TRANSLATED FROM VINCENZIO DA FILICAIA.
(Published in the "Winter's Wreath," Liverpool, 1828.)"Le corde d'oro elette," etc.
The chords, the sacred chords of gold, Strike, O Muse, in measure bold;And frame a sparkling wreath of joyous songs For that great God to whom revenge belongs.
Who shall resist his might, Who marshals for the fight Earthquake and thunder, hurricane and flame?
He smote the haughty race Of unbelieving Thrace, And turned their rage to fear, their pride to shame.
He looked in wrath from high, Upon their vast array;And, in the twinkling of an eye, Tambour, and trump, and battle-cry, And steeds, and turbaned infantry, Passed like a dream away.
Such power defends the mansions of the just:
But, like a city without walls, The grandeur of the mortal falls Who glories in his strength, and makes not God his trust.
The proud blasphemers thought all earth their own;They deemed that soon the whirlwind of their ire Would sweep down tower and palace, dome and spire, The Christian altars and the Augustan throne.
And soon, they cried, shall Austria bow To the dust her lofty brow.
The princedoms of Almayne Shall wear the Phrygian chain;In humbler waves shall vassal Tiber roll;And Rome a slave forlorn, Her laurelled tresses shorn, Shall feel our iron in her inmost soul.
Who shall bid the torrent stay?
Who shall bar the lightning's way?
Who arrest the advancing van Of the fiery Ottoman?
As the curling smoke-wreaths fly When fresh breezes clear the sky, Passed away each swelling boast Of the misbelieving host.
From the Hebrus rolling far Came the murky cloud of war, And in shower and tempest dread Burst on Austria's fenceless head.
But not for vaunt or threat Didst Thou, O Lord, forget The flock so dearly bought, and loved so well.
Even in the very hour Of guilty pride and power Full on the circumcised Thy vengeance fell.
Then the fields were heaped with dead, Then the streams with gore were red, And every bird of prey, and every beast, From wood and cavern thronged to Thy great feast.
What terror seized the fiends obscene of Nile!
How wildly, in his place of doom beneath, Arabia's lying prophet gnashed his teeth, And cursed his blighted hopes and wasted guile!
When, at the bidding of Thy sovereign might, Flew on their destined path Thy messages of wrath, Riding on storms and wrapped in deepest night.
The Phthian mountains saw, And quaked with mystic awe:
The proud Sultana of the Straits bowed down Her jewelled neck and her embattled crown.
The miscreants, as they raised their eyes Glaring defiance on Thy skies, Saw adverse winds and clouds display The terrors of their black array;--Saw each portentous star Whose fiery aspect turned of yore to flight The iron chariots of the Canaanite Gird its bright harness for a deadlier war.
Beneath Thy withering look Their limbs with palsy shook;Scattered on earth the crescent banners lay;Trembled with panic fear Sabre and targe and spear, Through the proud armies of the rising day.
Faint was each heart, unnerved each hand;And, if they strove to charge or stand Their efforts were as vain As his who, scared in feverish sleep By evil dreams, essays to leap, Then backward falls again.
