I.

THE PROEM.

Io che nacqui dal Senno.

Born of God’s Wisdom and Philosophy,
Keen lover of true beauty and true good,
I call the vain self-traitorous multitude
Back to my mother’s milk; for it is she,
Faithful to God her spouse, who nourished me,
Making me quick and active to intrude
Within the inmost veil, where I have viewed
And handled all things in eternity.
If the whole world’s our home where we may run,
Up, friends, forsake those secondary schools
Which give grains, units, inches for the whole!
If facts surpass mere words, melt pride of soul,
And pain, and ignorance that hardens fools,
Here in the fire I’ve stolen from the Sun!

II.

TO THE POETS.

In superbia il valor.

Valour to pride hath turned; grave holiness
To vile hypocrisy; all gentle ways
To empty forms; sound sense to idle lays;
Pure love to heat; beauty to paint and dress:
Thanks to you, Poets! you who sing the praise
Of fabled knights, foul fires, lies, nullities;
Not virtue, nor the wrapped sublimities
Of God, as bards were wont in those old days.
How far more wondrous than your phantasies
Are Nature’s works, how far more sweet to sing!
Thus taught, the soul falsehood and truth descries.
That tale alone is worth the pondering,
Which hath not smothered history in lies,
And arms the soul against each sinful thing.

III.

THE UNIVERSE.

Il mondo e un animal.

The world’s a living creature, whole and great,
God’s image, praising God whose type it is;
We are imperfect worms, vile families,
That in its belly have our low estate.
If we know not its love, its intellect,
Neither the worm within my belly seeks
To know me, but his petty mischief wreaks:
Thus it behoves us to be circumspect.
Again, the earth is a great animal,
Within the greatest; we are like the lice
Upon its body, doing harm as they.
Proud men, lift up your eyes; on you I call:
Measure each being’s worth; and thence be wise;
Learning what part in the great scheme you play!

IV.

THE SOUL.

Dentro un pugno di cervel.

A handful of brain holds me: I consume
So much that all the books the world contains,
Cannot allay my furious famine-pains:
What feasts were mine! Yet hunger is my doom.
With one world Aristarchus fed my greed;
This finished, others Metrodorus gave;
Yet, stirred by restless yearning, still I crave:
The more I know, the more to learn I need.
Thus I’m an image of that Sire in whom
All beings are, like fishes in the sea;
That one true object of the loving mind.
Reasoning may reach Him, like a shaft shot home;
The Church may guide; but only blest is he
Who loses self in God, God’s self to find.

V.

THE BOOK OF NATURE.

Il mondo e il libro.

The world’s the book where the eternal Sense
Wrote his own thoughts; the living temple where,
Painting his very self, with figures fair
He filled the whole immense circumference.
Here then should each man read, and gazing find
Both how to live and govern, and beware
Of godlessness; and, seeing God all-where,
Be bold to grasp the universal mind.
But we tied down to books and temples dead,
Copied with countless errors from the life,
These nobler than that school sublime we call.
O may our senseless souls at length be led
To truth by pain, grief, anguish, trouble, strife!
Turn we to read the one original!

VI.

AN EXHORTATION TO MANKIND.

Abitator del mondo.

Ye dwellers on this world, to the first Mind
Exalt your eyes; and ye shall see how low
Vile Tyranny, wearing the glorious show
Of nobleness and worth, keeps you confined.
Then look at proud Hypocrisy, entwined
With lies and snares, who once taught men to know
The fear of God. Next to the Sophists go,
Traitors to thought and reason, jugglers blind.
Keen Socrates to quell the Sophists came:
To quell the Tyrants, Cato just and rough:
To quell the Hypocrites, Christ, heaven’s own flame.
But to unmask fraud, sacrilege, and lies,
Or boldly rush on death, is not enough;
Unless we all taste God, made inly wise.

VII.

THE BROOD OF IGNORANCE.

Io nacqui a debellar.

To quell three Titan evils I was made,
Tyranny, Sophistry, Hypocrisy;
Whence I perceive with what wise harmony
Themis on me Love, Power, and Wisdom laid.
These are the basements firm whereon is stayed,
Supreme and strong, our new philosophy;
The antidotes against that trinal lie
Wherewith the burdened world groaning is weighed.
Famine, war, pestilence, fraud, envy, pride,
Injustice, idleness, lust, fury, fear,
Beneath these three great plagues securely hide.
Grounded on blind self-love, the offspring dear
Of Ignorance, they flourish and abide:
Wherefore to root up Ignorance I’m here!

VIII.

SELF-LOVE.

Crédulo il proprio amor.

Self-love fools man with false opinion
That earth, air, water, fire, the stars we see,
Though stronger and more beautiful than we,
Feel nought, love not, but move for us alone.
Then all the tribes of earth except his own
Seem to him senseless, rude God lets them be:
To kith and kin next shrinks his sympathy,
Till in the end loves only self each one.
Learning he shuns that he may live at ease;
And since the world is little to his mind,
God and God’s ruling Forethought he denies.
Craft he calls wisdom; and, perversely blind,
Seeking to reign, erects new deities:
At last ‘I make the Universe!’ he cries.

