Queen, source of nations, mother of the dead!
Not only of those noble sons the pride
Whom thy green age hath nourished at thy side—
By thy foes cherished, envied while betrayed,
The home of greatness is thy mighty shade!
The mind that from antiquity would claim
The vanished forms of liberty and fame—
The spirit meek that greets a purer day,
Scorning the world’s vain gods of vulgar sway,
That seeks an only altar, loftier still,
For one true God, supreme, invisible—
Both, both, with bitter tenderness and trust
Hail thee their mother—worship thee in dust!
The winds that snatch the relics from thy tomb
To jealous eyes profane the holy gloom;
From every turf the peasant’s plough divides,
Some glorious shade the rude invasion chides;
In thy vast temple, where the God of love
Reigns o’er the fallen shrines of pagan Jove,
Each mortal, while he breathes its sacred air,
Feels it belongs to all who worship there!
Each tree that withers on thy mountains stern,
Each mouldered rock, each desecrated urn,
Each floweret bruised on monumental stone,
Each fragment smote from ruins moss-o’ergrown,
Strikes to the nations’ heart a painful sound,
As from the scythe of time a deeper wound!
All that obscures thy sovereign majesty
Degrades our glory in degrading thee!
Thee misery only renders doubly dear;
Each heart bounds at thy name—each eye a tear
Pours for thy fortunes! From a brilliant heaven
Thy sun to thee his glowing light hath given;
The very sail that rides thy swelling seas,
When thy far borders greet the welcoming breeze,
Conscious and fluttering at some high command,
Adoring bends to touch thy sacred sand!
Widow of nations! long, ah! long be thine
The homage deep which makes thee thus divine!
The trophies of past grandeur, great though vain,
Which at thy feet in Rome’s proud dust remain!
Be all of thine, even ruin, consecrate!
Nor envy those who boast a brighter fate:
But as imperial Cæsar, sped to death,
In royal mantle wrapt, resigned his breath,
Whate’er a future destiny decree,
Be thy proud robe immortal memory!
What reck’st thou who the laurelled crown may wear?
No future e’er can with thy past compare!
THE GUARDIAN GENIUS.[12]
FROM THE FRENCH OF ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE.
“Poesy is the guardian angel of humanity in all ages.”
In childhood, sitting in the garden shade
By flowering citron, or pink almond tree,
When the spring’s breath, that round the arbor played,
My neck caressing, tossed my tresses free—
A voice I heard, so sweet, so wild, and deep,
Joy thrilled my frame that owned its magic spell;
’Twas not the wind—the bell—the reed’s soft sweep—
Nor infant’s voice, nor man’s, in murmuring swell—
My guardian genius! Oh! the voice was thine!
’Twas thou, whose spirit communed then with mine!
When later, from a lover doomed to part,
Past those dear hours when by the shade we met,
When his last kiss resounded to the heart
That ’neath his hand’s fond pressure, trembled yet—
The self-same voice, deep in my bosom pleading,
Rang in mine ear with still entrancing power;
’Twas not his tone, ’twas not his step receding—
Nor lovers’ echoed songs in trelliced bower;—
My guardian genius! Oh! the voice was thine!
’Twas thou, whose spirit communed still with mine!
When, a young mother, round my peaceful hearth
I brought those gifts which bounteous heaven had sent,
While at my door the fig-tree flung the earth
Its fruits, by hands of eager children bent—
A voice, vague, tender, swelled within my breast—
’Twas not the wild bird’s note, the cock’s shrill cry—
Nor breath of infants in their cradled rest;
Nor fishers’ chant, blent with the surge’s sigh;—
My guardian genius! Oh! the voice was thine!
’Twas thou, whose spirit mixed its song with mine!
Now lone and old, with scattered locks and white,
The wood my shelter from the tempest’s sweep,
My shrivelled hands warmed by the fires they light,
My gentle kids, my infant charge I keep.
That hidden voice, yet in this breast forlorn,
Enchants, consoles me with its ceaseless song;
It is no more the voice of life’s young morn,
Nor his fond tone whom I have wept so long:
My guardian genius! still—yes, still ’tis thine!
’Tis thou, whose spirit dwells and mourns with mine!