THE clouds were built of roses; purple showers
Of light, like ashes of those flaming flowers,
O'erveiled the mountains; and the vesper bells,
Like hooded hermits lodged in turret cells,
Chanted their "Aves." All the mellow air
Throbbed with the trembling pulse of praise and
The thrill of worship-till the deep sky, even
A bell of silver in a greater heaven,
Vibrating to the countless tongues abroad,
Poured the melodious anthem up to God.
To watch the glories of the dying light,
A pilgrim mounted to a rocky height
That overlooked the mountain's misty sea;
Alone he sat in silent revery,
Endeavoring to make his heart believe
That all the charms of the delicious eve,
The sounds, the sunset, and the charméd air
Were Italy, and he was really there.
He looked, and dreamed, until his conjuring gaze
Saw marvellous shadows issuing through the haze.
Like clouds, they passed majestically slow;
Silent as shadows of those clouds below;
Stately as ships that skirt the horizon's bar,
Bearing their freight of mystery afar.
All the great dead of Italy went by,
Or rather say, the great, who cannot die;
Poets and painters, sculptors, and the rest,
Who wore the fire of glory in their breast;
Burning, until consumed with their own flame,
They passed to Death, the chief high priest of Fame,
And were thenceforth immortal. Every brow
Wore the green chaplet won in toil below,
And wore it grandly, spite the thorns beneath,
The goring thorns, the skeleton of Fame's wreath,
Which first about the bleeding brow she weaves,
The better to support the after leaves.
And where the laurel loftiest brushed the stars,
He knew its fulness hid the deepest scars.
Each bent on him, in passing, their deep eyes,
As if they felt that pain which never dies;
The memory of mortal hopes and fears,
And loves unquenched by their immortal tears.
Anon, upon the dusky sky appeared
A crowned, colossal woman! which the weird
Immortals seeing, in a curving line
They rose, and rose above the Apennine,
Until the tallest laurels caught a ray
Of glory from the sunken flame of day,
And thus they circled her. But who was she?
Shade of what giantess, thus doomed to be
A watcher, with great sorrows overborne,
While her poor dust below lay tombless and forlorn?
In gloomy quiet sat she, and her throne
Seemed but a ruin rankly overgrown;
Of ruins only was her queenly seat,
And fallen columns lay about her feet,
Enough to corridor the starry heaven;
While rising round her, through the golden even,
Shone grandly many a spectral arch and dome,
Shattered, as they had stood a siege at Rome.
An empty scabbard in her right hand lay,
The other propt her cheek; her hair, half gray,
Fell subject to the wind; her drooping head
Ached with three crowns, and all her forehead bled;
Her once bright mantle, trampled in the dust,
Lay tattered, while a foreign robe was thrust
About her rudely, held as by a blast,
Whereon her eyes, at times indignant, cast
Their direful glances, and her fingers, wild,
Plucked at the garment like a fretful child.
There, round the sorrowing shadow, stood the line
Of knightly phantoms, and their eyes divine
Wept when she wept, and what she bade to do
Their ghostly hands attempted. Well she knew
They were her chiefest champions, and her trust,
The guard which kept her memory from the dust.
What sound was that? A ringing, martial note
Jarred the near hills and streamed through lands remote;
And he who blew stood on a rocky crest,
A battlement of nature, and the nest
Where Freedom rears her tyrant-scorning young;
When o'er the heights the clarion far had rung,
Obeying answers ran from hill to hill,
And in the valley were repeated still.
From Adria's mart a painful voice was borne,
Like the low wailing of a bird forlorn;
Round the Campagna rang the thrilling call,
And echoed loudly 'gainst the Roman wall,
O'er poisonous marshes, down the purple shore,
Then swept the sea, nor died amid its roar.
And, lo! the glad Sicilian shepherds heard,
And sped through orange groves the wakening word;
From Ætna's side the jubilant echo sprung,
Till old Vesuvius woke, and all his vineyards rung.
These sounds commingling, reached the shadowy
The shade from off the queenly brow was blown,
Swift as a cloud gust-driven from the sun,
And all her form a sudden splendor won.
She dropped the robe, and in her beauty stood,
Like Hero, gazing o'er the battling flood.
At once, like meteors streaming down the air,
Came all her court, with every falchion bare,
And round the summoning hero closely prest,
Fanning the flame that fired his patriot breast.
Through all the land there sped tumultuous roar,
Loud as the sea. The awakened mountains wore
Their battle flags of fire. The blazing breath
Of sudden conflict thundered notes of death;
Death to oppression wheresoe'er it be:
The despots fled, and Italy was free!
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