Illustrious fathers of the human race, Of you, the song of your afflicted sons Will chant the praise; of you, more dear, by far, Unto the Great Disposer of the stars,...
Such wast thou: now in earth below, Dust and a skeleton thou art. Above thy bones and clay, Here vainly placed by loving hands, Sole guardian of memory and woe, The image of departed beauty stands....
It was the morning; through the shutters closed, Along the balcony, the earliest rays Of sunlight my dark room were entering; When, at the time that sleep upon our eyes...
The night is mild and clear, and without wind, And o'er the roofs, and o'er the gardens round The moon shines soft, and from afar reveals Each mountain-peak serene. O lady, mine,...
Here, on the arid ridge Of dead Vesuvius, Exterminator terrible, That by no other tree or flower is cheered, Thou scatterest thy lonely leaves around, O fragrant flower,...
This lonely hill to me was ever dear, This hedge, which shuts from view so large a part Of the remote horizon. As I sit And gaze, absorbed, I in my thought conceive The boundless spaces that beyond it range,...
Thou tranquil night, and thou, O gentle ray Of the declining moon; and thou, that o'er The rock appearest, 'mid the silent grove, The messenger of day; how dear ye were,...
The morning rain, when, from her coop released, The hen, exulting, flaps her wings, when from The balcony the husbandman looks forth, And when the rising sun his trembling rays...
Thou from the top of yonder antique tower, O lonely sparrow, wandering, hast gone, Thy song repeating till the day is done, And through this valley strays the harmony....
Most sweet, most powerful, Controller of my inmost soul; The terrible, yet precious gift Of heaven, companion kind Of all my days of misery, O thought, that ever dost recur to me; ...
As, in the lonely night, Above the silvered fields and streams Where zephyr gently blows, And myriad objects vague, Illusions, that deceive, Their distant shadows weave Amid the silent rills,...
The damsel from the field returns, The sun is sinking in the west; Her bundle on her head she sets, And in her hand she bears A bunch of roses and of violets. To-morrow is a holiday,...
When in the Thracian dust uprooted lay, In ruin vast, the strength of Italy, And Fate had doomed Hesperia's valleys green, And Tiber's shores, The trampling of barbarian steeds to feel,...
Italian bold, why wilt thou never cease The fathers from their tombs to summon forth? Why bring them, with this dead age to converse, That stifled is by enemies and by sloth?...
The face of glory and her pleasant voice, O fortunate youth, now recognize, And how much nobler than effeminate sloth Are manhood's tested energies. Take heed, O generous champion, take heed,...
This wearisome and this distressing sleep That we call life, O how dost thou support, My Pepoli? With what hopes feedest thou Thy heart? Say in what thoughts, and in what deeds,...
Nor wilt thou rest forever, weary heart. The last illusion is destroyed, That I eternal thought. Destroyed! I feel all hope and all desire depart, For life and its deceitful joys....
Since now thou art about to leave Thy father's quiet house, And all the phantoms and illusions dear, That heaven-born fancies round it weave, And to this lonely region lend their charm,...
My country, I the walls, the arches see, The columns, statues, and the towers Deserted, of our ancestors; But, ah, the glory I do not behold, The laurel and the sword, that graced Our sires of old....