The Widow of Crescentius

Midst Tivoli’s luxuriant glades,Bright-foaming falls, and olive shades,Where dwelt, in days departed long,The sons of battle and of song,No tree, no shrub its foliage rearsBut o’er the wrecks of other years,Temples and domes, which long have beenThe soil of that enchanted scene.

There the wild fig-tree and the vineO’er Hadrian’s mouldering villa twine;The cypress, in funereal grace,Usurps the vanish’d column’s place;O’er fallen shrine and ruin’d friezeThe wall-flower rustles in the breeze;Acanthus-leaves the marble hideThey once adorn’d in sculptured pride;And nature hath resumed her throneO’er the vast works of ages flown.

Was it for this that many a pile,Pride of Ilissus and of Nile,To Anio’s banks the image lentOf each imperial monument?Now Athens weeps her shatter’d fanes,Thy temples, Egypt, strew thy plains;And the proud fabrics Hadrian rear’dFrom Tibur’s vale have disappear’d.We need no prescient sibyl thereThe doom of grandeur to declare;Each stone, where weeds and ivy climb,Reveals some oracle of Time;Each relic utters Fate’s decree--The future as the past shall be.

Halls of the dead! in Tibur’s vale,Who now shall tell your lofty tale?Who trace the high patrician’s dome,The bard’s retreat, the hero’s home?When moss-clad wrecks alone recordThere dwelt the world’s departed lord,In scenes where verdure’s rich arrayStill sheds young beauty o’er decay,And sunshine on each glowing hillMidst ruins finds a dwelling still.

Sunk is thy palace--but thy tomb,Hadrian! hath shared a prouder doom.Though vanish’d with the days of oldIts pillars of Corinthian mould;Though the fair forms by sculpture wrought,Each bodying some immortal thought,Which o’er that temple of the deadSerene but solemn beauty shed,Have found, like glory’s self, a graveIn time’s abyss or Tiber’s wave;Yet dreams more lofty and more fairThan art’s bold hand hath imaged e’er.High thoughts of many a mighty mindExpanding when all else declined,In twilight years, when only theyRecall’d the radiance pass’d away,Have made that ancient pile their home,Fortress of freedom and of Rome.

There he, who strove in evil daysAgain to kindle glory’s rays,Whose spirit sought a path of lightFor those dim ages far too bright--Crescentius--long maintain’d the strifeWhich closed but with its martyr’s life,And left th’ imperial tomb a name,A heritage of holier fame.There closed De Brescia’s mission high,From thence the patriot came to die;And thou, whose Roman soul the lastSpoke with the voice of ages past,Whose thoughts so long from earth had fledTo mingle with the glorious dead,That midst the world’s degenerate raceThey vainly sought a dwelling-place,Within that house of death didst broodO’er visions to thy ruin woo’d.Yet, worthy of a brighter lot,Rienzi, be thy faults forgot!For thou, when all around thee layChain’d in the slumbers of decay--So sunk each heart, that mortal eyeHad scarce a tear for liberty--Alone, amidst the darkness there,Couldst gaze on Rome--yet not despair!

’Tis morn--and nature’s richest dyesAre floating o’er Italian skies;Tints of transparent lustre shineAlong the snow-clad Apennine;The clouds have left Soracte’s height,And yellow Tiber winds in light,Where tombs and fallen fanes have strew’dThe wide Campagna’s solitude.’Tis sad amidst that scene to traceThose relics of a vanish’d race;Yet, o’er the ravaged path of time--Such glory sheds that brilliant clime,Where nature still, though empires fall,Holds her triumphant festival--E’en desolation wears a smile,Where skies and sunbeams laugh the while;And heaven’s own light, earth’s richest bloom,Array the ruin and the tomb.

But she, who from yon convent towerBreathes the pure freshness of the hour;She, whose rich flow of raven hairStreams wildly on the morning air,Heeds not how fair the scene below,Robed in Italia’s brightest glow.Though throned midst Latium’s classic plainsTh’ Eternal City’s towers and fanes,And they, the Pleiades of earth,The seven proud hills of Empire’s birth,Lie spread beneath; not now her glanceRoves o’er that vast sublime expanse;Inspired, and bright with hope,’tis thrownOn Adrian’s massy tomb alone;There, from the storm, when Freedom fled,His faithful few Crescentius led;While she, his anxious bride, who nowBends o’er the scene her youthful brow,Sought refuge in the hallow’d fane,Which then could shelter, not in vain.

But now the lofty strife is o’er,And Liberty shall weep no more.At length imperial Otho’s voiceBids her devoted sons rejoice;And he, who battled to restoreThe glories and the rights of yore,Whose accents, like the clarion’s sound,Could burst the dead repose around,Again his native Rome shall seeThe sceptred city of the free!And young Stephania waits the hourWhen leaves her lord his fortress-tower--Her ardent heart with joy elate,That seems beyond the reach of fate;Her mien, like creature from above,All vivified with hope and love.

