PREFACE. In the course of a visit to the city of Ravenna, in the summer of 1819, it was suggested to the author that, having composed something on the subject of Tasso's confinement, he should do the samne on Dante's exilethe tomb of the poet forming one of the principal objects of interest in that city, both to the native and to the stranger. "On this hint I spake," and the result has been the following four cantos, in terza rima, now offered to the reader. If they are understood and approved, it is my purpose to continue the poem in various other cantos to its natural conclusion in the present age. The reader is requested to suppose that Dante addresses him in the interval between the conclusion of the Divina Commedia and his death, and shortly before the latter event, foretelling the fortunes of Italy in general in the ensuing centuries. In adopting this plan I have had in my mind the Cassandra of Lycophron, and the Prophecy of Nereus by Horace, as well as the Prophecies of Holy Writ. The measure adopted is the terza rima of Dante, which I am not aware to have seen hitherto tried in our language, except it may be by Mr. Hayley, of whose translation I never saw but one extract, quoted in the notes to Caliph Vathek; so that—if I do not err-this poem may be considered as a metrical experiment. The cantos are short, and about the same length as those of the poet whose name I have borrowed, and most probably taken in vain. Amongst the inconveniences of authors in the present day, it is difficult for any who have a name, good or bad, to escape translation. I have had the fortune to see the fourth canto of Childe Harold translated into Italian versi sciolti—that is, a poem written in the Spenserean stanza into blank verse, without regard to the natural divisions of the stanza, or of the sense. If the present poem, being on a national topic, should chance to undergo the same fate, I would request the Italian reader to remember, that when I have failed in the imitation of his great "Padre Alighier," I have failed in imitating that which all study and few understand; since to this very day it is not yet settled what was the meaning of the allegory in the first canto of the Inferno, unless Count Marchetti's ingenious and probable conjecture may be considered as having decided the question. He may also pardon my failure the more, as I am not quite sure that he would be pleased with my success, since the Italians, with a pardonable nationality, are particularly jealous of all that is left them as a nation—their literature; and, in the present bitterness of the classic and romantic war, are but ill disposed to permit a foreigner even to approve or imitate them, without finding some fault with his ultramontane presumption. I can easily enter into all this, knowing what would be thought in England of an Italian imitator of Milton, or if a translation of Monti, or Pindemonte, or Arici, should be held up to the rising generation as a model for their future poetical essays. But I perceive that I am deviating into an address to the Italian reader, when my business is with the English one, and, be they few or many, I must take my leave of both. THE PROPHECY OF DANTE.* CANTO I. ONCE more in man's frail world! which I had left My earthly sorrows, and to God's own skies From star to star to reach the almighty throne. That nought on earth could more my bosom move, Had wander'd still in search of, nor her feet * "There were in this poem, originally, three lines of remarkable strength and severity, which, as the Italian poet against whom they were directed was then living, were omitted in the publication. I shall here give them from memory: The prostitution of his muse and wife, MOORE, Life. Relieved her wing till found; without thy light By tyrannous faction, and the brawling crowd; The world hath left me, what it found me-pure; I sought it not by any baser lure. Man wrongs, and Time avenges; and my name Though such was not my ambition's end or aim, And make men's fickle breath the wind that blows In bloody chronicles of ages past. I would have had my Florence great and free :3 As the bird My voice; but as the adder, deaf and fierce, Against the breast that cherish'd thee was stirr'd Thy venom, and my state thou didst amerce, And doom this body forfeit to the fire. Alas! how bitter is his country's curse To him who for that country would expire! But did not merit to expire by her, And loves her, loves her even in her ire. The day may come when she will cease to err, The day may come she would be proud to have 4 The dust she dooms to scatter, and transfer Me forth to breathe elsewhere, so reassume My indignant bones, because her angry gust Forsooth is over, and repeal'd her doom. No, she denied me what was mine-my roof, And shall not have what is not hers-my tomb. Too long her armed wrath hath kept aloof The breast which would have bled for her, the heart That beat, the mind that was temptation-proof, The man who fought, toil'd, travell'd, and each part Of a true citizen fulfill'd, and saw For his reward the Guelf's ascendant art These things are not made for forgetfulness- And sometimes the last pangs of a vile foe Who long have suffer'd more than mortal woe, And yet, being mortal still, have no repose But on the pillow of Revenge-Revenge, Who sleeps to dream of blood, and waking glows With the oft-baffled, slakeless thirst of change, When we shall mount again, and they that trod Be trampled on, while Death and Até range O'er humbled heads and sever'd necks.-Great God! Take these thoughts from me-to thy hands I yield My many wrongs, and thine almighty rod Will fall on those who smote me,-be my shield! As thou hast been in peril, and in pain, In turbulent cities, and the tented field |