And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay, Deeming themselves predestined to a doom Which is not of the pangs that pass away; Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb, The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom. XXXIX Peace to Torquato's1 injured shade! 't was his And not the whole combined and countless throng Compose a mind like thine? Though all in one Condensed their scatter'd rays, they would not form a sun. XL Great as thou art, yet parallel'd by those, Then, not unequal to the Florentine The southern Scott, the minstrel who call'd forth And, like the Ariosto of the North,3 Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly worth. 1 Torquato Tasso. See "Lament of Tasso," p. 18. 2 Dante and Ariosto. 8 Walter Scott. XLVII Yet, Italy! through every other land Thy wrongs should ring, and shall, from side to side; Was then our guardian, and is still our guide; Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven, XLVIII But Arno wins us to the fair white walls, XLIX There, too, the Goddess loves in stone,1 and fills The air around with beauty. We inhale The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils Part of its immortality; the veil 1 The Venus de' Medici. |