Chapter III: Preface (3)

In the sunlight’s gladdening ray
The red deer bounds from his rocky lair,
To roam in sportive pride,--
And wild birds abroad in the free bright air
Our lingering footsteps chide!
While nature anew to life is born,--
With mirthful shout--and the sounding horn--
To the woods and the hills--away!

FROM IPPOLITO PINDEMONTE.

THE POET’S LAST DWELLING.

Oh! in this hallowed peace let me descend
To the dark chambers of the silent tomb!
And step by step, at length the journey end
Of this frail life--so dear--so fraught with gloom.
The parted day renewing beams attend;
But never from its long and quiet home
This dust shall rise, to gaze on mead or isle
With flowers bedecked, or sunset’s golden smile.

Perchance by those green hills some future day,
Hither a friend his listless step may turn,
And asking to my humble home the way,
The nameless stone that marks my bones may learn:
Reared ’neath yon oak where now full oft I stray,
When for cool shade and soft repose I yearn;
Where tranced in solemn thought I linger long,
Or pour in Zephyr’s ear my pensive song.

That very shade shall shelter me in death,
Which I so loved while life this frame did know;
These flowers that soothe me with their fragrant breath,
In rank luxuriance o’er my head shall grow.
‘Oh! happy thou who sleep’st this sod beneath!’
My friend will say--‘whose path, though lone and low,
Hath led thee to a better land at last,
Where thou canst smile at fate, nor feel his blast!’

TO EVENING.

Whether in smiles and tears, with dripping hair,
Spring gently woo thee to her flowery bed--
Or with white feet and glowing bosom bare,
To meet thee Summer bound with lightsome tread--
Or Autumn in thy lap with generous care
Delight his relics and his gifts to shed--
Thee, Evening! will I sing!--and my poor lay
Oh! may it e’er prolong thy welcome stay!

TO THE MEMORY OF A FRIEND.

If thou with me among these hills couldst stray,
Glad wouldst thou mark my spirit’s graver tone;
Thou, who with mild reproach didst oft essay
To wake in me thoughts lofty as thine own.
From folly-nurtured love’s bewildering sway
To set me free, thy hand had power alone;
While I, though yet my heart to weakness clung,
With rapturous fondness on thy lessons hung.

But Oh! not yet--though heard no longer here--
The music of thy voice is dead to me!
It speaks within, in accents strong and clear,
Deep from the heart devoted still to thee.
And this its burthen--‘Is the shadowy bier
So dread a thing? So fearful can it be
In life’s warm prime to feel the spoiler’s blight?
Oh! not to those who know--to live aright!’

FROM MOUNTAINS AT THE DAWN OF DAY.

From mountains at the dawn of day
That wide and far their shadows send,
Beneath the sun’s more perfect ray
Brief and more brief the shades extend.
Till, risen the god to noontide height,
They’re bathed in living, gorgeous light.

’Tis thus the soul, through earthly taint
Though first its shrouded glories shine,
Spurns at the gloom each hour more faint,
And purer drinks the beam divine.
Till wrapt in rays from shadow free,
The noon-tide of eternity.

THE WITCHES’ REVEL.

On with the dance! let the echoing earth
From the depth of its caverns resound to our mirth!
’Tis the blithe hour of revel! the moon’s hated light
Is quenched in the scowl of the tempest-winged night--
The spirits of death and of vengeance are nigh,
And their voice of wail moans to the darkened sky!

On with the dance! On the far battle field
Dimmed with gore is the glitter of helmet and shield;
The stream of fierce carnage still reeks on the air,
And the raven stoops earthward, his banquet to share!
Let him feast! the last breath from the vanquished is sped--
But our song shall exult o’er the festering dead!

On with the dance! Of the red lightning’s gleam
We will twine us a wreath that in triumph shall beam;
For the pale flowers of earth, in that garland to shine,
Of our victim’s torn limbs gasping trophies we’ll twine;
For the rich mantling wine cup of luxury to tell,
With their hearts’ drained life-blood our goblets shall swell!

