PART II.

I wrote a meditation and a dream,

Hearing a little child sing in the street:

I leant upon his music as a theme,

Till it gave way beneath my heart's full beat

Which tried at an exultant prophecy

But dropped before the measure was complete —

Alas, for songs and hearts! O Tuscany,

O Dante's Florence, is the type too plain?

Didst thou, too, only sing of liberty

As little children take up a high strain

With unintentioned voices, and break off

To sleep upon their mothers’ knees again?

Couldst thou not watch one hour? then, sleep enough —

That sleep may hasten manhood and sustain

The faint pale spirit with some muscular stuff.

But we, who cannot slumber as thou dost,

We thinkers, who have thought for thee and failed,

We hopers, who have hoped for thee and lost,

We poets, wandered round by dreams,who hailed

From this Atrides’ roof ( with lintel-post

Which still drips blood,— the worse part hath prevailed )

The fire-voice of the beacons to declare

Troy taken, sorrow ended,— cozened through

A crimson sunset in a misty air,

What now remains for such as we, to do?

God's judgments, peradventure, will He bare

To the roots of thunder, if we kneel and sue?

From Casa Guidi windows I looked forth,

And saw ten thousand eyes of Florentines

Flash back the triumph of the Lombard north,—

Saw fifty banners, freighted with the signs

And exultations of the awakened earth,

Float on above the multitude in lines,

Straight to the Pitti. So, the vision went.

And so, between those populous rough hands

Raised in the sun, Duke Leopold outleant,

And took the patriot's oath which henceforth stands

Among the oaths of perjurers, eminent

To catch the lightnings ripened for these lands.

Why swear at all, thou false Duke Leopold?

What need to swear? What need to boast thy blood

Unspoilt of Austria, and thy heart unsold

Away from Florence? It was understood

God made thee not too vigorous or too bold;

And men had patience with thy quiet mood,

And women, pity, as they saw thee pace

Their festive streets with premature grey hairs.

We turned the mild dejection of thy face

To princely meanings, took thy wrinkling cares

For ruffling hopes, and called thee weak, not base.

Nay, better light the torches for more prayers

And smoke the pale Madonnas at the shrine,

Being still “our poor Grand-duke, our good Grand-duke,

Who cannot help the Austrian in his line,” —

Than write an oath upon a nation's book

For men to spit at with scorn's blurring brine!

Who dares forgive what none can overlook?

For me, I do repent me in this dust

Of towns and temples which makes Italy,—

I sigh amid the sighs which breathe a gust

Of dying century to century

Around us on the uneven crater-crust

Of these old worlds,— I bow my soul and knee.

Absolve me, patriots, of my woman's fault

That ever I believed the man was true!

These sceptred strangers shun the common salt,

And, therefore, when the general board's in view

And they stand up to carve for blind and halt,

The wise suspect the viands which ensue.

I much repent that, in this time and place

Where many corpse-lights of experience burn

From Caesar's and Lorenzo's festering race,

To enlighten groping reasoners, I could learn

No better counsel for a simple case

Than to put faith in princes, in my turn.

Had all the death-piles of the ancient years

Flared up in vain before me? knew I not

What stench arises from some purple gears?

And how the sceptres witness whence they got

Their briar-wood, crackling through the atmosphere's

Foul smoke, by princely perjuries, kept hot?

Forgive me, ghosts of patriots,— Brutus, thou,

Who trailest downhill into life again

Thy blood-weighed cloak, to indict me with thy slow

Reproachful eyes!— for being taught in vain

That, while the illegitimate Caesars show

Of meaner stature than the first full strain

( Confessed incompetent to conquer Gaul ),

They swoon as feebly and cross Rubicons

As rashly as any Julius of them all!

Forgive, that I forgot the mind which runs

Through absolute races, too unsceptical!

I saw the man among his little sons,

His lips were warm with kisses while he swore;

And I, because I am a woman — I,

Who felt my own child's coming life before

The prescience of my soul, and held faith high,—

I could not bear to think, whoever bore,

That lips, so warmed, could shape so cold a lie.