IX.

LOVE OF SELF AND GOD.

Questo amor singolar.

This love of self sinks man in sinful sloth:
Yet, if he seek to live, he needs must feign
Sense, goodness, courage. Thus he dwells in pain,
A sphinx, twy-souled, a false self-stunted growth.
Honours, applause, and wealth these torments soothe;
Till jealousy, contrasting his foul stain
With virtues eminent, by spur and rein
Drives him to slay, steal, poison, break his oath.
But he who loves our common Father, hath
All men for brothers, and with God doth joy
In whatsoever worketh for their bliss.
Good Francis called the birds upon his path
Brethren; to him the fishes were not coy.
Oh, blest is he who comprehendeth this!

X.

EARTHLY AND DIVINE LOVE.

Se Dio ci da la vita.

God gives us life, and God our life preserves;
Nay, all our happiness on Him doth rest:
Why then should love of God inflame man’s breast
Less than his lady and the lord he serves?
Through mean and wanton ignorance he swerves,
And worships a false Good, divinely dressed;
Love cannot soar to what it never guessed,
But stoops its flight, and the thralled soul unnerves.
Here too is man deceived. He yields his own
To spend on others. Yet in vile delight
God’s splendour still shines through love’s earthliness.
But we embrace the loss, the lure alone
Love fools us with. That glimpse of heavenly light,
That foretaste of eternal Good, we miss.

XI.

THE PHILOSOPHER.

Gran fortuna e ’l saper.

Wisdom is riches great and great estate,
Far above wealth; nor are the wise unblest
If born of lineage vile or race oppressed:
These by their doom sublime they illustrate.

They have their griefs for guerdon, to dilate
Their name and glory; nay, the cross, the sword
Make them to be like saints or God adored;
And gladness greets them in the frowns of fate:

For joys and sorrows are their dear delight;
Even as a lover takes the weal and woe
Felt for his lady. Such is wisdom’s might.

But wealth still vexes fools; more vile they grow
By being noble; and their luckless light
With each new misadventure burns more low.

XII.

A PARABLE OF WISE MEN AND THE WORLD.

Gli astrologi antevista.

Once on a time the astronomers foresaw
The coming of a star to madden men:
Thus warned they fled the land, thinking that when
The folk were crazed, they’d hold the reins of law

When they returned the realm to overawe,
They prayed those maniacs to quit cave and den,
And use their old good customs once again;
But these made answer with fist, tooth, and claw:

So that the wise men were obliged to rule
Themselves like lunatics to shun grim death,
Seeing the biggest maniac now was king.

Stifling their sense, they lived, aping the fool,
In public praising act and word and thing
Just as the whims of madmen swayed their breath.

XIII.

THE WORLD’S A STAGE.

Nel teatro del mondo.

The world’s a theatre: age after age,
Souls masked and muffled in their fleshly gear
Before the supreme audience appear,
As Nature, God’s own Art, appoints the stage.

Each plays the part that is his heritage;
From choir to choir they pass, from sphere to sphere,
And deck themselves with joy or sorry cheer,
As Fate the comic playwright fills the page.

None do or suffer, be they cursed or blest,
Aught otherwise than the great Wisdom wrote
To gladden each and all who gave Him mirth,

When we at last to sea or air or earth
Yielding these masks that weal or woe denote,
In God shall see who spoke and acted best.

XIV.

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

Natura dal Signor.

Nature, by God directed, formed in space
The universal comedy we see;
Wherein each star, each man, each entity,
Each living creature, hath its part and place:

And when the play is over, it shall be
That God will judge with justice and with grace.
Aping this art divine, the human race
Plans for itself on earth a comedy:

It makes kings, priests, slaves, heroes for the eyes
Of vulgar folk; and gives them masks to play
Their several parts not wisely, as we see;

For impious men too oft we canonise,
And kill the saints; while spurious lords array
Their hosts against the real nobility.

XV.

THE TRUE KINGS.

Nerón fu Re.

Nero was king by accident in show;
But Socrates by nature in good sooth;
By right of both Augustus; luck and truth
Less perfectly were blent in Scipio.

The spurious prince still seeks to extirpate
The seed of natures born imperial
Like Herod, Caiaphas, Meletus, all
Who by bad acts sustain their stolen state.

Slaves whose souls tell them that they are but slaves,
Strike those whose native kinghood all can see:
Martyrdom is the stamp of royalty.

Dead though they be, these govern from their graves:
The tyrants fall, nor can their laws remain;
While Paul and Peter rise o’er Rome to reign.

XVI.

WHAT MAKES A KING.

Chi pennelli have e colori.

