And not the whole combined and countless throng
Compose a mind like thine? Though all in one
Condensed their scattered rays, they would not form a sun.
XL

Great as thou art, yet paralleled by those.
Thy countrymen, before thee bom to shine,
The Bards of Hell and Chivalry: first rose
The Tuscan father's Comedy Divine;
Then, not imequal to the Florentine,
The southern Scott, the minstrel who call'd forth
A new creation with his magic line,
And, like the Ariosto of the North,
Sang ladye-love and war, romance and knightly worth.
xu

The lightning rent from Ariosto's bust
The iron crown of laurel's mimick'd leaves;



5 8 Selections from Byron

Nor was the ominous element unjust,
For the true laurel-wreath which Glory weaves
Is of the tree no bolt of thunder cleaves,
And the false semblance but disgraced his brow:
Yet still, if fondly Superstition grieves,
Know that the lightning sanctifies below
Whatever it strikes; — yon head is doubly sacred now.
XLn

Italia! O Italia! thou who hast
The fatal gift of beauty, which becaipe
A funeral dower of present woes and past,
On thy sweet brow is sorrow ploughed by shame,
And annals graved in characters of fiame.
