Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/294

256 And make thee Europe's Nightingale of Song;

So that all present speech to thine shall seem

The note of meaner birds, and every tongue

Confess its barbarism when compared with thine.

This shalt thou owe to him thou didst so wrong,

Thy Tuscan bard, the banished Ghibelline.

Woe! woe! the veil of coming centuries

Is rent,—a thousand years which yet supine

Lie like the ocean waves ere winds arise,

Heaving in dark and sullen undulation,

Float from Eternity into these eyes;

The storms yet sleep, the clouds still keep their station,

The unborn Earthquake yet is in the womb,

The bloody Chaos yet expects Creation,

But all things are disposing for thy doom;

The Elements await but for the Word,

"Let there be darkness!" and thou grow'st a tomb!

Yes! thou, so beautiful, shalt feel the sword,

Thou, Italy! so fair that Paradise,

Revived in thee, blooms forth to man restored:

Ah! must the sons of Adam lose it twice?

Thou, Italy! whose ever golden fields,

Ploughed by the sunbeams solely, would suffice

For the world's granary; thou, whose sky Heaven gilds

With brighter stars, and robes with deeper blue;