The Poems of Felicia Hemans
_Thermes_ voisins du _Pécile_, (monumens de la villa,) sous un figuier
qui avait renversé le pan d’un mur en s’élevant. Dans un petit salon
octogone, ouvert devant moi, une vigne vierge avait percé la voûte
de l’édifice, et son gros cep lisse, rouge, et tortueux, montait le
long du mur comme un serpent. Autour de moi, à travers les arcades
des ruines, s’ouvraient des points de vue sur la Campagne Romaine.
Des buissons de sureau remplissaient les salles désertes où venaient
se réfugier quelques merles solitaires. Les fragmens de maçonnerie
étaient tapissées de feuilles de scolopendre, dont la verdure satinée
se dessinait comme un travail en mosaïque sur la blancheur des
marbres: çà et là de hauts cyprès remplaçaient les colonnes tombées
dans ces palais de la Mort; l’acanthe sauvage rampait à leurs pieds,
sur des débris, comme si la nature s’était plu à reproduire sur ces
chefs-d’œuvre mutilés d’architecture, l’ornement de leur beauté
passée.”--Chateaubriand’s _Souvenirs d’ Italie_.
[105] The gardens and buildings of Hadrian’s villa were copies of the
most celebrated scenes and edifices in his dominions--the Lycæum, the
Academia, the Prytaneum of Athens, the Temple of Serapis at Alexandria,
the Vale of Tempe, &c.
[106] The mausoleum of Hadrian, now the castle of St Angelo, was first
converted into a citadel by Belisarius, in his successful defence of
Rome against the Goths. “The lover of the arts,” says Gibbon, “must
read with a sigh that the works of Praxiteles and Lysippus were torn
from their lofty pedestals, and hurled into the ditch on the heads of
the besiegers.” He adds, in a note, that the celebrated Sleeping Faun
of the Barberini palace was found, in a mutilated state, when the ditch
of St Angelo was cleansed under Urban VIII. In the middle ages, the
Moles Hadriani was made a permanent fortress by the Roman government,
and bastions, outworks, &c. were added to the original edifice, which
had been stripped of its marble covering, its Corinthian pillars, and
the brazen cone which crowned its summit.
[107] “Les plus beaux monumens des arts, les plus admirables statues,
out étés jetées dans le Tibre, et sont cachées sous ses flots. Qui sait
si, pour les chercher, on ne le détournera pas un jour de son lit? Mais
quand on songe que les chefs-d’œuvres du génie humain sont peut-être là
devant nous, et qu’un œil plus perçant les verrait à travers les ondes,
l’on éprouve je ne sais quelle émotion, qui renaît à Rome sans cesse
sous diverses formes, et fait trouver une société pour la pensée dans
les objets physiques, muets partout ailleurs.”--Mad. de Stael.
[108] Arnold de Brescia, the undaunted and eloquent champion of Roman
liberty, after unremitting efforts to restore the ancient constitution
of the republic, was put to death in the year 1155 by Adrian IV.
This event is thus described by Sismondi, _Histoire des Républiques
Italiennes_, vol. ii. pages 68 and 69. “Le préfet demeura dans le
château Saint Ange avec son prisonnier: il le fit transporter un matin
sur la place destinée aux exécutions, devant la porte du peuple.
Arnaud de Brescia, élevé sur un bûcher, fut attaché à un poteau, en
face du Corso. Il pouvoit mésurer des yeux les trois longues rues qui
aboutissoient devant son échafaud; elles font presqu’ une moitié de
Rome. C’est là qu’habitoient les hommes qu’il avoit si souvent appelés
à la liberté. Ils reposoient encore en paix, ignorant le danger de
leur législateur. Le tumulte de l’exécution et la flamme du bûcher
réveillèrent les Romains; ils s’armèrent, ils accoururent, mais trop
tard; et les cohortes du pape repoussèrent, avec leurs lances, ceux
qui, n’ayant pu sauver Arnaud, vouloient du moins recueillir ses
cendres comme de précieuses reliques.”
[109] “Posterity will compare the virtues and fadings of this
extraordinary man; but in a long period of anarchy and servitude,
the name of Rienzi has often been celebrated as the deliverer of his
country, and the last of the Roman patriots.”--Gibbon’s _Decline and
Fall_, &c. vol. xii. p. 362.
[110] “Le consul Terentius Varron avoit fui honteusement jusqu’à
Venouse. Cet homme, de la plus basse naissance, n’avoit été élevé au
consulat que pour mortifier la noblesse: mais le sénat ne voulut pas
jouir de ce malheureux triomphe; il vit combien il étoit nécessaire
qu’il s’attirât dans cette occasion la confiance du peuple--il alla
au-devant Varron, et le remercia de ce _qu’il n’avoit pas désespéré de
la republique_.”--Montesquieu’s _Grandeur et Décadence des Romains_.
[111] Of the sacred bucklers, or _ancilia_ of Rome, which were kept
in the temple of Mars, Plutarch gives the following account:--“In the
eighth year of Numa’s reign, a pestilence prevailed in Italy; Rome also
felt its ravages. While the people were greatly dejected, we are told
that a brazen buckler fell from heaven into the hands of Numa. Of this
he gave a very wonderful account, received from Egeria and the Muses:
that the buckler was sent down for the preservation of the city, and
should be kept with great care; that eleven others should be made as
like it as possible in size and fashion, in order that, if any person
were disposed to steal it, he might not be able to distinguish that
which fell from heaven from the rest. He further declared, that the
place, and the meadows about it, where he frequently conversed with the
Muses, should be consecrated to those divinities; and that the spring
which watered the ground should be sacred to the use of the Vestal
Virgins, daily to sprinkle and purify their temple. The immediate
cessation of the pestilence is said to have confirmed the truth of this
account.”--_Life of Numa._
[112] “Who hath taken this counsel against Tyre, the _crowning city_,
whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of
the earth?”--_Isaiah_, chap. 23.
