PADUA, thou within whose walls | |
| Those mute guests at festivals, | |
| Son and Mother, Death and Sin, | |
| Played at dice for Ezzelin, | |
| Till Death cried, “I win, I win!” | 5 |
| And Sin cursed to lose the wager, | |
| But Death promised, to assuage her, | |
| That he would petition for | |
| Her to be made Vice-Emperor, | |
| When the destined years were o’er, | 10 |
| Over all between the Po | |
| And the eastern Alpine snow, | |
| Under the mighty Austrian. | |
| Sin smiled so as Sin only can, | |
| And since that time, ay, long before, | 15 |
| Both have ruled from shore to shore, | |
| That incestuous pair, who follow | |
| Tyrants as the sun the swallow, | |
| As repentance follows crime, | |
| And as changes follow time. | 20 |
| |
| In thine halls the lamp of learning, | |
| Padua, now no more is burning; | |
| Like a meteor, whose wild way | |
| Is lost over the grave of day, | |
| It gleams betrayed and to betray: | 25 |
| Once remotest nations came | |
| To adore that sacred flame, | |
| When it lit not many a hearth | |
| On this cold and gloomy earth; | |
| Now new fires from antique light | 30 |
| Spring beneath the wide world’s might, | |
| But their spark lies dead in thee, | |
| Trampled out by tyranny. | |
| As the Norway woodman quells, | |
| In the depth of piny dells, | 35 |
| One light flame among the brakes, | |
| While the boundless forest shakes, | |
| And its mighty trunks are torn | |
| By the fire thus lowly born; | |
| The spark beneath his feet is dead, | 40 |
| He starts to see the flames it fed | |
| Howling through the darkened sky | |
| With a myriad tongues victoriously, | |
| And sinks down in fear; so thou, | |
| O tyranny, beholdest now | 45 |
| Light around thee, and thou hearest | |
| The loud flames ascend, and fearest: | |
| Grovel on the earth; ay, hide | |
| In the dust thy purple pride! | |
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