Sisters--rejoice! on yon foam-crested wave
There are ships going down with the fair and the brave;
As the storm petrel flaps his wing fitfully there,
Ye may hear in the wild blast the curse and the prayer!
Ye may hear the last groan as the victim sweeps by--
Ye may catch the last gleam of the quivering eye!

Wake the loud revel! The roar of the sea,
And the drowning ones’ death-shriek, our music shall be!
While our beacon of vengeance illumines the night,
And the deep thunder peals from his mantle of light--
While the freed winds rejoice--and the fierce lightnings glance--
’Tis the blithe hour of revel! On--on with the dance!

SONG.

Come, fill a pledge to sorrow,
The song of mirth is o’er,
And if there’s sunshine in our hearts,
’Twill light our theme the more.
And pledge we dull life’s changes,
As round the swift hours pass--
Too kind were fate, if none but gems
Should sparkle in Time’s glass.

The dregs and foam together
Unite to crown the cup--
And well we know the weal and wo
That fill life’s chalice up!
Life’s sickly revellers perish,
The goblet scarcely drained;
Then lightly quaff, nor lose the sweets
Which may not be retained.

What reck we that unequal
Its varying currents swell--
The tide that bears our pleasures down,
Buries our griefs as well.
And if the swift winged tempest
Have crossed our changeful day,
The wind that tossed our bark, has swept
Full many a cloud away!

Then grieve not that nought mortal
Endures through passing years--
Did life one changeless tenor keep,
’Twere cause indeed for tears.
And fill we, ere our parting,
A mantling pledge to sorrow;
The pang that wrings the heart to-day
Time’s touch will heal to-morrow!

SODUS BAY.

I bless thee--native shore!
Thy woodlands gay, and waters sparkling clear!
’Tis like a dream once more
The music of thy thousand waves to hear!
As murmuring up the sand,
With kisses bright they lave the sloping land.

The gorgeous sun looks down,
Bathing thee gladly in his noontide ray;
And o’er thy headlands brown
With loving light the tints of evening play.
Thy whispering breezes fear
To break the calm so softly hallowed here.

Here, in her green domain,
The stamp of Nature’s sovereignty is found;
With scarce disputed reign
She dwells in all the solitude around.
And here she loves to wear
The regal garb that suits a queen so fair.

Full oft my heart hath yearned
For thy sweet shades and vales of sunny rest!
Even as the swan returned,
Stoops to repose upon thine azure breast,
I greet each welcome spot
Forsaken long--but ne’er, ah, ne’er forgot!

’Twas here that memory grew--
’Twas here that childhood’s hopes and cares were left;
Its early freshness too--
Ere droops the soul, of her best joys bereft.
Where are they?--o’er the track
Of cold years, I would call the wanderers back!

They must be with thee still!
Thou art unchanged--as bright the sunbeams play--
From not a tree or hill
Hath time one hue of beauty snatched away.
Unchanged alike should be
The blessed things so late resigned to thee!

Give back, oh, smiling deep!
The heart’s fair sunshine, and the dreams of youth
That in thy bosom sleep--
Life’s April innocence, and trustful truth!
The tones that breathed of yore
In thy lone murmurs, once again restore!

Where have they vanished all?--
Only the heedless winds in answer sigh--
Still rushing at thy call,
With reckless sweep the streamlet flashes by!
And idle as the air,
Or fleeting stream, my soul’s insatiate prayer!

Home of sweet thoughts--farewell!
Where’er through changeful life my lot may be,
A deep and hallowed spell
Is on thy waters and thy woods for me!
Though vainly fancy craves
Its childhood with the music of thy waves!

NOTES.

