Casa Guidi Windows 1

I heard last night a little child go singing
&nbsp’Neath Casa Guidi windows, by the church,
O bella libertà, O bella!—stringing
&nbspThe same words still on notes he went in search
So high for, you concluded the upspringing
&nbspOf such a nimble bird to sky from perch
Must leave the whole bush in a tremble green,
&nbspAnd that the heart of Italy must beat,
While such a voice had leave to rise serene
&nbsp’Twixt church and palace of a Florence street:
A little child, too, who not long had been
&nbspBy mother’s finger steadied on his feet,
And still O bella libertà he sang.

Then I thought, musing, of the innumerous
&nbspSweet songs which still for Italy outrang
From older singers’ lips who sang not thus
&nbspExultingly and purely, yet, with pang
Fast sheathed in music, touched the heart of us
&nbspSo finely that the pity scarcely pained.
I thought how Filicaja led on others,
&nbspBewailers for their Italy enchained,
And how they called her childless among mothers,
&nbspWidow of empires, ay, and scarce refrained
Cursing her beauty to her face, as brothers
&nbspMight a shamed sister’s,—“Had she been less fair
She were less wretched;”—how, evoking so
&nbspFrom congregated wrong and heaped despair
Of men and women writhing under blow,
&nbspHarrowed and hideous in a filthy lair,
Some personating Image wherein woe
&nbspWas wrapt in beauty from offending much,
They called it Cybele, or Niobe,
&nbspOr laid it corpse-like on a bier for such,
Where all the world might drop for Italy
&nbspThose cadenced tears which burn not where they touch,—
“Juliet of nations, canst thou die as we?
&nbspAnd was the violet crown that crowned thy head
So over-large, though new buds made it rough,
&nbspIt slipped down and across thine eyelids dead,
O sweet, fair Juliet?” Of such songs enough,
&nbspToo many of such complaints! behold, instead,
Void at Verona, Juliet’s marble trough:
&nbspAs void as that is, are all images
Men set between themselves and actual wrong,
&nbspTo catch the weight of pity, meet the stress
Of conscience,—since ’t is easier to gaze long
&nbspOn mournful masks and sad effigies
Than on real, live, weak creatures crushed by strong.