[113] “Un mélange bizarre de grandeur d’àme et de foiblesse entroit
dès cette époque (l’onzième siècle) dans le caractère des Romains. Un
mouvement généreux vers les grandes choses faisoit place tout-à-coup
à l’abattement; ils passoient de la liberté la plus orageuse, à la
servitude la plus avilissante. On auroit dit que les ruines et les
portiques déserts de la capitale du monde, entretenoient ses habitans
dans le sentiment de leur impuissance; au milieu de ces monumens de
leur domination passée, les citoyens éprouvoient d’une manière trop
décourageante leur propre nullité. Le nom des Romains qu’ils portoient
ranimoit fréquemment leur enthousiasme, comme il le ranime encore
aujourd’hui; mas bientôt la vue de Rome, du forum désert, des sept
collines de nouveau rendues au pâturage des troupeaux, des temples
désolés, des monumens tombant en ruine, les ramenoit à sentir qu’ils
n’étoient plus les Romains d’autrefois.”--Sismondi, _Histoire des
Républiques Italiennes_, vol. i. p. 172.
PART II.
Hast thou a scene that is not spread
With records of thy glory fled?
A monument that doth not tell
The tale of liberty’s farewell?
Italia! thou art but a grave
Where flowers luxuriate o’er the brave,
And nature gives her treasures birth
O’er all that hath been great on earth.
Yet smile thy heavens as once they smiled
When thou wert freedom’s favour’d child:
Though fane and tomb alike are low,
Time hath not dimm’d thy sunbeam’s glow;
And, robed in that exulting ray,
Thou seem’st to triumph o’er decay--
Oh, yet, though by thy sorrows bent,
In nature’s pomp magnificent!
What marvel if, when all was lost,
Still on thy bright enchanted coast,
Though many an omen warn’d him thence,
Linger’d the lord of eloquence.[114]
Still gazing on the lovely sky,
Whose radiance woo’d him--but to die?
Like him, _who_ would not linger there,
Where heaven, earth, ocean, all are fair?
Who midst thy glowing scenes could dwell,
Nor bid awhile his griefs farewell?
Hath not thy pure and genial air
Balm for all sadness but despair?[115]
No! there are pangs whose deep-worn trace
Not all thy magic can efface!
Hearts by unkindness wrung may learn
The world and all its gifts to spurn;
Time may steal on with silent tread,
And dry the tear that mourns the dead,
May change fond love, subdue regret,
And teach e’en vengeance to forget:
But thou, Remorse! there is no charm
_Thy_ sting, avenger, to disarm!
Vain are bright suns and laughing skies
To soothe thy victim’s agonies:
The heart once made thy burning throne,
Still, while it beats, is thine alone.
In vain for Otho’s joyless eye
Smile the fair scenes of Italy,
As through her landscapes’ rich array
Th’ imperial pilgrim bends his way.
Thy form, Crescentius! on his sight
Rises when nature laughs in light,
Glides round him at the midnight hour,
Is present in his festal bower,
With awful voice and frowning mien,
By all but him unheard, unseen.
Oh! thus to shadows of the grave
Be every tyrant still a slave!
Where, through Gargano’s woody dells,
O’er bending oaks the north wind swells,[116]
A sainted hermit’s lowly tomb
Is bosom’d in umbrageous gloom,
In shades that saw him live and die
Beneath their waving canopy.
’Twas his, as legends tell, to share
The converse of immortals there;
Around that dweller of the wild
There “bright appearances” have smiled,
And angel-wings at eve have been
Gleaming the shadowy boughs between.
And oft from that secluded bower
Hath breathed, at midnight’s calmer hour,
A swell of viewless harps, a sound
Of warbled anthems pealing round.
Oh, none but voices of the sky
Might wake that thrilling harmony,
Whose tones, whose very echoes made
An Eden of the lonely shade!
Years have gone by; the hermit sleeps
Amidst Gargano’s woods and steeps;
Ivy and flowers have half o’ergrown
And veil’d his low sepulchral stone:
Yet still the spot is holy, still
Celestial footsteps haunt the hill;
And oft the awe-struck mountaineer
Aërial vesper-hymns may hear
Around those forest-precincts float,
Soft, solemn, clear, but still remote.
Oft will Affliction breathe her plaint
To that rude shrine’s departed saint,
And deem that spirits of the blest
There shed sweet influence o’er her breast.
And thither Otho now repairs,
To soothe his soul with vows and prayers;
And if for him, on holy ground,
The lost one, Peace, may yet be found,
Midst rocks and forests, by the bed
Where calmly sleep the sainted dead,
She dwells, remote from heedless eye,
With nature’s lonely majesty.
Vain, vain the search!--his troubled breast
Nor vow nor penance lulls to rest:
The weary pilgrimage is o’er,
The hopes that cheer’d it are no more.
Then sinks his soul, and day by day
Youth’s buoyant energies decay.
The light of health his eye hath flown,
The glow that tinged his cheek is gone.
Joyless as one on whom is laid
Some baleful spell that bids him fade,
Extending its mysterious power
O’er every scene, o’er every hour:
E’en thus _he_ withers; and to him
Italia’s brilliant skies are dim.
He withers--in that glorious clime
Where Nature laughs in scorn of Time;
And suns, that shed on all below
Their full and vivifying glow,
From him alone their power withhold,
And leave his heart in darkness cold.
Earth blooms around him, heaven is fair--
_He_ only seems to perish there.
Yet sometimes will a transient smile
Play o’er his faded cheek awhile,
When breathes his minstrel boy a strain
Of power to lull all earthly pain--
So wildly sweet, its notes might seem