From Casa Guidi windows I looked out,

Again looked, and beheld a different sight.

The Duke had fled before the people's shout

“Long live the Duke!” A people, to speak right,

Must speak as soft as courtiers, lest a doubt

Should curdle brows of gracious sovereigns, white.

Moreover that same dangerous shouting meant

Some gratitude for future favours, which

Were only promised, the Constituent

Implied, the whole being subject to the hitch

In “motu proprios,” very incident

To all these Czars, from Paul to Paulovitch.

Whereat the people rose up in the dust

Of the ruler's flying feet, and shouted still

And loudly; only, this time, as was just,

Not “Live the Duke,” who had fled for good or ill,

But “Live the People,” who remained and must,

The unrenounced and unrenounceable.

Long live the people! How they lived! and boiled

And bubbled in the cauldron of the street:

How the young blustered, nor the old recoiled,

And what a thunderous stir of tongues and feet

Trod flat the palpitating bells and foiled

The joy-guns of their echo, shattering it!

How down they pulled the Duke's arms everywhere!

How up they set new cafe-signs, to show

Where patriots might sip ices in pure air —

( The fresh paint smelling somewhat )! To and fro

How marched the civic guard, and stopped to stare

When boys broke windows in a civic glow!

How rebel songs were sung to loyal tunes,

And bishops cursed in ecclesiastic metres:

How all the Circoli grew large as moons,

And all the speakers, moonstruck,— thankful greeters

Of prospects which struck poor the ducal boons,

A mere free Press, and Chambers!— frank repeaters

Of great Guerazzi's praises — “There's a man,

The father of the land, who, truly great,

Takes off that national disgrace and ban,

The farthing tax upon our Florence-gate,

And saves Italia as he only can!”

How all the nobles fled, and would not wait,

Because they were most noble,— which being so,

How Liberals vowed to burn their palaces,

Because free Tuscans were not free to go!

How grown men raged at Austria's wickedness,

And smoked,— while fifty striplings in a row

Marched straight to Piedmont for the wrong's redress!

You say we failed in duty, we who wore

Black velvet like Italian democrats,

Who slashed our sleeves like patriots, nor forswore

The true republic in the form of hats?

We chased the archbishop from the Duomo door,

We chalked the walls with bloody caveats

Against all tyrants. If we did not fight

Exactly, we fired muskets up the air

To show that victory was ours of right.

We met, had free discussion everywhere

( Except perhaps i’ the Chambers ) day and night.

We proved the poor should be employed,... that's fair,—

And yet the rich not worked for anywise,—

Pay certified, yet payers abrogated,—

Full work secured, yet liabilities

To overwork excluded,— not one bated

Of all our holidays, that still, at twice

Or thrice a week, are moderately rated.

We proved that Austria was dislodged, or would

Or should be, and that Tuscany in arms

Should, would dislodge her, ending the old feud;

And yet, to leave our piazzas, shops, and farms,

For the simple sake of fighting, was not good —

We proved that also. “Did we carry charms

Against being killed ourselves, that we should rush

On killing others? what, desert herewith

Our wives and mothers?— was that duty? tush!”

At which we shook the sword within the sheath

Like heroes — only louder; and the flush

Ran up the cheek to meet the future wreath.

Nay, what we proved, we shouted — how we shouted

( Especially the boys did ), boldly planting

That tree of liberty, whose fruit is doubted,

Because the roots are not of nature's granting!

A tree of good and evil: none, without it,

Grow gods; alas and, with it, men are wanting!

O holy knowledge, holy liberty,

O holy rights of nations! If I speak

These bitter things against the jugglery

Of days that in your names proved blind and weak,

It is that tears are bitter. When we see

The brown skulls grin at death in churchyards bleak,

We do not cry “This Yorick is too light,”

For death grows deathlier with that mouth he makes.

So with my mocking: bitter things I write

Because my soul is bitter for your sakes,

O freedom! O my Florence!

Men who might

Do greatly in a universe that breaks

And burns, must ever know before they do.

