V THE DEAD REPUBLIC OF RAGUSA. I O DEAD Republic! Gloom and dust No merchants throng thy streets of stairs ; The centuries pass on, nor turn Ragusa with their feet to spurn. II Yet once thy sails on every sea Proclaimed thy proud and long renown, Nor ever was Italian town, Nor Venice with her argosies, Nor Pisa 'mid her olive trees, Nor Florence mistress of the arts, That in thy day could scoff at thee. E'en to the globe's remotest parts III Thy poets from thy people sprang Thy monks wrought on their missal's page The traders from the hot Levant Brought gold that in thy coffers rang : Came spices rare, and oil, and wine; १ IV In splendour lonely and forlorn Seem but to mock thee, and to scorn Thy glorious history, that fills With echoes trumpet-like and vast The shaded valleys of the past. VI. THE STONY WAY. AND now the time grew ripe, and, sword in hand, The Turkish legions from the lands below. Or now we halted in a hollow cave, And heard above us rushing streams that leaped And raced in dusky channels. Now we fell, And rose again, and saw a beacon-fire, And hailed it with a shout and now we watched : Despairingly its cheerful flames die down, And trembled at the darkness. But the moon Came stealing from behind a gloomy cloud, And wooëd us onward. 'Tis enchanted land! I see it still. It floats before mine eyes By day and night; a region strange, forlorn, VII. NIGHT IN THE HERZEGOVINA. I A WILDERNESS of stone! The deep ravines Lie stern and naked 'neath the moon's pale light : And mighty barriers, gigantic screens, Frown on the wanderer from every height. II No blade of grass nor any green is here, Or hasten, moaning, downward to the sea. III The shepherd homeward to the fold his flock Leads to the crooning of his rustic reed: The goats bound airily from rock to rock, And gambol where our human feet would bleed. |