Puslapio vaizdai
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APOSTROPHE TO ITALY.

(From "The Battle of Benevento.")

DID a human being ever exist who would deny the Italian sky to be the most pure and serene that ever rejoiced in the smile of God? or who, when the first son of nature is vested in his most pompous rays, has not felt his mind kindled by the greatness of those who are no more? The impression of whose names are upon the soul, even as the abiding harmony of the harp that has ceased to be played upon? Who has not been prostrated before that planet of life, which, abandoning night to the dominion of Heaven, salutes it from the confines of the ocean? Who would not implore to remain within its celestial abode? But if he departs at night, he returns with the morning; he sees centuries disappear into eternity, generations pursued to the tomb, amid infinite vicissitudes of virtue and crime. Briefly fell its light upon the honor of Italy; long upon her grief and her reproach. Alas! never could I have believed the people would have died the death of the individual. Beautiful art thou, O sky of Italy! the day and the night rejoices thee; truly thou art a divine work. Thou wert the requisite canopy; but now-thy brave are dead, thy monuments dispersed, and fame itself vanished.-Why, O sky, art thou not changed in thy turn? Beauty's funeral mantle is not obscured; the people ornament it with the flowers of joy, and try to deceive themselves over a life that is no more. Where are the sighs and farewells that descended into their graves, not as to departed ones, but as to the long absent? The eternal wisdom that governs the creation grants this beautiful sky to Italy, whose splendid graves bear testimony to its day of glory, and draws courage from the remembrance for misfortune yet distant. And the earth!—every clod contains the ashes of the heart of a hero. We step upon the dust of the great. It better became us that our steps were buried beneath that dust! May this age pass away without being commemorated in history! May posterity leave us the only inheritance of which we are d sirous-oblivion.

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