Courage and patience are but sacrifice;

And sacrifice is offered for and to

Something conceived of. Each man pays a price

For what himself counts precious, whether true

Or false the appreciation it implies.

But here,— no knowledge, no conception, nought!

Desire was absent, that provides great deeds

From out the greatness of prevenient thought:

And action, action, like a flame that needs

A steady breath and fuel, being caught

Up, like a burning reed from other reeds,

Flashed in the empty and uncertain air,

Then wavered, then went out. Behold, who blames

A crooked course, when not a goal is there

To round the fervid striving of the games?

An ignorance of means may minister

To greatness, but an ignorance of aims

Makes it impossible to be great at all.

So with our Tuscans! Let none dare to say,

“Here virtue never can be national;

Here fortitude can never cut a way

Between the Austrian muskets, out of thrall:”

I tell you rather that, whoever may

Discern true ends here, shall grow pure enough

To love them, brave enough to strive for them,

And strong to reach them though the roads be rough:

That having learnt — by no mere apophthegm —

Not just the draping of a graceful stuff

About a statue, broidered at the hem,—

Not just the trilling on an opera-stage

Of “liberta” to bravos — ( a fair word,

Yet too allied to inarticulate rage

And breathless sobs, for singing, though the chord

Were deeper than they struck it ) but the gauge

Of civil wants sustained and wrongs abhorred,

The serious sacred meaning and full use

Of freedom for a nation,— then, indeed,

Our Tuscans, underneath the bloody dews

Of some new morning, rising up agreed

And bold, will want no Saxon souls or thews

To sweep their piazzas clear of Austria's breed.

Alas, alas! it was not so this time.

Conviction was not, courage failed, and truth

Was something to be doubted of. The mime

Changed masks, because a mime. The tide as smooth

In running in as out, no sense of crime

Because no sense of virtue,— sudden ruth

Seized on the people: they would have again

Their good Grand-duke and leave Guerazzi, though

He took that tax from Florence. “Much in vain

He takes it from the market-carts, we trow,

While urgent that no market-men remain,

But all march off and leave the spade and plough,

To die among the Lombards. Was it thus

The dear paternal Duke did? Live the Duke!”

At which the joy-bells multitudinous,

Swept by an opposite wind, as loudly shook.

Call back the mild archbishop to his house,

To bless the people with his frightened look,—

He shall not yet be hanged, you comprehend!

Seize on Guerazzi; guard him in full view,

Or else we stab him in the back, to end!

Rub out those chalked devices, set up new

The Duke's arms, doff your Phrygian caps, and men

The pavement of the piazzas broke into

By barren poles of freedom: smooth the way

For the ducal carriage, lest his highness sigh

“Here trees of liberty grew yesterday!”

“Long live the Duke!” — how roared the cannonry,

How rocked the bell-towers, and through thickening spray

Of nosegays, wreaths, and kerchiefs tossed on high,

How marched the civic guard, the people still

Being good at shouts, especially the boys!

Alas, poor people, of an unfledged will

Most fitly expressed by such a callow voice!

Alas, still poorer Duke, incapable

Of being worthy even of so much noise!

You think he came back instantly, with thanks

And tears in his faint eyes, and hands extended

To stretch the franchise through their utmost ranks?

That having, like a father, apprehended,

He came to pardon fatherly those pranks

Played out and now in filial service ended?—

That some love-token, like a prince, he threw

To meet the people's love-call, in return?

Well, how he came I will relate to you;

And if your hearts should burn, why, hearts must burn,

To make the ashes which things old and new

Shall be washed clean in — as this Duke will learn.

From Casa Guidi windows gazing, then,

I saw and witness how the Duke came back.

The regular tramp of horse and tread of men

Did smite the silence like an anvil black

And sparkless. With her wide eyes at full strain,

Our Tuscan nurse exclaimed “Alack, alack,

Signora! these shall be the Austrians.” “Nay,

Be still,” I answered, “do not wake the child!”

— For so, my two-months’ baby sleeping lay

In milky dreams upon the bed and smiled,

And I thought “He shall sleep on, while he may,

Through the world's baseness: not being yet defiled,

Why should he be disturbed by what is done?”

