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| ITALIA’S vales in verdure slept, | |
| While spring her humid odors wept, | |
| With wreaths the breathing statue bound, | |
| The fallen dome with ivy crown’d, | |
| And bade old Tiber’s yellow wave | 5 |
| With fuller flow its margin lave. | |
| Low at the base of Alps sublime, | |
| Where the columbar cypress grows, | |
| And falling streams with tuneful chime | |
| To slumber lull the ear of time, | 10 |
| His cell a hermit chose. | |
| Once at his peaceful door reclined, | |
| While lonely musings soothed his mind, | |
| Soft mists involved his favorite tree, | |
| In fainter murmurs humm’d the bee, | 15 |
| And in bright tints gay fancy drew | |
| A vision o’er his cheated view. | |
| A lovely form, in robes of light, | |
| Came gliding o’er his raptured sight; | |
| Fresh garlands ’mid her tresses glow’d, | 20 |
| Around her steps strange beauty flow’d, | |
| Attendant birds pour’d forth their lays, | |
| And prank’d their plumage in her praise, | |
| The fawn came bounding o’er the earth, | |
| The tufted violets sprang to birth, | 25 |
| The olive donn’d its vesture pale, | |
| And fragrance floated on the gale. | |
| Then, bold o’er Alpine cliffs she sped, | |
| The snow-wreath vanish’d at her tread, | |
| The singing rills went leaping down, | 30 |
| The forest caught its graceful crown, | |
| And warblers cheer’d with carols loud, | |
| The cottage cradled on the cloud. | |
| Still, by the hermit’s anxious eye | |
| Her form was traced ascending high, | 35 |
| Where the last tints of verdure die. | |
| Even there, amid that dreary bound, | |
| Some hardy, slumbering flowers she found, | |
| Touch’d their chill lids, and kiss’d the tear | |
| That dimm’d their eye of azure clear, | 40 |
| As leaning on their frosted bed, | |
| Their petals to the storm they spread. | |
| With graceful step, yet half afraid, | |
| Toil’d onward the celestial maid, | |
| And long and vainly strove with fate, | 45 |
| The imprison’d streams to liberate; | |
| The blushing snows her wand confest, | |
| Yet held the vassals to their breast, | |
| And soften’d by her aspect sweet, | |
| The ice threw diamonds at her feet. | 50 |
| Yet save the eagle-king, whose cry | |
| Came hoarsely from the blacken’d sky, | |
| Motion nor sound was lingering there, | |
| Amid that realm of chill despair. | |
| It seem’d throughout the drear domain | 55 |
| That Life, too fiercely tried, | |
| Contending with the blast in vain, | |
| Had like the taper died. | |
| She paused—for towering bold and high, | |
| A splendid fabric met her eye. | 60 |
| Of thick ribb’d ice, in arches pure, | |
| With battlement and embrasure, | |
| And cluster’d columns, tall and white: | |
| And frost-work tracery, dazzling bright, | |
| And turrets frowning at the cloud, | 65 |
| Gleam’d forth its architecture proud. | |
| Here, age on age, with painful thought, | |
| The troubled elements had wrought, | |
| To stretch the rampart’s massy line, | |
| With wreaths the pillar’d halls to twine, | 70 |
| And ’neath the lash of tempests rude, | |
| Had oft their bitter task pursued, | |
| Arranging Winter’s glittering spoil, | |
| With slow and aggregated toil. | |
| The admiring fair, with wonder fraught, | 75 |
| An entrance to the structure sought; | |
| But a grim form her course withstood, | |
| Whose frigid eye congeal’d her blood. | |
| Aged, yet strong at heart he seem’d, | |
| His reverend beard like silver stream’d, | 80 |
| Of polish’d ice, the sparkling gem | |
| Adorn’d his kingly diadem, | |
| And closer, as he spoke, he prest | |
| His ermine mantle o’er his breast. | |
| “Say! who art thou, intruder bold, | 85 |
| Who near this lofty throne, | |
| Would with its monarch audience hold, | |
| Unbidden and alone? | |