He who hath brush and colours, and chance-wise
Doth daub, befouling walls and canvases,
Is not a painter; but, unhelped by these,
He who in art is masterful and wise.
Cowls and the tonsure do not make a friar;
Nor make a king wide realms and pompous wars;
But he who is all Jesus, Pallas, Mars,
Though he be slave or base-born, wears the tiar.
Man is not born crowned like the natural king
Of beasts, for beasts by this investiture
Have need to know the head they must obey;
Wherefore a commonwealth fits men, I say,
Or else a prince whose worth is tried and sure,
Not proved by sloth or false imagining.

XVII.

TO JESUS CHRIST.

I tuo’ seguaci.

Thy followers to-day are less like Thee,
The crucified, than those who made Thee die,
Good Jesus, wandering all ways awry
From rules prescribed in Thy wise charity.
The saints now most esteemed love lying lips,
Lust, strife, injustice; sweet to them the cry
Drawn forth by monstrous pangs from men that die:
So many plagues hath not the Apocalypse
As these wherewith they smite Thy friends ignored
Even as I am; search my heart, and know;
My life, my sufferings bear Thy stamp and sign.
If Thou return to earth, come armed; for lo,
Thy foes prepare fresh crosses for Thee, Lord!
Not Turks, not Jews, but they who call them Thine.

XVIII.

TO DEATH.

Morte, stipendio della colpa.

O Death, the wage of our first father’s blame,
Daughter of envy and nonentity,
Serf of the serpent, and his harlotry,
Thou beast most arrogant and void of shame!
Thy last great conquest dost thou dare proclaim,
Crying that all things are subdued to thee,
Against the Almighty raised almightily?
The proofs that prop thy pride of state are lame.
Not to serve thee, but to make thee serve Him,
He stoops to Hell. The choice of arms was thine;
Yet art thou scoffed at by the crucified!
He lives thy loss. He dies from every limb,
Mangled by thee, lightnings of godhead shine,
From which thy darkness hath not where to hide.

XIX.

ON THE SEPULCHRE OF CHRIST.

No. I.

O tu ch’ ami la parte.

O you who love the part more than the whole,
And love yourself more than all human kind,
Who persecute good men with prudence blind
Because they combat your malign control,
See Scribes and Pharisees, each impious school,
Each sect profane, o’erthrown by his great mind,
Whose best our good to Deity refined,
The while they thought Death triumphed o’er his soul.
Deem you that only you have thought and sense,
While heaven and all its wonders, sun and earth,
Scorned in your dullness, lack intelligence?
Fool! what produced you? These things gave you birth:
So have they mind and God. Repent; be wise!
Man fights but ill with Him who rules the skies.

XX.

ON THE SEPULCHRE OF CHRIST.

N.

Quinci impara a stupirti.

Here bend in boundless wonder; bow your head:
Think how God’s deathless Mind, that men might be
Robed in celestial immortality
(O Love divine!), in flesh was raimented:
How He was killed and buried; from the dead
How He arose to life with victory,
And reigned in heaven; how all of us shall be
Glorious like Him whose hearts to His are wed:
How they who die for love of reason, give
Hypocrites, tyrants, sophists all who sell
Their neighbours ill for holiness to hell:
How the dead saint condemns the bad who live;
How all he does becomes a law for men;
How he at last to judge shall come again!

XXI.

THE RESURRECTION.

Se sol sei ore.

If Christ was only six hours crucified
After few years of toil and misery,
Which for mankind He suffered willingly,
While heaven was won for ever when He died;
Why should He still be shown on every side,
Painted and preached, in nought but agony,
Whose pains were light matched with His victory,
When the world’s power to harm Him was defied?
Why rather speak and write not of the realm
He rules in heaven, and soon will bring below
Unto the praise and glory of His name?
Ah foolish crowd! This world’s thick vapours whelm
Your eyes unworthy of that glorious show,
Blind to His splendour, bent upon His shame.

XXII.

IDEAL LOVE.

Il vero amante.

He who loves truly, grows in force and might;
For beauty and the image of his love
Expand his spirit: whence he burns to prove
Adventures high, and holds all perils light.
If thus a lady’s love dilate the knight,
What glories and what joy all joys above
Shall not the heavenly splendour, joined by love
Unto our flesh-imprisoned soul, excite?
Once freed, she would become one sphere immense
Of love, power, wisdom, filled with Deity,
Elate with wonders of the eternal Sense.
But we like sheep and wolves war ceaselessly:
That love we never seek, that light intense,
Which would exalt us to infinity.

XXIII.

THE MODERN CUPID.

Son tremil’ anni.

Through full three thousand years the world reveres
Blind Love that bears the quiver and hath wings:
Now too he’s deaf, and to the sufferings
Of folk in anguish turns impiteous ears.
Of gold he’s greedy, and dark raiment wears;
A child no more, that naked sports and sings,
But a sly greybeard; no gold shaft he flings,
Now that fire-arms have cursed these latter years.
Charcoal and sulphur, thunder, lead, and smoke,
That leave the flesh with plagues of hell diseased,
And drive the craving spirit deaf and blind,
These are his weapons. But my bell hath broke
Her silence. Yield, thou deaf, blind, tainted beast,
To the wise fervour of a blameless mind!

