He takes this fruitful theme, because he feels it to be alive with
eternal interest, and rejects the well-worn classic fables, because
Under the bushes of the odorous mint
The Dryads are buried, and the placid Dian
Guides now no longer through the nights below
Th' invulnerable hinds and pearly car,
To bless the Carian shepherd's dreams. No more
The valley echoes to the stolen kisses,
Or to the twanging bow, or to the bay
Of the immortal hounds, or to the Fauns'
Plebeian laughter. From the golden rim
Of shells, dewy with pearl, in ocean's depths
The snowy loveliness of Galatea
Has fallen; and with her, their endless sleep
In coral sepulchers the Nereids
Forgotten sleep in peace.
The poet cannot turn to his theme, however, without a sad and scornful
apostrophe to his own land, where he figures himself sitting by the
way, and craving of the frivolous, heartless, luxurious Italian
throngs that pass the charity of love for Italy. They pass him by
unheeded, and he cries:
Hast thou seen
In the deep circle of the valley of Siddim,
Under the shining skies of Palestine,
The sinister glitter of the Lake of Asphalt?
Those coasts, strewn thick with ashes of damnation,
Forever foe to every living thing,
Where rings the cry of the lost wandering bird
That, on the shore of the perfidious sea,
Athirsting dies,--that watery sepulcher
Of the five cities of iniquity,
Where even the tempest, when its clouds hang low,
Passes in silence, and the lightning dies,--
If thou hast seen them, bitterly hath been
Thy heart wrung with the misery and despair
Of that dread vision!
Yet there is on earth
A woe more desperate and miserable,--
A spectacle wherein the wrath of God
Avenges him more terribly.
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