. . . .

 

The world is full of Woodmen who expel

Love's gentle Dryads from the haunts of life,

And vex the nightingales in every dell.

 

Marenghi

I

Let those who pine in pride or in revenge,

Or think that ill for ill should be repaid,

Who barter wrong for wrong, until the exchange

Ruins the merchants of such thriftless trade,

Visit the tower of Vado, and unlearn

Such bitter faith beside Marenghi's urn.

 

II

A massy tower yet overhangs the town,

A scattered group of ruined dwellings now . ...

 

. . . . . . .

 

III

 

Another scene ere wise Etruria knew

Its second ruin through internal strife,

And tyrants through the breach of discord threw

The chain which binds and kills. As death to life,

As winter to fair flowers (though some be poison)

So Monarchy succeeds to Freedom's foison.

 

IV

In Pisa's church a cup of sculptured gold

Was brimming with the blood of feuds forsworn:

A Sacrament more holy ne'er of old

Etrurians mingled mid the shades forlorn

Of moon-illumined forests, when . ...

 

V

 

And reconciling factions wet their lips

With that dread wine, and swear to keep each spirit

Undarkened by their country's last eclipse . ...

 

. . . . . . .

 

VI

Was Florence the liberticide? that band

Of free and glorious brothers who had planted,

Like a green isle mid Aethiopian sand,

A nation amid slaveries, disenchanted

Of many impious faiths – wise, just – do they,

Does Florence, gorge the sated tyrants' prey?

 

VII

 

O foster-nurse of man's abandoned glory,

Since Athens, its great mother, sunk in splendour;

Thou shadowest forth that mighty shape in story,

As ocean its wrecked fanes, severe yet tender: –

The light-invested angel Poesy

Was drawn from the dim world to welcome thee.

 

VIII

And thou in painting didst transcribe all taught

By loftiest meditations; marble knew

The sculptor's fearless soul – and as he wrought,

The grace of his own power and freedom grew.

And more than all, heroic, just, sublime,

Thou wert among the false ... was this thy crime?

 

IX

 

Yes; and on Pisa's marble walls the twine

Of direst weeds hangs garlanded – the snake

Inhabits its wrecked palaces; – in thine

A beast of subtler venom now doth make

Its lair, and sits amid their glories overthrown,

And thus thy victim's fate is as thine own.

 

X

The sweetest flowers are ever frail and rare,

And love and freedom blossom but to wither;

And good and ill like vines entangled are,

So that their grapes may oft be plucked together; –

Divide the vintage ere thou drink, then make

Thy heart rejoice for dead Marenghi's sake.

 

Xa

 

[Albert] Marenghi was a Florentine;

If he had wealth, or children, or a wife

Or friends, [or farm] or cherished thoughts which twine

The sights and sounds of home with life's own life

Of these he was despoiled and Florence sent . ...

 

. . . . . . .

 

XI

No record of his crime remains in story,

But if the morning bright as evening shone,

It was some high and holy deed, by glory

Pursued into forgetfulness, which won

From the blind crowd he made secure and free

The patriot's meed, toil, death, and infamy.

 

XII

 

For when by sound of trumpet was declared

A price upon his life, and there was set

A penalty of blood on all who shared

So much of water with him as might wet

His lips, which speech divided not – he went

Alone, as you may guess, to banishment.

 

XIII

Amid the mountains, like a hunted beast,

He hid himself, and hunger, toil, and cold,

Month after month endured; it was a feast

Whene'er he found those globes of deep-red gold

Which in the woods the strawberry-tree doth bear,

Suspended in their emerald atmosphere.

 

XIV

 

And in the roofless huts of vast morasses,

Deserted by the fever-stricken serf,

All overgrown with reeds and long rank grasses,

And hillocks heaped of moss-inwoven turf,

And where the huge and speckled aloe made,

Rooted in stones, a broad and pointed shade, –

 

XV

He housed himself. There is a point of strand

Near Vado's tower and town; and on one side

The treacherous marsh divides it from the land,

Shadowed by pine and ilex forests wide,

And on the other, creeps eternally,

Through muddy weeds, the shallow sullen sea.

 

XVI

 

Here the earth's breath is pestilence, and few

But things whose nature is at war with life –

Snakes and ill worms – endure its mortal dew.

The trophies of the clime's victorious strife –

And ringed horns which the buffalo did wear,

And the wolf's dark gray scalp who tracked him there.

 

XVII

And at the utmost point ... stood there

The relics of a reed-inwoven cot,

Thatched with broad flags.