XXIV.

TRUE AND FALSE NOBILITY.

In noi dal senno.

Valour and mind form real nobility,
The which bears fruit and shows a fair increase
By doughty actions: these and nought but these
Confer true patents of gentility.
Money is false and light unless it be
Bought by a man’s own worthy qualities;
And blood is such that its corrupt disease
And ignorant pretence are foul to see.
Honours that ought to yield more true a type,
Europe, thou measurest by fortune still,
To thy great hurt; and this thy foe perceives:
He rates the tree by fruits mature and ripe,
Not by mere shadows, roots, and verdant leaves:
Why then neglect so grave a cause of ill?

XXV.

THE PEOPLE.

Il popolo e una bestia.

The people is a beast of muddy brain,
That knows not its own force, and therefore stands
Loaded with wood and stone; the powerless hands
Of a mere child guide it with bit and rein:
One kick would be enough to break the chain;
But the beast fears, and what the child demands,
It does; nor its own terror understands,
Confused and stupefied by bugbears vain.
Most wonderful! with its own hand it ties
And gags itself gives itself death and war
For pence doled out by kings from its own store.
Its own are all things between earth and heaven;
But this it knows not; and if one arise
To tell this truth, it kills him unforgiven.

XXVI.

CONSCIENCE.

Seco ogni coif a e doglia.

All crime is its own torment, bearing woe
To mind or body or decrease of fame;
If not at once, still step by step our name
Or blood or friends or fortune it brings low.
But if our will do not resent the blow,
We have not sinned. That penance hath no blame
Which Magdalen found sweet: purging our shame,
Self-punishment is virtue, all men know.
The consciousness of goodness pure and whole
Makes a man fully blest; but misery
Springs from false conscience, blinded in its pride.
This Simon Peter meant when he replied
To Simon Magus, that the prescient soul
Hath her own proof of immortality.

XXVII.

THE BAD PRINCE.

Mentola al común corpo.

Organ of rut, not reason, is the lord
Who from the body politic doth drain
Lust for himself, instead of toil and pain,
Leaving us lean as crickets on dry sward.
Well too if he like Love would filch our hoard
With pleasure to ourselves, sluicing our vein
And vigour to perpetuate the strain
Of life by spilth of life within us stored!
Love’s cheat yields joy and profit. Kings, less kind,
Harm those they hoodwink; sow bare rock with seed;
Nor use our waste to propagate the breed.
Heaven help that body which a little mind,
Housed in a head, lacking ears, tongue, and eyes,
And senseless but for smell, can tyrannise!

XXVIII.

ON ITALY.

La gran Donna.

That Lady who to Cæsar came in state
Upon the Rubicon, what time she feared
Ruin from those strange races who appeared
Erewhile to build her empire strong and great,
Now stays with limbs dispersed and lacerate,
A bondslave, shorn of all her pomp revered:
Nor seems it now that Dinah’s shame can gird
Simeon or Levi to avenge her fate.
If then Jerusalem doth not repair
To Nazareth or Athens, where did reign
Wisdom of God or man in days of yore,
None shall arise her honours to restore:
For Herods are all strangers; when they swear
To save the Saviour’s seed, their oath is vain.

XXIX.

TO VENICE.

Nuova arca di Noe.

New Ark of Noah! when the cruel scourge
Of that barbarian tyrant like a wave
Went over Italy, thou then didst save
The seed of just men on the weltering surge.
Here, still by discord and foul servitude
Untainted, thou a hero brood dost raise,
Powerful and prudent. Due to thee their praise
Of maiden pure, of teeming motherhood!
Thou wonder of the world, Rome’s loyal heir,
Thou pride and strong support of Italy,
Dial of princes, school of all things wise!
Thou like Arcturus steadfast in the skies,
With tardy sense guidest thy kingdom fair,
Bearing alone the load of liberty.

XXX.

TO GENOA.

Le Ninfe d’Arno.

The nymphs of Arno; Adria’s goddess-queen;
Greece, where the Latin banner floated free;
The lands that border on the Syrian sea;
The Euxine, and fair Naples; these have been
Thine, by the right of conquest; these should be
Still thine by empire: Asia’s broad demesne,
Afric, America realms never seen
But by thy venture all belong to thee.
But thou, thyself not knowing, leavest all
For a poor price to strangers; since thy head
Is weak, albeit thy limbs are stout and good.
Genoa, mistress of the world, recall
Thy soul magnanimous! Nay, be not led
Slave to base gold, thou and thy tameless brood!

XXXI.

TO POLAND.

Sopra i regni.

High o’er those realms that make blind chance the heir
Of empire, Poland, dost thou lift thy head:
For while thou mournest for thy monarch dead,
Thou wilt not let his son the sceptre bear,
Lest he prove weak perchance to do or dare.
Yet art thou even more by luck misled,
Choosing a prince of fortune, courtly-bred,
Uncertain whether he will spend or spare.
Oh, quit this pride! In hut or shepherd’s pen
Seek Cato, Minos, Numa! For of such
God still makes kings in plenty: and these men
Will squander little substance and gain much,
Knowing that virtue and not blood shall be
Their titles to true immortality.

