This is the church which Pisa, great and free, Reared to St. Catharine. How the time-stained walls, That earthquakes shook not from their poise, appear To shiver in the deep and voluble tones
Rolled from the organ! Underneath my feet There lies the lid of a sepulchral vault. The image of an armed knight is graven Upon it, clad in perfect panoply —
Cuishes, and greaves, and cuirass, with barred helm, Gauntleted hand, and sword, and blazoned shield. Around, in Gothic characters, worn dim By feet of worshippers, are traced his name,
And birth, and death, and words of eulogy. Why should I pore upon them? This old tomb, This effigy, the strange disused form Of this inscription, eloquently show
His history. Let me clothe in fitting words The thoughts they breathe, and frame his epitaph. “He whose forgotten dust for centuries Has lain beneath this stone, was one in whom
Adventure, and endurance, and emprise Exalted the mind's faculties and strung The body's sinews. Brave he was in fight, Courteous in banquet, scornful of repose,
And bountiful, and cruel, and devout, And quick to draw the sword in private feud. He pushed his quarrels to the death, yet prayed The saints as fervently on bended knees
As ever shaven cenobite. He loved As fiercely as he fought. He would have borne The maid that pleased him from her bower by night, To his hill-castle, as the eagle bears
His victim from the fold, and rolled the rocks On his pursuers. He aspired to see His native Pisa queen and arbitress Of cities: earnestly for her he raised
His voice in council, and affronted death In battle-field, and climbed the galley's deck, And brought the captured flag of Genoa back, Or piled upon the Arno's crowded quay
The glittering spoils of the tamed Saracen. He was not born to brook the stranger's yoke, But would have joined the exiles that withdrew For ever, when the Florentine broke in
The gates of Pisa, and bore off the bolts For trophies — but he died before that day. “He lived, the impersonation of an age That never shall return. His soul of fire
Was kindled by the breath of the rude time He lived in. Now a gentler race succeeds, Shuddering at blood; the effeminate cavalier, Turning his eyes from the reproachful past,
And from the hopeless future, gives to ease, And love, and music, his inglorious life.”
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