For me who stand in Italy to-day
&nbspWhere worthier poets stood and sang before,
I kiss their footsteps yet their words gainsay.
&nbspI can but muse in hope upon this shore
Of golden Arno as it shoots away
&nbspThrough Florence’ heart beneath her bridges four:
Bent bridges, seeming to strain off like bows,
&nbspAnd tremble while the arrowy undertide
Shoots on and cleaves the marble as it goes,
&nbspAnd strikes up palace-walls on either side,
And froths the cornice out in glittering rows,
&nbspWith doors and windows quaintly multiplied,
And terrace-sweeps, and gazers upon all,
&nbspBy whom if flower or kerchief were thrown out
From any lattice there, the same would fall
&nbspInto the river underneath, no doubt,
It runs so close and fast ’twixt wall and wall.
&nbspHow beautiful! the mountains from without
In silence listen for the word said next.
&nbspWhat word will men say,—here where Giotto planted
His campanile like an unperplexed
&nbspFine question Heavenward, touching the things granted
A noble people who, being greatly vexed
&nbspIn act, in aspiration keep undaunted?
What word will God say? Michel’s Night and Day
&nbspAnd Dawn and Twilight wait in marble scorn
Like dogs upon a dunghill, couched on clay
&nbspFrom whence the Medicean stamp’s outworn,
The final putting off of all such sway
&nbspBy all such hands, and freeing of the unborn
In Florence and the great world outside Florence.
&nbspThree hundred years his patient statues wait
In that small chapel of the dim Saint Lawrence:
&nbspDay’s eyes are breaking bold and passionate
Over his shoulder, and will flash abhorrence
&nbspOn darkness and with level looks meet fate,
When once loose from that marble film of theirs;
&nbspThe Night has wild dreams in her sleep, the Dawn
Is haggard as the sleepless, Twilight wears
&nbspA sort of horror; as the veil withdrawn
’Twixt the artist’s soul and works had left them heirs
&nbspOf speechless thoughts which would not quail nor fawn,
Of angers and contempts, of hope and love:
&nbspFor not without a meaning did he place
The princely Urbino on the seat above
&nbspWith everlasting shadow on his face,
While the slow dawns and twilights disapprove
&nbspThe ashes of his long-extinguished race
Which never more shall clog the feet of men.
&nbspI do believe, divinest Angelo,
That winter-hour in Via Larga, when
&nbspThey bade thee build a statue up in snow
And straight that marvel of thine art again
&nbspDissolved beneath the sun’s Italian glow,
Thine eyes, dilated with the plastic passion,
&nbspThawing too in drops of wounded manhood, since,
To mock alike thine art and indignation,
&nbspLaughed at the palace-window the new prince,—
(“Aha! this genius needs for exaltation,
&nbspWhen all’s said and however the proud may wince,
A little marble from our princely mines!”)
&nbspI do believe that hour thou laughedst too
For the whole sad world and for thy Florentines,
&nbspAfter those few tears, which were only few!
That as, beneath the sun, the grand white lines
&nbspOf thy snow-statue trembled and withdrew,—
The head, erect as Jove’s, being palsied first,
&nbspThe eyelids flattened, the full brow turned blank,
The right-hand, raised but now as if it cursed,
&nbspDropt, a mere snowball, (till the people sank
Their voices, though a louder laughter burst
&nbspFrom the royal window)—thou couldst proudly thank
God and the prince for promise and presage,
&nbspAnd laugh the laugh back, I think verily,
Thine eyes being purged by tears of righteous rage
&nbspTo read a wrong into a prophecy,
And measure a true great man’s heritage
&nbspAgainst a mere great-duke’s posterity.
I think thy soul said then, “I do not need
&nbspA princedom and its quarries, after all;
For if I write, paint, carve a word, indeed,
&nbspOn book or board or dust, on floor or wall,
The same is kept of God who taketh heed
&nbspThat not a letter of the meaning fall
Or ere it touch and teach His world’s deep heart,
&nbspOutlasting, therefore, all your lordships, sir!
So keep your stone, beseech you, for your part,
&nbspTo cover up your grave-place and refer
The proper titles; I live by my art.
&nbspThe thought I threw into this snow shall stir
This gazing people when their gaze is done;
&nbspAnd the tradition of your act and mine,
When all the snow is melted in the sun,
&nbspShall gather up, for unborn men, a sign
Of what is the true princedom,—ay, and none
&nbspShall laugh that day, except the drunk with wine.”

Amen, great Angelo! the day’s at hand.
&nbspIf many laugh not on it, shall we weep?
Much more we must not, let us understand.
&nbspThrough rhymers sonneteering in their sleep
And archaists mumbling dry bones up the land
&nbspAnd sketchers lauding ruined towns a-heap,—
Through all that drowsy hum of voices smooth,
&nbspThe hopeful bird mounts carolling from brake,
The hopeful child, with leaps to catch his growth,
&nbspSings open-eyed for liberty’s sweet sake:
And I, a singer also from my youth,
&nbspPrefer to sing with these who are awake,
With birds, with babes, with men who will not fear
&nbspThe baptism of the holy morning dew,
(And many of such wakers now are here,
&nbspComplete in their anointed manhood, who
Will greatly dare and greatlier persevere,)
&nbspThan join those old thin voices with my new,
And sigh for Italy with some safe sigh
&nbspCooped up in music ’twixt an oh and ah,—
Nay, hand in hand with that young child, will I
&nbspGo singing rather, “Bella libertà,”
Than, with those poets, croon the dead or cry
&nbsp“Se tu men bella fossi, Italia!”