XXXII.

TO THE SWISS.

Se voi piú innalza.

Ye Alpine rocks! If less your peaks elate
To heaven exalt you than that gift divine,
Freedom; why do your children still combine
To keep the despots in their stolen state?
Lo, for a piece of bread from windows wide
You fling your blood, taking no thought what cause,
Righteous or wrong, your strength to battle draws;
So is your valour spurned and vilified.
All things belong to free men; but the slave
Clothes and feeds poorly. Even so from you
Broad lands and Malta’s knighthood men withhold.
Up, free yourselves, and act as heroes do!
Go, take your own from tyrants, which you gave
So recklessly, and they so dear have sold!

XXXIII.

THE SAMARITAN.

Da Roma ad Ostia.

From Rome to Ostia a poor man went;
Thieves robbed and wounded him upon the way;
Some monks, great saints, observed him where he lay,
And left him, on their breviaries intent.
A Bishop passed thereby, and careless bent
To sign the cross, a blessing brief to say;
But a great Cardinal, to clutch their prey,
Followed the thieves, falsely benevolent.
At last there came a German Lutheran,
Who builds on faith, merit of works withstands;
He raised and clothed and healed the dying man.
Now which of these was worthiest, most humane?
The heart is better than the head, kind hands
Than cold lip-service; faith without works is vain.
Who understands
What creed is good and true for self and others?
But none can doubt the good he doth his brothers.

XXXIV.

HYPOCRITES.

Nessun ti venne a dir.

Who comes and saith: ‘A Tyrant, lo, am I!’
And, ‘I am Antichrist!’ what man will swear?
The crafty rogue, hiding his poisonous ware,
Sells you what slays your soul, for sanctity.
Cheats, brigands, prostitutes, and all that fry,
Not having fashioned so devout a snare,
Appear worse sinners than perhaps they are;
For where the craft’s small, small’s the villainy;
You’re on your guard. The meek Samaritan
Makes way before those guileful Pharisees,
Though God assigned to him the higher place.
Not words nor wonders prove a virtuous man,
But deeds and acts. How many deities
Hath this false standard given the human race!

XXXV.

SOPHISTS.

Nessun ti verrà a dire.

‘Behold, I am a Sophist!’ no man saith.
But the true sons of perfidy refined
Forge theologic lies the soul to blind,
Calling themselves evangels of the faith.
Aretine with his scoundrels blew his breath,
And in the cynic orgies boldly joined;
His ribald jests had flowers and thorns combined
A frank fair list including life and death,
For fun, not fraud. It shames him to be found
Less vile than those who cannot bear to see
Their sink of filth laid open to the ground:
Wherefore they shut our mouths, our books impound,
Garble with lies each sentence that may be
Cited to prove their foul hypocrisy.

XXXVI.

AGAINST HYPOCRITES.

Gli affetti di Pluton.

Deep in their hearts they hide the lusts of Hell:
Christ’s name is written on their brow, that those
Who only view the husk, may not suppose
What guile and malice harbour in the shell.
O God! O Wisdom! Holy Fervour! Well
Of strength invincible to strike Thy foes!
Give me the force my spirit burns and glows
To strip those idols and to break their spell!
The zeal I bear unto Thy name benign,
The love I feel for truth sincere and pure,
When such men triumph, make me rend my hair.
How long shall folk this infamy endure
That he should be held sacred, he divine,
Who strips e’en corpses in the graveyard bare?

XXXVII.

ON THE LORD’S PRAYER.

No. I.

Vilissima progenie.

Ye vile offscourings! with unblushing face
Dare ye claim sonship to our heavenly Sire,
Who serve brute vices, crouching in the mire
To hounds and conies, beasts that ape our race?
Such truckling is called virtue by the base
Hucksters of sophistry, the priest and friar,
Gilt claws of tyrant brutes, who lie for hire,
Preaching that God delights in this disgrace.
Look well, ye brainless folk! Do fathers hold
Their children slaves to serfs? Do sheep obey
The witless ram? Why make a beast your king?
If there are no archangels, let your fold
Be governed by the sense of all: why stray
From men to worship every filthy thing?

XXXVIII.

ON THE LORD’S PRAYER.

N.

Dov’ e la liberta.

Where are the freedom and high feats that spring
From fatherhood so fair as Deity?
Fleas are no sons of men, although they be
Flesh-born: brave thoughts and deeds this honour bring.
If princes great or small seek anything
Adverse to good and God’s authority,
Which of you dares refuse? Nay, who is he
That doth not cringe to do their pleasuring?
So then with soul and blood in verity
You serve base gold, vices, and worthless men
God with lip-service only and with lies,
Sunk in the slough of dire idolatry:
If Ignorance begat these errors, then
To Reason turn for sonship and be wise!