Then, gazing, I beheld the long-drawn street

Live out, from end to end, full in the sun,

With Austria's thousand; sword and bayonet,

Horse, foot, artillery,— cannons rolling on

Like blind slow storm-clouds gestant with the heat

Of undeveloped lightnings, each bestrode

By a single man, dust-white from head to heel,

Indifferent as the dreadful thing he rode,

Like a sculptured Fate serene and terrible.

As some smooth river which has overflowed

Will slow and silent down its current wheel

A loosened forest, all the pines erect,

So swept, in mute significance of storm,

The marshalled thousands; not an eye deflect

To left or right, to catch a novel form

Of Florence city adorned by architect

And carver, or of Beauties live and warm

Scared at the casements,— all, straightforward eyes

And faces, held as steadfast as their swords,

And cognizant of acts, not imageries.

The key, O Tuscans, too well fits the wards!

Ye asked for mimes,— these bring you tragedies:

For purple,— these shall wear it as your lords.

Ye played like children,— die like innocents.

Ye mimicked lightnings with a torch,— the crack

Of the actual bolt, your pastime circumvents.

Ye called up ghosts, believing they were slack

To follow any voice from Gilboa's tents,...

Here's Samuel!— and, so, Grand-dukes come back!

And yet, they are no prophets though they come:

That awful mantle, they are drawing close,

Shall be searched, one day, by the shafts of Doom

Through double folds now hoodwinking the brows.

Resuscitated monarchs disentomb

Grave-reptiles with them, in their new life-throes.

Let such beware. Behold, the people waits,

Like God: as He, in His serene of might,

So they, in their endurance of long straits.

Ye stamp no nation out, though day and night

Ye tread them with that absolute heel which grates

And grinds them flat from all attempted height.

You kill worms sooner with a garden-spade

Than you kill peoples: peoples will not die;

The tail curls stronger when you lop the head:

They writhe at every wound and multiply

And shudder into a heap of life that's made

Thus vital from God's own vitality.

‘ T is hard to shrivel back a day of God's

Once fixed for judgment:‘ t is as hard to change

The peoples, when they rise beneath their loads

And heave them from their backs with violent wrench

To crush the oppressor; for that judgment-rod's

The measure of this popular revenge.

Meanwhile, from Casa Guidi windows, we

Beheld the armament of Austria flow

Into the drowning heart of Tuscany:

And yet none wept, none cursed, or, if‘ t was so,

They wept and cursed in silence. Silently

Our noisy Tuscans watched the invading foe;

They had learnt silence. Pressed against the wall,

And grouped upon the church-steps opposite,

A few pale men and women stared at all.

God knows what they were feeling, with their white

Constrained faces, they, so prodigal

Of cry and gesture when the world goes right,

Or wrong indeed. But here was depth of wrong,

And here, still water; they were silent here;

And through that sentient silence, struck along

That measured tramp from which it stood out clear,

Distinct the sound and silence, like a gong

At midnight, each by the other awfuller,—

While every soldier in his cap displayed

A leaf of olive. Dusty, bitter thing!

Was such plucked at Novara, is it said?

A cry is up in England, which doth ring

The hollow world through, that for ends of trade

And virtue and God's better worshipping,

We henceforth should exalt the name of Peace

And leave those rusty wars that eat the soul,—

Besides their clippings at our golden fleece.

I, too, have loved peace, and from bole to bole

Of immemorial undeciduous trees

Would write, as lovers use upon a scroll,

The holy name of Peace and set it high

Where none could pluck it down. On trees, I say,—

Not upon gibbets!— With the greenery

Of dewy branches and the flowery May,

Sweet mediation betwixt earth and sky

Providing, for the shepherd's holiday.

Not upon gibbets! though the vulture leaves

The bones to quiet, which he first picked bare.

Not upon dungeons! though the wretch who grieves

And groans within less stirs the outer air

Than any little field-mouse stirs the sheaves.