“Less wretched if less fair.” Perhaps a truth
&nbspIs so far plain in this, that Italy,
Long trammelled with the purple of her youth
&nbspAgainst her age’s ripe activity,
Sits still upon her tombs, without death’s ruth
&nbspBut also without life’s brave energy.
“Now tell us what is Italy?” men ask:
&nbspAnd others answer, “Virgil, Cicero,
Catullus, Cæsar.” What beside? to task
&nbspThe memory closer—“Why, Boccaccio,
Dante, Petrarca,”—and if still the flask
&nbspAppears to yield its wine by drops too slow,—
“Angelo, Raffael, Pergolese,”—all
&nbspWhose strong hearts beat through stone, or charged again
The paints with fire of souls electrical,
&nbspOr broke up heaven for music. What more then?
Why, then, no more. The chaplet’s last beads fall
&nbspIn naming the last saintship within ken,
And, after that, none prayeth in the land.
&nbspAlas, this Italy has too long swept
Heroic ashes up for hour-glass sand;
&nbspOf her own past, impassioned nympholept!
Consenting to be nailed here by the hand
&nbspTo the very bay-tree under which she stept
A queen of old, and plucked a leafy branch;
&nbspAnd, licensing the world too long indeed
To use her broad phylacteries to staunch
&nbspAnd stop her bloody lips, she takes no heed
How one clear word would draw an avalanche
&nbspOf living sons around her, to succeed
The vanished generations. Can she count
&nbspThese oil-eaters with large live mobile mouths
Agape for macaroni, in the amount
&nbspOf consecrated heroes of her south’s
Bright rosary? The pitcher at the fount,
&nbspThe gift of gods, being broken, she much loathes
To let the ground-leaves of the place confer
&nbspA natural bowl. So henceforth she would seem
No nation, but the poet’s pensioner,
&nbspWith alms from every land of song and dream,
While aye her pipers sadly pipe of her
&nbspUntil their proper breaths, in that extreme
Of sighing, split the reed on which they played:
&nbspOf which, no more. But never say “no more”
To Italy’s life! Her memories undismayed
&nbspStill argue “evermore;” her graves implore
Her future to be strong and not afraid;
&nbspHer very statues send their looks before.

We do not serve the dead—the past is past.
&nbspGod lives, and lifts His glorious mornings up
Before the eyes of men awake at last,
&nbspWho put away the meats they used to sup,
And down upon the dust of earth outcast
&nbspThe dregs remaining of the ancient cup,
Then turn to wakeful prayer and worthy act.
&nbspThe Dead, upon their awful ’vantage ground,
The sun not in their faces, shall abstract
&nbspNo more our strength; we will not be discrowned
As guardians of their crowns, nor deign transact
&nbspA barter of the present, for a sound
Of good so counted in the foregone days.
&nbspO Dead, ye shall no longer cling to us
With rigid hands of desiccating praise,
&nbspAnd drag us backward by the garment thus,
To stand and laud you in long-drawn virelays!
&nbspWe will not henceforth be oblivious
Of our own lives, because ye lived before,
&nbspNor of our acts, because ye acted well.
We thank you that ye first unlatched the door,
&nbspBut will not make it inaccessible
By thankings on the threshold any more.
&nbspWe hurry onward to extinguish hell
With our fresh souls, our younger hope, and God’s
&nbspMaturity of purpose. Soon shall we
Die also! and, that then our periods
&nbspOf life may round themselves to memory
As smoothly as on our graves the burial-sods,
&nbspWe now must look to it to excel as ye,
And bear our age as far, unlimited
&nbspBy the last mind-mark; so, to be invoked
By future generations, as their Dead.

’T is true that when the dust of death has choked
&nbspA great man’s voice, the common words he said
Turn oracles, the common thoughts he yoked
&nbspLike horses, draw like griffins: this is true
And acceptable. I, too, should desire,
&nbspWhen men make record, with the flowers they strew,
“Savonarola’s soul went out in fire
&nbspUpon our Grand-duke’s piazza, and burned through
A moment first, or ere he did expire,
&nbspThe veil betwixt the right and wrong, and showed
How near God sat and judged the judges there,—”
&nbspUpon the self-same pavement overstrewed
To cast my violets with as reverent care,
&nbspAnd prove that all the winters which have snowed
Cannot snow out the scent from stones and air,
&nbspOf a sincere man’s virtues. This was he,
Savonarola, who, while Peter sank
&nbspWith his whole boat-load, called courageously
“Wake Christ, wake Christ!”—who, having tried the tank
&nbspOf old church-waters used for baptistry
Ere Luther came to spill them, swore they stank;
&nbspWho also by a princely deathbed cried,
“Loose Florence, or God will not loose thy soul!”
&nbspThen fell back the Magnificent and died
Beneath the star-look shooting from the cowl,
&nbspWhich turned to wormwood-bitterness the wide
Deep sea of his ambitions. It were foul
&nbspTo grudge Savonarola and the rest
Their violets: rather pay them quick and fresh!
&nbspThe emphasis of death makes manifest
The eloquence of action in our flesh;
&nbspAnd men who, living, were but dimly guessed,
When once free from their life’s entangled mesh,
&nbspShow their full length in graves, or oft indeed
Exaggerate their stature, in the flat,
&nbspTo noble admirations which exceed
Most nobly, yet will calculate in that
&nbspBut accurately. We, who are the seed
Of buried creatures, if we turned and spat
&nbspUpon our antecedents, we were vile.
Bring violets rather. If these had not walked
&nbspTheir furlong, could we hope to walk our mile?
Therefore bring violets. Yet if we self-baulked
&nbspStand still, a-strewing violets all the while,
These moved in vain, of whom we have vainly talked.
&nbspSo rise up henceforth with a cheerful smile,
And having strewn the violets, reap the corn,
&nbspAnd having reaped and garnered, bring the plough
And draw new furrows ’neath the healthy morn,
&nbspAnd plant the great Hereafter in this Now.

