TO JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL,
IN RETURN FOR A TALBOTYPE PICTURE OF VENICE.
POET and friend! if any gift could bring A joy like that of listening while you sing, "I were such as this,-memories of the days When Tuscan airs inspired more tender lays : When the gray Appennine, or Lombard plain, Sunburnt, or spongy with autumnal rain, Mingled perchance, as first they met your sight, Some drops of disappointment with delight; When, rudely wakened from the dream of years, You heard Velino thundering in your ears, And fancy drooped,-until Romagna's wine Brought you new visions, thousand-fold more fine; When first in Florence, hearkening to the flow Of Arno's midnight music, hoarse below, You thought of home, and recollected those Who loved your verse, but hungered for your prose, And more than all the sonnets that you made, Longed for the letters-ah, too poorly paid!
Thanks for thy boon! I look, and I am there;
The soaring belfry guides me to the square;
The punctual doves, that wait the stroke of one,
Flutter above me and becloud the sun;
"Tis Venice! Venice! and with joy I put
In Adria's wave, incredulous, my foot;
I smell the sea-weed, and again I hear
The click of oars, the screaming gondolier.
Ha! the Rialto-Dominic! a boat;
Now in a gondola to dream and float:
Pull the slight cord and draw the silk aside,
And read the city's history as we glide;
For strangely here, where all is strange, indeed,
Not he who runs, but he who swims, may read.
Mark now, albeit the moral make thee sad,
What stately palaces these merchants had!
Proud houses once!-Grimani and Pisani,
Spinelli, Foscari, Giustiniani;
Behold their homes and monuments in one!
They writ their names in water, and are gone.
My voyage is ended, all the round is past,-
See! the twin columns and the bannered mast,
The domes, the steeds, the lion's wingéd sign,
"Peace to thee, Mark! Evangelist of mine!"*
Poetic art! reserved for prosy times
Of great inventions and of little rhymes;
For us, to whom a wisely-ordering heaven
Ether for Lethe, wires for wings, has given;
Whom vapor work for, yet who scorn a ghost,
Amid enchantments, disenchanted most;
Whose light, whose fire, whose telegraph had been
In blessed Urban's liberal days a sin.
Sure, in Damascus, any reasoning Turk
Would count your Talbotype a sorcerer's work.
Strange power! that thus to actual presence brings
The shades of distant or departed things,
And calls dead Thebes or Athens up, or Arles,
To show like spectres on the banks of Charles !
But we receive this marvel with the rest;
Nothing is new or wondrous in the West;
Life's all a miracle, and every age
l'o the great wonder-book but adds a page.
* The legend of the winged Lion of St. Mark, seen everywhere at Venice-"Pax tibi, Marce! Evangelista meus."
SEE, from this counterfeit of him
Whom Arno shall remember long,
How stern of lineament, how grim
The father was of Tuscan song.
There but the burning sense of wrong.
Perpetual care and scorn abide;
Small friendship for the lordly throng;
Distrust of all the world beside.
Faithful if this wan image be,
No dream his life was-but a fight; Could any BEATRICE see
A lover in that anchorite? To that cold Ghibeline's gloomy sight Who could have guess'd the visions came Of beauty, veil'd with heavenly light, In circles of eternal flame?
The lips, as Cuma's cavern close,
The cheeks, with fast and sorrow thin, The rigid front, almost morose,
But for the patient hope within,
Declare a life whose course hath been
Unsullied still, though still severe,
Which, through the wavering days of sin,
Keep itself icy-chaste and clear.
Not wholly such his haggard look
When wandering once, forlorn he stray'd,
With no companion save his book,
To Corvo's hush'd monastic shade;
Where, as the Benedictine laid
His palm upon the pilgrim-guest,
The single boon for which he prayed
The convent's charity was rest.*
Peace dwells not here-this rugged face
Betrays no spirit of repose;
The sullen warrior sole we trace,
The marble man of many woes.
Such was his mien when first arose
The thought of that strange tale divine, When hell he peopled with his foes, The scourge of many a guilty line. War to the last he waged with all
The tyrant canker-worms of earth; Baron and duke, in hold and hall,
Cursed the dark hour that gave him birth; He used Rome's harlot for his mirth;
Pluck'd bare hypocrisy and crime;
But valiant souls of knightly worth
Transmitted to the rolls of Time.
O Time! whose verdicts mock our own,
The only righteous judge art thou;
That poor old exile, sad and lone,
Is Latium's other Virgil now:
Before his name the nations bow:
His words are parcel of mankind, Deep in whose hearts, as on his brow,
The marks have sunk of DANTE's mind.
It is told of DANTE that when he was roaming over Italy, he came to a certain monastery, where he was met by one of the friars, who blessed him, and asked him what was his de sire to which the weary stranger simply answered, “Lane"
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