Fair is her form, and in her eyeLives all the soul of Italy;A meaning lofty and inspired,As by her native day-star fired;Such wild and high expression, fraughtWith glances of impassion’d thought,As fancy sheds, in visions bright,O’er priestess of the God of Light;And the dark locks that lend her faceA youthful and luxuriant grace,Wave o’er her cheek, whose kindling dyesSeem from the fire within to rise,But deepen’d by the burning heavenTo her own land of sunbeams given.Italian art that fervid glowWould o’er ideal beauty throw,And with such ardent life expressHer high-wrought dreams of loveliness,--Dreams which, surviving Empire’s fall,The shade of glory still recall.

But see!--the banner of the braveO’er Adrian’s tomb hath ceased to wave.’Tis lower’d--and now Stephania’s eyeCan well the martial train descry,Who, issuing from that ancient dome,Pour through the crowded streets of Rome.Now from her watch-tower on the height,With step as fabled wood-nymph’s light,She flies--and swift her way pursuesThrough the lone convent’s avenues.Dark cypress groves, and fields o’erspreadWith records of the conquering dead,And paths which track a glowing waste,She traverses in breathless haste;And by the tombs where dust is shrinedOnce tenanted by loftiest mind,Still passing on, hath reach’d the gateOf Rome, the proud, the desolate!Throng’d are the streets, and, still renew’d,Rush on the gathering multitude.--Is it their high-soul’d chief to greetThat thus the Roman thousands meet?With names that bid their thoughts ascend,Crescentius! thine in song to blend;And of triumphal days gone byRecall th’ inspiring pageantry?--There is an air of breathless dread,An eager glance, a hurrying tread;And now a fearful silence round,And now a fitful murmuring sound,Midst the pale crowds, that almost seemPhantoms of some tumultuous dream.Quick is each step and wild each mien,Portentous of some awful scene.Bride of Crescentius! as the throngBore thee with whelming force along,How did thine anxious heart beat high,Till rose suspense to agony!--Too brief suspense, that soon shall close,And leave thy heart to deeper woes.

Who midst yon guarded precinct stands,With fearless mien but fetter’d hands?The ministers of death are nigh,Yet a calm grandeur lights his eye;And in his glance there fives a mindWhich was not form’d for chains to bind,But cast in such heroic mouldAs theirs, th’ ascendant ones of old.Crescentius! freedom’s daring son,Is this the guerdon thou hast won?Oh, worthy to have lived and diedIn the bright days of Latium’s pride!Thus must the beam of glory closeO’er the seven hills again that rose,When at thy voice, to burst the yoke,The soul of Rome indignant woke?Vain dream! the sacred shields are gone,Sunk is the crowning city’s throne:Th’ illusions, that around her castTheir guardian spells, have long been past.Thy life hath been a shot-star’s ray,Shed o’er her midnight of decay;Thy death at freedom’s ruin’d shrineMust rivet every chain--but thine.

Calm is his aspect, and his eyeNow fix’d upon the deep blue sky,Now on those wrecks of ages fledAround in desolation spread--Arch, temple, column, worn and gray,Recording triumphs pass’d away;Works of the mighty and the free,Whose steps on earth no more shall be,Though their bright course hath left a traceNor years nor sorrows can efface.Why changes now the patriot’s mien,Erewhile so loftily serene?Thus can approaching death controlThe might of that commanding soul?No!--Heard ye not that thrilling cryWhich told of bitterest agony?He heard it, and at once, subdued,Hath sunk the hero’s fortitude.He heard it, and his heart too wellWhence rose that voice of woe can tell;And midst the gazing throngs aroundOne well-known form his glance hath found--One fondly loving and beloved,In grief, in peril, faithful proved.Yes! in the wildness of despair,She, his devoted bride, is there.Pale, breathless, through the crowd she flies,The light of frenzy in her eyes:But ere her arms can clasp the formWhich life ere long must cease to warm--Ere on his agonising breastHer heart can heave, her head can rest--Check’d in her course by ruthless hands,Mute, motionless, at once she stands;With bloodless cheek and vacant glance,Frozen and fix’d in horror’s trance;Spell-bound, as every sense were fled,And thought o’erwhelm’d, and feeling dead;And the light waving of her hair,And veil, far floating on the air,Alone, in that dread moment, showShe is no sculptured form of woe.

The scene of grief and death is o’er,The patriot’s heart shall throb no more:But hers--so vainly form’d to proveThe pure devotedness of love,And draw from fond affection’s eyeAll thought sublime, all feeling high--When consciousness again shall wake,Hath now no refuge but to break.The spirit long inured to painMay smile at fate in calm disdain,Survive its darkest hour, and riseIn more majestic energies.But in the glow of vernal pride,If each warm hope at once hath died,Then sinks the mind, a blighted flower,Dead to the sunbeam and the shower;A broken gem, whose inborn lightIs scatter’d--ne’er to re-unite.