Of old ’t was so. How step by step was worn,
&nbspAs each man gained on each securely!—how
Each by his own strength sought his own Ideal,—
&nbspThe ultimate Perfection leaning bright
From out the sun and stars to bless the leal
&nbspAnd earnest search of all for Fair and Right
Through doubtful forms by earth accounted real!
&nbspBecause old Jubal blew into delight
The souls of men with clear-piped melodies,
&nbspIf youthful Asaph were content at most
To draw from Jubal’s grave, with listening eyes,
&nbspTraditionary music’s floating ghost
Into the grass-grown silence, were it wise?
&nbspAnd was ’t not wiser, Jubal’s breath being lost,
That Miriam clashed her cymbals to surprise
&nbspThe sun between her white arms flung apart,
With new glad golden sounds? that David’s strings
&nbspO’erflowed his hand with music from his heart?
So harmony grows full from many springs,
&nbspAnd happy accident turns holy art.

You enter, in your Florence wanderings,
&nbspThe church of Saint Maria Novella. Pass
The left stair, where at plague-time Machiavel
&nbspSaw One with set fair face as in a glass,
Dressed out against the fear of death and hell,
&nbspRustling her silks in pauses of the mass,
To keep the thought off how her husband fell,
&nbspWhen she left home, stark dead across her feet,—
The stair leads up to what the Orgagnas save
&nbspOf Dante’s dæmons; you, in passing it,
Ascend the right stair from the farther nave
&nbspTo muse in a small chapel scarcely lit
By Cimabue’s Virgin. Bright and brave,
&nbspThat picture was accounted, mark, of old:
A king stood bare before its sovran grace,
&nbspA reverent people shouted to behold
The picture, not the king, and even the place
&nbspContaining such a miracle grew bold,
Named the Glad Borgo from that beauteous face
&nbspWhich thrilled the artist, after work, to think
His own ideal Mary-smile should stand
&nbspSo very near him,—he, within the brink
Of all that glory, let in by his hand
&nbspWith too divine a rashness! Yet none shrink
Who come to gaze here now; albeit ’t was planned
&nbspSublimely in the thought’s simplicity:
The Lady, throned in empyreal state,
&nbspMinds only the young Babe upon her knee,
While sidelong angels bear the royal weight,
&nbspProstrated meekly, smiling tenderly
Oblivion of their wings; the Child thereat
&nbspStretching its hand like God. If any should,
Because of some stiff draperies and loose joints,
&nbspGaze scorn down from the heights of Raffaelhood
On Cimabue’s picture,—Heaven anoints
&nbspThe head of no such critic, and his blood
The poet’s curse strikes full on and appoints
&nbspTo ague and cold spasms for evermore.
A noble picture! worthy of the shout
&nbspWherewith along the streets the people bore
Its cherub-faces which the sun threw out
&nbspUntil they stooped and entered the church door.
Yet rightly was young Giotto talked about,
&nbspWhom Cimabue found among the sheep,
And knew, as gods know gods, and carried home
&nbspTo paint the things he had painted, with a deep
And fuller insight, and so overcome
&nbspHis chapel-Lady with a heavenlier sweep
Of light: for thus we mount into the sum
&nbspOf great things known or acted. I hold, too,
That Cimabue smiled upon the lad
&nbspAt the first stroke which passed what he could do,
Or else his Virgin’s smile had never had
&nbspSuch sweetness in ’t. All great men who foreknew
Their heirs in art, for art’s sake have been glad,
&nbspAnd bent their old white heads as if uncrowned,
Fanatics of their pure Ideals still
&nbspFar more than of their triumphs, which were found
With some less vehement struggle of the will.
&nbspIf old Margheritone trembled, swooned
And died despairing at the open sill
&nbspOf other men’s achievements (who achieved,
By loving art beyond the master), he
&nbspWas old Margheritone, and conceived
Never, at first youth and most ecstasy,
&nbspA Virgin like that dream of one, which heaved
The death-sigh from his heart. If wistfully
&nbspMargheritone sickened at the smell
Of Cimabue’s laurel, let him go!
&nbspFor Cimabue stood up very well
In spite of Giotto’s, and Angelico
&nbspThe artist-saint kept smiling in his cell
The smile with which he welcomed the sweet slow
&nbspInbreak of angels (whitening through the dim
That he might paint them), while the sudden sense
&nbspOf Raffael’s future was revealed to him
By force of his own fair works’ competence.
&nbspThe same blue waters where the dolphins swim
Suggest the tritons. Through the blue Immense
&nbspStrike out, all swimmers! cling not in the way
Of one another, so to sink; but learn
&nbspThe strong man’s impulse, catch the freshening spray
He throws up in his motions, and discern
&nbspBy his clear westering eye, the time of day.
Thou, God, hast set us worthy gifts to earn
&nbspBesides Thy heaven and Thee! and when I say
There’s room here for the weakest man alive
&nbspTo live and die, there’s room too, I repeat,
For all the strongest to live well, and strive
&nbspTheir own way, by their individual heat,—
Like some new bee-swarm leaving the old hive,
&nbspDespite the wax which tempts so violet-sweet.
Then let the living live, the dead retain
&nbspTheir grave-cold flowers!—though honour’s best supplied
By bringing actions, to prove theirs not vain.