XXXIX.

ON THE LORD’S PRAYER.

N.

Allor potrete orar.

Then shall ye pray with every hour that flies;
Thy kingdom come, and let Thy will be done
On earth as in the spheres above the sun,
When all we hoped and wished shall bless our eyes.
Poets shall see their Age of Gold arise,
Fairer than feigned in hymn or orison;
Yea, all the realm by Adam’s sin undone
Shall be restored in sinless Paradise.
Philosophers shall govern for their own
That perfect commonwealth whereof they write,
The which on earth as yet was never known.
Judah to Sion shall return with might
Of greater wonders than shook Pharaoh’s throne,
From Babylon, to bless the prophets’ sight.

XL.

A PROPHECY OF JUDGMENT.

N.

THE REIGN OF ANTICHRIST.

Mentre l’acquila invola.

While yet the eagle preys, and growls the bear;
While roars the lion; while the crow defies
The lamb who raised our race above the skies;
While yet the dove laments to the deaf air;
While, mixed with goodly wheat, darnel and tare
Within the field of human nature rise;
Let that ungodly sect, profanely wise,
That scorns our hope, feed, fatten, and beware!
Soon comes the day when those grim giants fell,
Famed through the world, dyed deep with sanguine hue,
Whom with feigned flatteries you applaud, shall be
Swept from the earth, and sunk in horrid Hell,
Girt round with flames, to weep and wail with you,
In doleful dungeons everlastingly.

XLI.

A PROPHECY OF JUDGMENT.

N.

THE DOOM OF THE IMPIOUS.

La scuola inimicissima.

You sect most adverse to the good and true,
Degenerate from your origin divine,
Pastured on lies and shadows by the line
Of Thais, Sinon, Judas, Homer! You,
Thus saith the Spirit, when the retinue
Of saints with Christ returns on earth to shine,
When the fifth angel’s vial pours condign
Vengeance with awful ire and torments due,
You shall be girt with gloom; your lips profane,
Disloyal tongues, and savage teeth shall grind
And gnash with fury fell and anger vain:
In Malebolge your damned souls confined
On fiery marle, for increment of pain,
Shall see the saved rejoice with mirth of mind.

XLII.

A PROPHECY OF JUDGMENT.

N.

THE GOLDEN AGE.

Se fu nel mondo.

If men were happy in that age of gold,
We yet may hope to see mild Saturn’s reign;
For all things that were buried live again,
By time’s revolving cycle forward rolled.
Yet this the fox, the wolf, the crow, made bold
By fraud and perfidy, deny in vain:
For God that rules, the signs in heaven, the train
Of prophets, and all hearts this faith uphold.
If thine and mine were banished in good sooth
From honour, pleasure, and utility,
The world would turn, I ween, to Paradise;
Blind love to modest love with open eyes;
Cunning and ignorance to living truth;
And foul oppression to fraternity.

XLIII.

THE MILLENNIUM.

Non piaccia a Dio.

Nay, God forbid that mid these tragic throes
To idle comedy my thought should bend,
When torments dire and warning woes portend
Of this our world the instantaneous close!
The day approaches which shall discompose
All earthly sects, the elements shall blend
In utter ruin, and with joy shall send
Just spirits to their spheres in heaven’s repose.
The Highest comes in Holy Land to hold
His sovran court and synod sanctified,
As all the psalms and prophets have foretold:
The riches of his grace He will spread wide
Through his own realm, that seat and chosen fold
Of worship and free mercies multiplied.

XLIV.

THE PRESENT.

Convien al secol nostro.

Black robes befit our age. Once they were white;
Next many-hued; now dark as Afric’s Moor,
Night-black, infernal, traitorous, obscure,
Horrid with ignorance and sick with fright.
For very shame we shun all colours bright,
Who mourn our end the tyrants we endure,
The chains, the noose, the lead, the snares, the lure
Our dismal heroes, our souls sunk in night.
Black weeds again denote that extreme folly
Which makes us blind, mournful, and woe-begone:
For dusk is dear to doleful melancholy;
Nathless fate’s wheel still turns: this raiment dun
We shall exchange hereafter for the holy
Garments of white in which of yore we shone.

XLV.

THE FUTURE.

Veggo in candida robba.

Clothed in white robes I see the Holy Sire
Descend to hold his court amid the band
Of shining saints and elders: at his hand
The white immortal Lamb commands their choir.
John ends his long lament for torments dire,
Now Judah’s lion rises to expand
The fatal book, and the first broken band
Sends the white courier forth to work God’s ire.
The first fair spirits raimented in white
Go out to meet him who on his white cloud
Comes heralded by horsemen white as snow.
Ye black-stoled folk, be dumb, who hate the loud
Blare of God’s lifted angel-trumpets! Lo,
The pure white dove puts the black crows to flight!

XLVI.

THE YEAR 1603.

Gia sto mirando.

