  TO WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR, FLORENCE. BY THE HANDS OF SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ., LONDON. On the rough Bracco's top, at break of day, High o'er that gulf which bounds the Genoese, Since thou and I pursued our mountain way, Twenty Decembers have disrobed the trees. Rome lay before us, hid beyond the peaks Which rose afar, our longing eyes to guide; The wave was one whose name a history speaks, The Tyrrhene sea—the pure blue Tuscan tide. So many summers, in their gay return, Have found my pilgrimage still incomplete, Doomed as I seem, Ulysses-like, to earn My little knowledge by much toil of feet. Charmed by the glowing earth and golden sky, In Arno's vale you made yourself a nest; There perched in peace and bookish ease, while I Still journeyed on, and found no place of rest. And here I am in this prosaic land, This new Hesperia, less be-rhymed than thine, Here try the skill of my neglected hand To catch the favors of the chary Nine. And here, amid remembrances that throng Thicker than blossoms in the new-born June, Thine chiefly claims the witness of a song That still at least my heart remains in tune. You will not fail to pardon as you break The blushing seal that bears the well-known crest; And every line, however rude, shall wake Kind thoughts of him who wanders in the West. But never hope (with so refined a sense Of what is well conceived and ably wrought,) To find my verse retain its old pretence To the smooth utterance of an easy thought. For who can sing amid this roar of streets, This crash of engines and discordant mills? Where, ev'n in Solitude's most hushed retreats, Machinery drowns the music of the rills? True, Nature here hath donned her gala robe, Drest in all charms—wild, savage, and sublime; Within one realm enfolding half the globe, Flowers of all soils, and fruits of every clime. Yet nothing here conveys the musing mind Beyond the landmarks of the present hour, Since every impulse is of sordid kind, Among this race, that moves the Fancy's power. No mighty bard, with consecrating touch, Hath made the scene a nobler mood inspire; The sullen Puritan, the sensual Dutch, Proved but a barren fosterage for the lyre. Beauty should speak: however fair the shore, With balmy groves which all the coast perfume, Until his eloquence the minstrel pour Over the landscape, vainly must it bloom. E'en thy dear Italy, whose ashes now, Albeit feebly, warm our Saxon strains, Was once, ere yet her vallies felt the plough, Fameless and voiceless as Iowa's plains. Imagine old Œnotria as she stood In Saturn's reign, before the stranger came; Ere yet the stillness of the trackless wood Had heard the echoes of a Trojan's name. Young Latium then, as now Missouri's waste, Was dumb in story, soulless and unsung: Whatever deeds her savage annals graced Died soon, as lacking some harmonious tongue. Up her dark streams the first explorers found Only one dim, interminable shade; Cliffs with the growth of awful ages crowned, Amid whose gloom the wolf and wild-boar preyed. Afar, perchance, on some sky-piercing height, Nigh the last limit of the eagle's road, Some stray Pelasgians had assumed a site To pitch their proud, impregnable abode. Pent in their airy dens, the builders reared Turrets, fanes, altars fed with daily flame; But with their walls their memory disappeared: Their meanest implements outlive their name. What race of giants piled yon rocks so high? Who cut those hidden channels for the rills? Drained the deep lake, and sucked the marshes dry, Or hollowed into sepulchres the hills? These, in the time of Romulus, were old; Even then as now conjecture could but err; In prose or verse no chronicler hath told Whence the tribes came, and who their heroes were. A few rough sculptures and funereal urns, Which still are mocked by unimproving Art, Perplex the mind till tired reflection turns To the great people dearer to her heart. Soon as they rose—the Capitolian lords— The land grew sacred and beloved of God; Where'er they brandished their triumphant swords Glory sprang forth and sanctified the sod. Ev'n yet their tombs, though dateless and decayed, Allure the northern pilgrim from afar; Still Contemplation's orisons are paid Where any fragments of their trophies are. Nay, whether wandering by the swollen Rhone, Or by the Thames, we mark the CÆsar's tracks, Wondering how far, from their Tarpeian flown, The ambitious eagles bore the praetor's axe; Those toga'd kings, the fathers and the knights, Are still our masters, and within us reign; Born though we were by Alleghany's heights, Beyond the desolation of the main. For while the music of their language lasts, They shall not perish like the painted men (Brief-lived in memory as the winter's blasts) Who here once held the hill-top and the glen. These had their passions, had their virtues, too; Were valiant, proud, indomitably free; But who recalls them with delight, or who Their coarse mementos with esteem can see? From them and their's with cold regard we turn, The wreck of polished nations to survey, Nor care the savage attributes to learn Of souls that struggled with barbarian clay. With what emotion on a coin we trace Vespasian's brow, or Trajan's chastened smile, But view with heedless eye the murderous mace And chequered lance of Zealand's warrior-isle. Here, by the ploughman, as with daily tread He tracks the furrows of his fertile ground, Dark locks of hair, and thigh-bones of the dead, Spear-heads, and skulls, and arrows oft are found. On such memorials unconcerned we gaze; No trace remaining of the glow divine, Wherewith, dear Walter! in our Eton days We eyed a fragment from the Palatine. How rich to us th' Imperial City seemed, Whose meanest relic vied with any gem! The costly stones on kingly crowns that gleamed Possessed small beauty, if compared with them. Cellini's workmanship could nothing add, Nor the Pope's blessing, nor a case of gold, To the strange value every pebble had O'er which perchance the Tiber's wave had rolled. It fired us then to trace upon the map The forum's line, the Pincian garden's paths; Ay, or to finger but a stucco scrap Or marble shred from Caracalla's baths. A like enchantment all thy land pervades, Mellows the sunshine, softens autumn's breeze; O'erhangs the mouldering town and chestnut shades, And glows and sparkles in the golden seas. No such a spell the charm'd adventurer guides Who seeks those ruins hid in Yucatan, Where through the tropic forest silent glides, By crumbled fane and idol, slow Copan. There, as the weedy pyramid he climbs, Or notes, mid groves that rankly wave above, The work of nameless hands in unknown times, Much wakes his wonder—nothing stirs his love. Art's rude beginnings, wheresoever found, The same dull chord of feeling faintly strike; The Druid's pillar, and the Indian mound, And Uxmal's monuments, are mute alike. Nor here, although the gorgeous year hath brought Crimson October's beautiful decay, Can all this loveliness inspire a thought Beyond the marvels of the fleeting day. For here the Present overpowers the Past; No recollections to these woods belong, (O'er which no minstrelsy its veil hath cast) To rouse our worship, or supply my song. But this will come; the necromancer Age Shall round the wilderness his glory throw; Hudson shall murmur through the poet's page, And in his numbers more superbly flow. Ev'n now perhaps, the destined soul is born, Warm with high hope, though dumbly pent within, To shield his country from the common scorn, That never duly hymned her praise hath been. Enough—'t is more than midnight by the clock; Manhattan dreams of dollars, all abed: With you, dear Walter, 't is the crow of cock, And o'er FiÈsole the skies are red. Good night! yet stay—both longitudes to suit, At once the absent and returning light, Thus let me bid our mutual salute; To you Buon giorno—to myself Good night! T. W. P. |
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