Cold graves, we say? it shall be testified
&nbspThat living men who burn in heart and brain,
Without the dead were colder. If we tried
&nbspTo sink the past beneath our feet, be sure
The future would not stand. Precipitate
&nbspThis old roof from the shrine, and, insecure,
The nesting swallows fly off, mate from mate.
&nbspHow scant the gardens, if the graves were fewer!
The tall green poplars grew no longer straight
&nbspWhose tops not looked to Troy. Would any fight
For Athens, and not swear by Marathon?
&nbspWho dared build temples, without tombs in sight?
Or live, without some dead man’s benison?
&nbspOr seek truth, hope for good, and strive for right,
If, looking up, he saw not in the sun
&nbspSome angel of the martyrs all day long
Standing and waiting? Your last rhythm will need
&nbspYour earliest key-note. Could I sing this song,
If my dead masters had not taken heed
&nbspTo help the heavens and earth to make me strong,
As the wind ever will find out some reed
&nbspAnd touch it to such issues as belong
To such a frail thing? None may grudge the Dead
&nbspLibations from full cups. Unless we choose
To look back to the hills behind us spread,
&nbspThe plains before us sadden and confuse;
If orphaned, we are disinherited.

I would but turn these lachrymals to use,
&nbspAnd pour fresh oil in from the olive-grove,
To furnish them as new lamps. Shall I say
&nbspWhat made my heart beat with exulting love
A few weeks back?—