The first heaven-wandering lights I see ascend
Upon the seventh and ninth centenary,
When in the Archer’s realm three years shall be
Added, this aeon and our age to end.
Thou too, Mercurius, like a scribe dost lend
Thine aid to promulgate that dread decree,
Stored in the archives of eternity,
And signed and sealed by powers no prayers can bend.
O’er Europe’s full meridian on thy morn
In the tenth house thy court I see thee hold:
The Sun with thee consents in Capricorn.
God grant that I may keep this mortal breath
Until I too that glorious day behold
Which shall at last confound the sons of death!

XLVII.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S IMAGE.

Babel disfatta.

The golden head was Babylon; she passed:
Persia came next, the silvern breast: whereto
Joined brazen flank and belly these are you,
Ye men of Macedon! Now Rome’s the last.
Rome on two iron legs towered tall and vast;
But at her feet were toes of clay, that drew
Downfall: those scattered tribes erewhile she knew
For lords; now ’neath her fatal sway they’re cast.
Ah thirsty soil! From your parched fallow fumes
A smoke of pride, vain-glory, cruelty,
That blinds, infects, and blackens, and consumes!
To Daniel, to the Bible you refuse
Your rebel sense; for it is still your use
To screen yourself with lies and sophistry.

XLVIII.

THE DUNGEON.

Come va al centro.

As to the centre all things that have weight
Sink from the surface: as the silly mouse
Runs at a venture, rash though timorous,
Into the monster’s jaws to meet her fate:
Thus all who love high Science, from the strait
Dead sea of Sophistry sailing like us
Into Truth’s ocean, bold and amorous,
Must in our haven anchor soon or late.
One calls this haunt a Cave of Polypheme,
And one Atlante’s Palace, one of Crete
The Labyrinth, and one Hell’s lowest pit.
Knowledge, grace, mercy, are an idle dream
In this dread place. Nought but fear dwells in it,
Of stealthy Tyranny the sacred seat.

XLIX.

THE SAGE ON EARTH.

Sciolto e legato.

Bound and yet free, companioned and alone,
Loud mid my silence, I confound my foes:
Men think me fool in this vile world of woes;
God’s wisdom greets me sage from heaven’s high throne.
With wings on earth oppressed aloft I bound;
My gleeful soul sad bonds of flesh enclose:
And though sometimes too great the burden grows,
These pinions bear me upward from the ground.
A doubtful combat proves the warrior’s might:
Short is all time matched with eternity:
Nought than a pleasing burden is more light.
My brows I bind with my love’s effigy,
Sure that my joyous flight will soon be sped
Where without speech my thoughts shall all be read.

L.

THE PRICE OF FREEDOM.

D’ Italia in Grecia.

From Rome to Greece, from Greece to Libya’s sand,
Yearning for liberty, just Cato went;
Nor finding freedom to his heart’s content,
Sought it in death, and died by his own hand.
Wise Hannibal, when neither sea nor land
Could save him from the Roman eagles, rent
His soul with poison from imprisonment;
And a snake’s tooth cut Cleopatra’s band.
In this way died one valiant Maccabee;
Brutus feigned madness; prudent Solon hid
His sense; and David, when he feared Gath’s king.
Thus when the Mystic found that Jonah’s sea
Was yawning to engulf him, what he did
He gave to God a wise man’s offering.

LI.

APOLOGY BY PARADOX.

Non e brutto il Demon.

The Devil’s not so ugly as they paint;
He’s well with all, compact of courtesy:
Real heroism is real piety:
Before small truth great falsehoods shrink and faint
If pots stain worse than pipkins, it were quaint
To charge the pipkins with impurity:
Freedom I crave: who craves not to be free?
Yet life that must be feigned for, leaves a taint.
Ill conduct brings repentance? If you prate
This wise to me, why prate not thus to all
Philosophers and prophets, and to Christ?
Not too much learning, as some arrogate,
But the small brains of dullards have sufficed
To make us wretched and the world enthrall.

LII.

THE SOUL’S APOLOGY.

Ben sei mila anni.

Six thousand years or more on earth I’ve been:
Witness those histories of nations dead,
Which for our age I have illustrated
In philosophic volumes, scene by scene.
And thou, mere mite, seeing my sun serene
Eclipsed, wilt argue that I had no head
To live by. Why not try the sun instead,
If nought in fate unfathomed thou hast seen?
If wise men, whom the world rebukes, combined
With tyrant wolves, brute beasts we should become.
The sage, once stoned for sin, you canonise.
When rennet melts, much milk makes haste to bind.
The more you blow the flames, the more they rise,
Bloom into stars, and find in heaven their home.

LIII.

TO GOD ON PRAYER.

Tu che Forza ed Amor.

O Thou, who, mingling Force and Love, dost draw
And guide the complex of all entities,
Framed for that purpose; whence our reason sees
In supreme Fate the synthesis of Law;
Though prayers transgress which find defect or flaw
In things foredoomed by Thy divine decrees,
Yet wilt Thou modify, by slow degrees
Or swift, good times or bad Thy mind foresaw:
I therefore pray I who through years have been
The scorn of fools, the butt of impious men,
Suffering new pains and torments day by day
Shorten this anguish, Lord, these griefs allay;
For still Thou shalt not have changed counsel when
I soar from hence to liberty foreseen.