| Why com’st thou thus with footstep free, | |
| Unnamed, unheralded, to me?” | 90 |
| Recoiling from his brilliant cell, | |
| Whose breath in freezing tide, | |
| Congeal’d to sudden ice-drops fell, | |
| The undaunted maid replied; | |
| “I come, on Nature’s mission kind, | 95 |
| Oppression’s victims to unbind, | |
| To bid the sceptred tyrant bow, | |
| And wake a smile on Misery’s brow. | |
| The realm of bliss my care extends, | |
| Man, beast and insect are my friends. | 100 |
| Each nursling of the nested grove, | |
| Each plant, and flower, and leaf, I love.” | |
| With kindling eye, and front of pride, | |
| The scornful monarch stern replied; | |
| “Nature and thou, are wise to give | 105 |
| Wild Freedom’s boon to all who live! | |
| The maddening flame promiscuous hurl’d, | |
| Would wrap in anarchy the world. | |
| Go! haste the hour when none shall view | |
| The million meekly serve the few; | 110 |
| O’erturn the thrones which, fix’d as fate, | |
| By Time’s strong oath are consecrate, | |
| Then lift your wonder-working rod, | |
| And Earth enfranchised, war with God! | |
| Bold and puissant must ye be, | 115 |
| To rend this guarded dome from me!” | |
| His hand he raised in gestures strong, | |
| And angry blasts shriek’d wild and long. | |
| Vindictive Hail, with frozen eye, | |
| Pour’d forth his keen artillery, | 120 |
| And Snow unlock’d, with threatening mien, | |
| A bleak and boundless magazine. | |
| With blanching lip and bloodless cheek | |
| The stricken stranger strove to speak. | |
| Though from her brow the garland fell | 125 |
| Scentless and pale, yet, strange to tell, | |
| Reviving courage warm’d her breast, | |
| And firmer tones the might confest | |
| That may with woman dwell. | |
| “If from thy cold, unenvied state, | 130 |
| Thy palace proud as desolate, | |
| Where fetters bind the free, | |
| One glance thy kingly eye would deign | |
| To mark the blessings of my reign, | |
| Disarm’d thy rage might be. | 135 |
| The chainless rill, the new-born flower, | |
| The carol from the leafy bower, | |
| The strains that from creation roll, | |
| When on my harp she breathes her soul, | |
| Are emblems of the joy that springs, | 140 |
| Deep, measureless, unspoken, | |
| When the dark chain of despot kings | |
| Is from the spirit broken. | |
| Hear’st thou such music in thy hall | |
| When warring blasts hold festival?” | 145 |
| “Thou, who t’ annul the law dost seek | |
| By which the strong control the weak, | |
| Wouldst thou in frantic madness sweep | |
| This glorious structure to the deep? | |
| Whelm in the dust yon turrets proud | 150 |
| Which hurl their gauntlet ’gainst the cloud? | |
| And make these gem-encrusted plains | |
| A vulgar haunt for piping swains, | |
| And brawling brooks, and baby bowers, | |
| And nameless troops of vagrant flowers? | 155 |
| Usurper, hence!” he rudely said, | |
| And trembling from his realm she fled; | |
| For thundering o’er the rocky crown, | |
| An avalanche rush’d fiercely down, | |
| And in its wide and wrecking storm | 160 |
| Perchance had whelm’d her shrinking form. | |
| But a bright cloud its tissued fold | |
| Unclasp’d, of crimson blent with gold, | |
| And soaring on its wing she rose | |
| Homeward to heaven, to find repose | 165 |
| Upon her couch of fadeless rose. | |
| The waking hermit, o’er whose head | |
| The lustre of this pageant fled, | |
| Retraced its scenes with wonder new, | |
| And musing thus the moral drew. | 170 |
| “The genial gifts of Spring to earth, | |
| Methinks, are types of Freedom’s birth, | |
| And the dark winter of my dream | |
| Oppression’s emblem well may seem; | |
| For many a clime that meets our view, | 175 |
| Will prove these varying symbols true.” | |
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