Not upon chain-bolts! though the slave's despair

Has dulled his helpless miserable brain

And left him blank beneath the freeman's whip

To sing and laugh out idiocies of pain.

Nor yet on starving homes! where many a lip

Has sobbed itself asleep through curses vain.

I love no peace which is not fellowship

And which includes not mercy. I would have

Rather the raking of the guns across

The world, and shrieks against Heaven's architrave;

Rather the struggle in the slippery fosse

Of dying men and horses, and the wave

Blood-bubbling.... Enough said!— by Christ's own cross,

And by this faint heart of my womanhood,

Such things are better than a Peace that sits

Beside a hearth in self-commended mood,

And takes no thought how wind and rain by fits

Are howling out of doors against the good

Of the poor wanderer. What! your peace admits

Of outside anguish while it keeps at home?

I loathe to take its name upon my tongue.

‘ T is nowise peace:‘ t is treason, stiff with doom,—

‘ T is gagged despair and inarticulate wrong,—

Annihilated Poland, stifled Rome,

Dazed Naples, Hungary fainting‘ neath the thong,

And Austria wearing a smooth olive-leaf

On her brute forehead, while her hoofs outpress

The life from these Italian souls, in brief.

O Lord of Peace, who art Lord of Righteousness,

Constrain the anguished worlds from sin and grief,

Pierce them with conscience, purge them with redress,

And give us peace which is no counterfeit!

But wherefore should we look out any more

From Casa Guidi windows? Shut them straight,

And let us sit down by the folded door,

And veil our saddened faces and, so, wait

What next the judgment-heavens make ready for.

I have grown too weary of these windows. Sights

Come thick enough and clear enough in thought,

Without the sunshine; souls have inner lights.

And since the Grand-duke has come back and brought

This army of the North which thus requites

His filial South, we leave him to be taught.

His South, too, has learnt something certainly,

Whereof the practice will bring profit soon;

And peradventure other eyes may see,

From Casa Guidi windows, what is done

Or undone. Whatsoever deeds they be,

Pope Pius will be glorified in none.

Record that gain, Mazzini!— it shall top

Some heights of sorrow. Peter's rock, so named,

Shall lure no vessel any more to drop

Among the breakers. Peter's chair is shamed

Like any vulgar throne the nations lop

To pieces for their firewood unreclaimed,—

And, when it burns too, we shall see as well

In Italy as elsewhere. Let it burn.

The cross, accounted still adorable,

Is Christ's cross only!— if the thief's would earn

Some stealthy genuflexions, we rebel;

And here the impenitent thief's has had its turn,

As God knows; and the people on their knees

Scoff and toss back the crosiers stretched like yokes

To press their heads down lower by degrees.

So Italy, by means of these last strokes,

Escapes the danger which preceded these,

Of leaving captured hands in cloven oaks,—

Of leaving very souls within the buckle

Whence bodies struggled outward,— of supposing

That freemen may like bondsmen kneel and truckle,

And then stand up as usual, without losing

An inch of stature.

Those whom she-wolves suckle

Will bite as wolves do in the grapple-closing

Of adverse interests. This at last is known

( Thank Pius for the lesson ), that albeit

Among the popedom's hundred heads of stone

Which blink down on you from the roof's retreat

In Siena's tiger-striped cathedral, Joan

And Borgia‘ mid their fellows you may greet,

A harlot and a devil,— you will see

Not a man, still less angel, grandly set

With open soul to render man more free.

The fishers are still thinking of the net,

And, if not thinking of the hook too, we

Are counted somewhat deeply in their debt;

But that's a rare case — so, by hook and crook

They take the advantage, agonizing Christ

By rustier nails than those of Cedron's brook,

I’ the people's body very cheaply priced,—

And quote high priesthood out of Holy book,

While buying death-fields with the sacrificed.

Priests, priests,— there's no such name!— God's own, except

Ye take most vainly. Through heaven's lifted gate

The priestly ephod in sole glory swept

When Christ ascended, entered in, and sate

( With victor face sublimely overwept )

At Deity's right hand, to mediate,

He alone, He for ever. On His breast

The Urim and the Thummim, fed with fire

From the full Godhead, flicker with the unrest

Of human pitiful heart-beats. Come up higher,

All Christians! Levi's tribe is dispossest.