LIV.

TO GOD FOR HELP.

Come vuoi, ch’ a buon porto.

How wilt Thou I should gain a harbour fair,
If after proof among my friends I find
That some are faithless, some devoid of mind,
Some short of sense, though stout to do and dare?
If some, though wise and loyal, like the hare
Hide in a hole, or fly in terror blind,
While nerve with wisdom and with faith combined
Through malice and through penury despair?
Reason, Thy honour, and my weal eschewed
That false ally who said he came from Thee,
With promise vain of power and liberty.
I trust: I’ll do. Change Thou the bad to good!
But ere I raise me to that altitude,
Needs must I merge in Thee as Thou in me.

LV.

To Annibale Caraccioli,

A WRITER OF ECLOGUES.

Non Licida, ne Driope.

Lycoris, Lycidas, and Dryope
Cannot, dear Niblo, save thy name from death;
Shadows that fleet, and flowers that yield their breath,
Match not the Love that craves infinity.
The beauty thou dost worship dwells in thee:
Within thy soul divine it harboureth:
This also bids my spirit soar, and saith
Words that unsphere for me heaven’s harmony.
Make then thine inborn lustre beam and shine
With love of goodness; goodness cannot fail:
From God alone let praise immense be thine.
My soul is tired of telling o’er the tale
With men: she calls on thine: she bids thee go
Into God’s school with tablets white as snow.

LVI.

TO TELESIUS OF COSENZA.

Telesio, il telo.

Telesius, the arrow from thy bow
Midmost his band of sophists slays that high
Tyrant of souls that think; he cannot fly:
While Truth soars free, loosed by the self-same blow.
Proud lyres with thine immortal praises glow,
Smitten by bards elate with victory:
Lo, thine own Cavalcante, stormfully
Lightning, still strikes the fortress of the foe!
Good Gaieta bedecks our saint serene
With robes translucent, light-irradiate,
Restoring her to all her natural sheen;
The while my tocsin at the temple-gate
Of the wide universe proclaims her queen,
Pythia of first and last ordained by fate.

LVII.

TO RIDOLFO DI BINA.

Senno ed Amor.

Wisdom and love, O Bina, gave thee wings,
Before the blossom of thy years had faded,
To fly with Adam for thy guide, God-aided,
Through many lands in divers journeyings.
Pure virtue is thy guerdon: virtue brings
Glory to thee, death to the foes degraded,
Who through long years of darkness have invaded
Thy Germany, mother of slaves not kings.
Yet, gazing on heaven’s book, heroic child,
My soul discerns graces divine in thee:
Leave toys and playthings to the crowd of fools!
Do thou with heart fervent and proudly mild
Make war upon those fraud-engendering schools!
I see thee victor, and in God I see.

LVIII.

TO TOBIA ADAMI.

Portando in man.

Holding the cynic lantern in your hand,
Through Europe, Egypt, Asia, you have passed,
Till at Ausonia’s feet you find at last
That Cyclops’ cave, where I, to darkness banned,
In light eternal forge for you the brand
Against Abaddon, who hath overcast
The truth and right, Adami, made full fast
Unto God’s glory by our steadfast band.
Go, smite each sophist, tyrant, hypocrite!
Girt with the arms of the first Wisdom, free
Your country from the frauds that cumber it!
Swerve not: ’twere sin. How good, how great the praise
Of him who turns youth, strength, soul, energy,
Unto the dayspring of the eternal rays!

LIX.

A SONNET ON CAUCASUS.

Temo che per morir.

I fear that by my death the human race
Would gain no vantage. Thus I do not die.
So wide is this vast cage of misery
That flight and change lead to no happier place.
Shifting our pains, we risk a sorrier case:
All worlds, like ours, are sunk in agony:
Go where we will, we feel; and this my cry
I may forget like many an old disgrace.
Who knows what doom is mine? The Omnipotent
Keeps silence; nay, I know not whether strife
Or peace was with me in some earlier life.
Philip in a worse prison me hath pent
These three days past but not without God’s will.
Stay we as God decrees: God doth no ill.

LX.

GOD MADE AND GOD RULES.

La fabbrica del mondo.

The fabric of the world earth, air, and skies
Each particle thereof and tiniest part
Designed for special ends proclaims the art
Of an almighty Maker good and wise.
Nathless the lawless brutes, our crimes and lies,
The joys of vicious men, the good man’s smart,
All creatures swerving from their ends, impart
Doubts that the Ruler is nor good nor wise.
Can it then be that boundless Power, Love, Mind,
Lets others reign, the while He takes repose?
Hath He grown old, or hath He ceased to heed?
Nay, one God made and rules: He shall unwind
The tangled skein; the hidden law disclose,
Whereby so many sinned in thought and deed.