"'In flame I live, I quench its glow;'
This motto at the foundry fire
Was given me by his desire,
The king, whose crest and lilies show
How love and valour could bestow
Their favour on the brave.
"My form was fashioned in each part
By him who wrought in gems and gold,
Whose glory, trumpet-tongued, is told
In fearful wars, in peaceful Art,
Cellini of the ardent heart,
And Benvenuto named!
"The silver-voiced and laughing crowd
Of ladies praised his fair design
And asked if on the German Rhine,
Or English coasts of fog and cloud,
Would soon be heard my challenge loud
For rights our country claimed?
"To conquer fair Milan I threw
My shot against the Swiss array
On Marignano's dreadful day:
On sledges hardy soldiers drew
My weight through snows, where eagles knew
Alone the Alpine way.
"And warring for the emperor's crown,
I saw around me fall and die
The noblest of our chivalry:
When peerless Bayard's high renown
Quenched not his blood, that streaming down
Fell on me where I lay.
"Pavia felt my iron hail,
When traitor Bourbon won the fight,
Yet glad was I no foreign knight
Alone had made our siege to fail,
When wrote our king the dismal tale,
'Save honour all is lost!'
"The impious victor hurled my fire
Against the walls of holy Rome,
But there the devil took him home!
For at the storm my artist sire,
Cellini, felled him, for the ire
Of God his path had crossed.
"To nobler masters still a slave,
I felt the fame of Doria mine;
Saw Venice o'er her channels shine;
Pursued the Moslem on the wave,
And shattered them, when victory gave
Her palm to Malta's isle.
"When Naples sent her ships to swell
The swarming armaments that bore
'Gainst England from each southern shore
In fleets whose numbers none could tell;
I saw how Drake upon us fell,
How fortune ceased to smile.
"For tempests gathered o'er our track,
The little English hornets stung,
My heavy shot against them flung
Passed o'er their barks, so swift to tack,
And every ball they gave us back
Upon our galleons told.