That solitary alb ye shall admire,

But not cast lots for. The last chrism, poured right,

Was on that Head, and poured for burial

And not for domination in men's sight.

What are these churches? The old temple-wall

Doth overlook them juggling with the sleight

Of surplice, candlestick and altar-pall;

East church and west church, ay, north church and south,

Rome's church and England's,— let them all repent,

And make concordats‘ twixt their soul and mouth,

Succeed Saint Paul by working at the tent,

Become infallible guides by speaking truth,

And excommunicate their pride that bent

And cramped the souls of men.

Why, even here

Priestcraft burns out, the twined linen blazes;

Not, like asbestos, to grow white and clear,

But all to perish!— while the fire-smell raises

To life some swooning spirits who, last year,

Lost breath and heart in these church-stifled places.

Why, almost, through this Pius, we believed

The priesthood could be an honest thing, he smiled

So saintly while our corn was being sheaved

For his own granaries! Showing now defiled

His hireling hands, a better help's achieved

Than if they blessed us shepherd-like and mild.

False doctrine, strangled by its own amen,

Dies in the throat of all this nation. Who

Will speak a pope's name as they rise again?

What woman or what child will count him true?

What dreamer praise him with the voice or pen?

What man fight for him?— Pius takes his due.

Record that gain, Mazzini!— Yes, but first

Set down thy people's faults; set down the want

Of soul-conviction; set down aims dispersed,

And incoherent means, and valour scant

Because of scanty faith, and schisms accursed

That wrench these brother-hearts from covenant

With freedom and each other. Set down this,

And this, and see to overcome it when

The seasons bring the fruits thou wilt not miss

If wary. Let no cry of patriot men

Distract thee from the stern analysis

Of masses who cry only! keep thy ken

Clear as thy soul is virtuous. Heroes’ blood

Splashed up against thy noble brow in Rome;

Let such not blind thee to an interlude

Which was not also holy, yet did come

‘ Twixt sacramental actions,— brotherhood

Despised even there, and something of the doom

Of Remus in the trenches. Listen now —

Rossi died silent near where Caesar died.

HE did not say “My Brutus, is it thou?”

But Italy unquestioned testified

“I killed him! I am Brutus.— I avow.”

At which the whole world's laugh of scorn replied

“A poor maimed copy of Brutus!”

Too much like,

Indeed, to be so unlike! too unskilled

At Philippi and the honest battle-pike,

To be so skilful where a man is killed

Near Pompey's statue, and the daggers strike

At unawares i’ the throat. Was thus fulfilled

An omen once of Michel Angelo?—

When Marcus Brutus he conceived complete,

And strove to hurl him out by blow on blow

Upon the marble, at Art's thunderheat,

Till haply ( some pre-shadow rising slow

Of what his Italy would fancy meet

To be called BRUTUS ) straight his plastic hand

Fell back before his prophet-soul, and left

A fragment, a maimed Brutus,— but more grand

Than this, so named at Rome, was!

Let thy weft

Present one woof and warp, Mazzini! Stand

With no man hankering for a dagger's heft,

No, not for Italy!— nor stand apart,

No, not for the Republic!— from those pure

Brave men who hold the level of thy heart

In patriot truth, as lover and as doer,

Albeit they will not follow where thou art

As extreme theorist. Trust and distrust fewer;

And so bind strong and keep unstained the cause

Which ( God's sign granted ) war-trumps newly blown

Shall yet annunciate to the world's applause.

