XXXI.

   They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died;
   The mountain-village where his latter days
   Went down the vale of years; and ’tis their pride —
   An honest pride—­and let it be their praise,
   To offer to the passing stranger’s gaze
   His mansion and his sepulchre; both plain
   And venerably simple, such as raise
   A feeling more accordant with his strain,
Than if a pyramid formed his monumental fane.

XXXII.

   And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt
   Is one of that complexion which seems made
   For those who their mortality have felt,
   And sought a refuge from their hopes decayed
   In the deep umbrage of a green hill’s shade,
   Which shows a distant prospect far away
   Of busy cities, now in vain displayed,
   For they can lure no further; and the ray
Of a bright sun can make sufficient holiday.

XXXIII.

   Developing the mountains, leaves, and flowers
   And shining in the brawling brook, where-by,
   Clear as its current, glide the sauntering hours
   With a calm languor, which, though to the eye
   Idlesse it seem, hath its morality,
   If from society we learn to live,
   ’Tis solitude should teach us how to die;
   It hath no flatterers; vanity can give
No hollow aid; alone—­man with his God must strive: 

XXXIV.

   Or, it may be, with demons, who impair
   The strength of better thoughts, and seek their prey
   In melancholy bosoms, such as were
   Of moody texture from their earliest day,
   And loved to dwell in darkness and dismay,
   Deeming themselves predestined to a doom
   Which is not of the pangs that pass away;
   Making the sun like blood, the earth a tomb,
The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom.

XXXV.

   Ferrara! in thy wide and grass-grown streets,
   Whose symmetry was not for solitude,
   There seems as ’twere a curse upon the seat’s
   Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood
   Of Este, which for many an age made good
   Its strength within thy walls, and was of yore
   Patron or tyrant, as the changing mood
   Of petty power impelled, of those who wore
The wreath which Dante’s brow alone had worn before.

XXXVI.

   And Tasso is their glory and their shame. 
   Hark to his strain! and then survey his cell! 
   And see how dearly earned Torquato’s fame,
   And where Alfonso bade his poet dwell. 
   The miserable despot could not quell
   The insulted mind he sought to quench, and blend
   With the surrounding maniacs, in the hell
   Where he had plunged it.  Glory without end
Scattered the clouds away—­and on that name attend