[1] Page 13. _The Sepulchres._

This poem was composed by Foscolo during a temporary retirement to Brescia, in Northern Italy. The occasion which called it forth was a law passed about that time in the Italian kingdom, directing that all burials should take place without the confines of the cities, forbidding inscriptions or any mark of distinction upon the graves, and prohibiting the approach of visiters to the cemeteries. Though intended to obviate the inconveniencies arising from the ancient custom of interring the dead in the churches, this law was carried to an arbitrary and unnecessary extreme; for it consigned the departed to one indiscriminate place of sepulture, and denied to the mourner the last consolation of grief. Our poet, fired with indignation at this sacrilegious infringement of the solemn rights of nature, gave utterance to his feelings in the work just mentioned, in which he dwells on the salutary influence over the living of their veneration for the dead; and proves the mischievous effects of that policy which would invade the sacredness of a sentiment so holy.--_American Quarterly Review_, Vol. xvi. page 76.

[2] Page 15. _That stung the Sardanapalus of our land._

“_Il Lombardo Sardanapalo._” The Prince Belgiojoso, severely satirized in Parini’s poem of “The Day.”

[3] Page 17. _To scoop from it his own triumphal bier._

Nelson is said to have carried about with him, sometime before his death, a coffin made from the main mast of the ship _Oriente_; that when he had finished his career in this world, he might be buried in one of his trophies.

[4] Page 17. _The spot where sleeps enshrined that noble genius._

Nicolo Machiavelli.

[5] Page 17.

----_when I saw
His mausoleum_.

Michel Angelo.

[6] Page 17. _And his, who ’neath Heaven’s azure canopy._

Galileo.

[7] Page 18. _That cheered the Ghibelline’s indignant flight._

Dante.

[8] Page 18. _To him, the chosen of Calliope._

Petrarch was born in exile, of Florentine parents.

[9] Page 19. _And high o’er all, the Fates’ mysterious chant._

Popular rumor related that over the field of Marathon the sailor could hear all night the trampling of horses, and witness the encounter of spectral combatants.

[10] Page 19.

_And the proud surge exult, that bore of old
Achilles’ armor to Rhetœum’s shore,
Where Ajax sleeps._

“The shield of Achilles, stained with the blood of Hector, was by an unjust sentence adjudged to Ulysses; but the sea which snatched it from the wreck, caused it to swim, not to Ithaca, but to the tomb of Ajax; thus manifesting the unfair judgment of the Greeks, and restoring to Salamis the honor due.--It is said that the story of the arms borne by the waves to the sepulchre of Telamon was current among the Eolians who afterwards inhabited Troy. The promontory of Rhetœum, in the Thracian Bosphorus, was famous among all the ancients for the tomb of Ajax.”

[11] Page 32. _To a Waterfall._

These lines were suggested by a Portuguese sonnet; but too much has been added to entitle them to be called a translation.

[12] Page 47. _The Guardian Genius._

This poem, from Lamartine’s “Destinies of Poetry,” is supposed to be sung by the female peasants of Calabria.

[13] Page 66. _Incantation of Hervor._

This is not a translation of the celebrated Icelandic lyric, which consists of a dialogue between HERVOR and ARGANTYR; but merely a sketch of what the heroic daughter may be supposed to have said, when trying the power of the spells of poesy to wake her ancestor from the dead, and compel him to give up his sword, which had been buried with him. The sword in question had been made by the dwarfs, and was taken by Angrim, the father of Argantyr, from the grandson of Odin.

[14] Page 103. _The Pictured Rocks._

On the southern shore of Lake Superior.

TERESA CONTARINI:

A TRAGEDY,
_IN FIVE ACTS_.

FIRST PERFORMED AT THE PARK THEATRE, NEW YORK,
MARCH, 1835.

PERSONS REPRESENTED.

DOGE OF VENICE. FOSCARINI. CONTARINI. } LOREDANO. } _Inquisitors of State._ BADOERO. } VENIERO. VINCENTIO. LEONARDO. STENO. } _Officers of the Inquisition._ PASCALI. } BELTRAMO, _the Jailer_. MEMMO, _Captain of the Guard_. MARCO. STEFANO.

TERESA. FIORILLA. MATILDA.

FIRST ATTENDANT. _Senators--Guards--Attendants, &c._

SCENE VENICE.

_The passages marked with inverted commas were omitted in the representation._

TERESA CONTARINI.