But now, the world is busy; it has grown

A Fair-going world. Imperial England draws

The flowing ends of the earth from Fez, Canton,

Delhi and Stockholm, Athens and Madrid,

The Russias and the vast Americas,

As if a queen drew in her robes amid

Her golden cincture,— isles, peninsulas,

Capes, continents, far inland countries hid

By jasper-sands and hills of chrysopras,

All trailing in their splendours through the door

Of the gorgeous Crystal Palace. Every nation,

To every other nation strange of yore,

Gives face to face the civic salutation,

And holds up in a proud right hand before

That congress the best work which she can fashion

By her best means. “These corals, will you please

To match against your oaks? They grow as fast

Within my wilderness of purple seas.” —

“This diamond stared upon me as I passed

( As a live god's eye from a marble frieze )

Along a dark of diamonds. Is it classed?” —

“I wove these stuffs so subtly that the gold

Swims to the surface of the silk like cream

And curdles to fair patterns. Ye behold!” —

“These delicatest muslins rather seem

Than be, you think? Nay, touch them and be bold,

Though such veiled Chakhi's face in Hafiz’ dream.” —

“These carpets — you walk slow on them like kings,

Inaudible like spirits, while your foot

Dips deep in velvet roses and such things.” —

“Even Apollonius might commend this flute:

The music, winding through the stops, upsprings

To make the player very rich: compute!”

“Here's goblet-glass, to take in with your wine

The very sun its grapes were ripened under:

Drink light and juice together, and each fine.” —

“This model of a steamship moves your wonder?

You should behold it crushing down the brine

Like a blind Jove who feels his way with thunder.” —

“Here's sculpture! Ah, we live too! why not throw

Our life into our marbles? Art has place

For other artists after Angelo.” —

“I tried to paint out here a natural face;

For nature includes Raffael, as we know,

Not Raffael nature. Will it help my case?” —

“Methinks you will not match this steel of ours!” —

“Nor you this porcelain! One might dream the clay

Retained in it the larvae of the flowers,

They bud so, round the cup, the old Spring-way.” —

“Nor you these carven woods, where birds in bowers

With twisting snakes and climbing cupids, play.”

O Magi of the east and of the west,

Your incense, gold and myrrh are excellent!—

What gifts for Christ, then, bring ye with the rest?

Your hands have worked well: is your courage spent

In handwork only? Have you nothing best,

Which generous souls may perfect and present,

And He shall thank the givers for? no light

Of teaching, liberal nations, for the poor

Who sit in darkness when it is not night?

No cure for wicked children? Christ,— no cure!

No help for women sobbing out of sight

Because men made the laws? no brothel-lure

Burnt out by popular lightnings? Hast thou four

No remedy, my England, for such woes?

No outlet, Austria, for the scourged and bound,

No entrance for the exiled? no repose,

Russia, for knouted Poles worked underground,

And gentle ladies bleached among the snows?

No mercy for the slave, America?

No hope for Rome, free France, chivalric France?

Alas, great nations have great shames, I say.

No pity, O world, no tender utterance

Of benediction, and prayers stretched this way

For poor Italia, baffled by mischance?

O gracious nations, give some ear to me!

You all go to your Fair, and I am one

Who at the roadside of humanity

Beseech your alms,— God's justice to be done.

So, prosper!

In the name of Italy,

Meantime, her patriot Dead have benison.

They only have done well; and, what they did

Being perfect, it shall triumph. Let them slumber:

No king of Egypt in a pyramid

Is safer from oblivion, though he number

Full seventy cerements for a coverlid.

These Dead be seeds of life, and shall encumber

The sad heart of the land until it loose

The clammy clods and let out the Spring-growth

In beatific green through every bruise.

The tyrant should take heed to what he doth,

Since every victim-carrion turns to use,

And drives a chariot, like a god made wroth,

Against each piled injustice. Ay, the least,

Dead for Italia, not in vain has died;

Though many vainly, ere life's struggle ceased,

To mad dissimilar ends have swerved aside;

Each grave her nationality has pieced

By its own majestic breadth, and fortified

And pinned it deeper to the soil. Forlorn

Of thanks be, therefore, no one of these graves!

Not Hers,— who, at her husband's side, in scorn,

Outfaced the whistling shot and hissing waves,

Until she felt her little babe unborn

Recoil, within her, from the violent staves

And bloodhounds of the world,— at which, her life

Dropt inwards from her eyes and followed it

Beyond the hunters. Garibaldi's wife

And child died so. And now, the seaweeds fit

Her body, like a proper shroud and coif,

And murmurously the ebbing waters grit

The little pebbles while she lies interred

In the sea-sand. Perhaps, ere dying thus,

She looked up in his face ( which never stirred

From its clenched anguish ) as to make excuse

For leaving him for his, if so she erred.

