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, appearTo shiver in the deep and voluble tonesRolled from the organ! Underneath my feetThere lies the lid of a sepulchral vault.The image of an armed knight is gravenUpon 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 dimBy 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 formOf this inscription, eloquently showHis history. Let me clothe in fitting wordsThe thoughts they breathe, and frame his epitaph.
"He whose forgotten dust for centuriesHas lain beneath this stone, was one in whomAdventure, and endurance, and empriseExalted the mind's faculties and strungThe 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 prayedThe saints as fervently on bended kneesAs ever shaven cenobite. He lovedAs fiercely as he fought. He would have borneThe maid that pleased him from her bower by night,To his hill-castle, as the eagle bearsHis victim from the fold, and rolled the rocksOn his pursuers. He aspired to seeHis native Pisa queen and arbitressOf cities: earnestly for her he raisedHis voice in council, and affronted deathIn battle-field, and climbed the galley's deck,And brought the captured flag of Genoa back,Or piled upon the Arno's crowded quayThe glittering spoils of the tamed Saracen.He was not born to brook the stranger's yoke,But would have joined the exiles that withdrewFor ever, when the Florentine broke inThe gates of Pisa, and bore off the boltsFor trophies—but he died before that day.
"He lived, the impersonation of an ageThat never shall return. His soul of fireWas kindled by the breath of the rude timeHe 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."