He well remembers that she could not choose.

A memorable grave! Another is

At Genoa. There, a king may fitly lie,

Who, bursting that heroic heart of his

At lost Novara, that he could not die

( Though thrice into the cannon's eyes for this

He plunged his shuddering steed, and felt the sky

Reel back between the fire-shocks ), stripped away

The ancestral ermine ere the smoke had cleared,

And, naked to the soul, that none might say

His kingship covered what was base and bleared

With treason, went out straight an exile, yea,

An exiled patriot. Let him be revered.

Yea, verily, Charles Albert has died well;

And if he lived not all so, as one spoke,

The sin pass softly with the passing-bell;

For he was shriven, I think, in cannon-smoke,

And, taking off his crown, made visible

A hero's forehead. Shaking Austria's yoke

He shattered his own hand and heart. “So best,”

His last words were upon his lonely bed,

I do not end like popes and dukes at least —

“Thank God for it.” And now that he is dead,

Admitting it is proved and manifest

That he was worthy, with a discrowned head,

To measure heights with patriots, let them stand

Beside the man in his Oporto shroud,

And each vouchsafe to take him by the hand,

And kiss him on the cheek, and say aloud,—

“Thou, too, hast suffered for our native land!

My brother, thou art one of us! be proud.”

Still, graves, when Italy is talked upon.

Still, still, the patriot's tomb, the stranger's hate.

Still Niobe! still fainting in the sun,

By whose most dazzling arrows violate

Her beauteous offspring perished! has she won

Nothing but garlands for the graves, from Fate?

Nothing but death-songs?— Yes, be it understood

Life throbs in noble Piedmont! while the feet

Of Rome's clay image, dabbled soft in blood,

Grow flat with dissolution and, as meet,

Will soon be shovelled off like other mud,

To leave the passage free in church and street.

And I, who first took hope up in this song,

Because a child was singing one... behold,

The hope and omen were not, haply, wrong!

Poets are soothsayers still, like those of old

Who studied flights of doves; and creatures young

And tender, mighty meanings may unfold.

The sun strikes, through the windows, up the floor;

Stand out in it, my own young Florentine,

Not two years old, and let me see thee more!

It grows along thy amber curls, to shine

Brighter than elsewhere. Now, look straight before,

And fix thy brave blue English eyes on mine,

And from my soul, which fronts the future so,

With unabashed and unabated gaze,

Teach me to hope for, what the angels know

When they smile clear as thou dost. Down God's ways

With just alighted feet, between the snow

And snowdrops, where a little lamb may graze,

Thou hast no fear, my lamb, about the road,

Albeit in our vain-glory we assume

That, less than we have, thou hast learnt of God.

Stand out, my blue-eyed prophet!— thou, to whom

The earliest world-day light that ever flowed,

Through Casa Guidi Windows chanced to come!

Now shake the glittering nimbus of thy hair,

And be God's witness that the elemental

New springs of life are gushing everywhere

To cleanse the watercourses, and prevent all

Concrete obstructions which infest the air!

That earth's alive, and gentle or ungentle

Motions within her, signify but growth!—

The ground swells greenest o'er the labouring moles.

Howe'er the uneasy world is vexed and wroth,

Young children, lifted high on parent souls,

Look round them with a smile upon the mouth,

And take for music every bell that tolls;

( WHO said we should be better if like these? )

But we sit murmuring for the future though

Posterity is smiling on our knees,

Convicting us of folly. Let us go —

We will trust God. The blank interstices

Men take for ruins, He will build into

With pillared marbles rare, or knit across

With generous arches, till the fane's complete.

This world has no perdition, if some loss.

Such cheer I gather from thy smiling, Sweet!

The self-same cherub-faces which emboss

The Vail, lean inward to the Mercy-seat.