&nbsp       &nbsp       &nbspThe day was such a day
As Florence owes the sun. The sky above,
&nbspIts weight upon the mountains seemed to lay,
And palpitate in glory, like a dove
&nbspWho has flown too fast, full-hearted—take away
The image! for the heart of man beat higher
&nbspThat day in Florence, flooding all her streets
And piazzas with a tumult and desire.
&nbspThe people, with accumulated heats
And faces turned one way, as if one fire
&nbspBoth drew and flushed them, left their ancient beats
And went up toward the palace-Pitti wall
&nbspTo thank their Grand-duke who, not quite of course,
Had graciously permitted, at their call,
&nbspThe citizens to use their civic force
To guard their civic homes. So, one and all,
&nbspThe Tuscan cities streamed up to the source
Of this new good at Florence, taking it
&nbspAs good so far, presageful of more good,—
The first torch of Italian freedom, lit
&nbspTo toss in the next tiger’s face who should
Approach too near them in a greedy fit,—
&nbspThe first pulse of an even flow of blood
To prove the level of Italian veins
&nbspTowards rights perceived and granted. How we gazed
From Casa Guidi windows while, in trains
&nbspOf orderly procession—banners raised,
And intermittent bursts of martial strains
&nbspWhich died upon the shout, as if amazed
By gladness beyond music—they passed on!
&nbspThe Magistracy, with insignia, passed,—
And all the people shouted in the sun,
&nbspAnd all the thousand windows which had cast
A ripple of silks in blue and scarlet down
&nbsp(As if the houses overflowed at last),
Seemed growing larger with fair heads and eyes.
&nbspThe Lawyers passed,—and still arose the shout,
And hands broke from the windows to surprise
&nbspThose grave calm brows with bay-tree leaves thrown out.
The Priesthood passed,—the friars with worldly-wise
&nbspKeen sidelong glances from their beards about
The street to see who shouted; many a monk
&nbspWho takes a long rope in the waist, was there:
Whereat the popular exultation drunk
&nbspWith indrawn “vivas” the whole sunny air,
While through the murmuring windows rose and sunk
&nbspA cloud of kerchiefed hands,—“The church makes fair
Her welcome in the new Pope’s name.” Ensued
&nbspThe black sign of the “Martyrs”—(name no name,
But count the graves in silence). Next were viewed
&nbspThe Artists; next, the Trades; and after came
The People,—flag and sign, and rights as good—
&nbspAnd very loud the shout was for that same
Motto, “Il popolo.” Il Popolo,—
&nbspThe word means dukedom, empire, majesty,
And kings in such an hour might read it so.
&nbspAnd next, with banners, each in his degree,
Deputed representatives a-row
&nbspOf every separate state of Tuscany:
Siena’s she-wolf, bristling on the fold
&nbspOf the first flag, preceded Pisa’s hare,
And Massa’s lion floated calm in gold,
&nbspPienza’s following with his silver stare,
Arezzo’s steed pranced clear from bridle-hold,—
&nbspAnd well might shout our Florence, greeting there
These, and more brethren. Last, the world had sent
&nbspThe various children of her teeming flanks—
Greeks, English, French—as if to a parliament
&nbspOf lovers of her Italy in ranks,
Each bearing its land’s symbol reverent;
&nbspAt which the stones seemed breaking into thanks
And rattling up the sky, such sounds in proof
&nbspArose; the very house-walls seemed to bend;
The very windows, up from door to roof,
&nbspFlashed out a rapture of bright heads, to mend
With passionate looks the gesture’s whirling off
&nbspA hurricane of leaves. Three hours did end
While all these passed; and ever in the crowd,
&nbspRude men, unconscious of the tears that kept
Their beards moist, shouted; some few laughed aloud,
&nbspAnd none asked any why they laughed and wept:
Friends kissed each other’s cheeks, and foes long vowed
&nbspMore warmly did it; two-months’ babies leapt
Right upward in their mother’s arms, whose black
&nbspWide glittering eyes looked elsewhere; lovers pressed
Each before either, neither glancing back;
&nbspAnd peasant maidens smoothly ’tired and tressed
Forgot to finger on their throats the slack
&nbspGreat pearl-strings; while old blind men would not rest,
But pattered with their staves and slid their shoes
&nbspAlong the stones, and smiled as if they saw.
O heaven, I think that day had noble use
&nbspAmong God’s days! So near stood Right and Law,
Both mutually forborne! Law would not bruise
&nbspNor Right deny, and each in reverent awe
Honoured the other. And if, ne’ertheless,
&nbspThat good day’s sun delivered to the vines
No charta, and the liberal Duke’s excess
&nbspDid scarce exceed a Guelf’s or Ghibelline’s
In any special actual righteousness
&nbspOf what that day he granted, still the signs
Are good and full of promise, we must say,
&nbspWhen multitudes approach their kings with prayers
And kings concede their people’s right to pray
&nbspBoth in one sunshine. Griefs are not despairs,
So uttered, nor can royal claims dismay
&nbspWhen men from humble homes and ducal chairs
Hate wrong together. It was well to view
&nbspThose banners ruffled in a ruler’s face
Inscribed, “Live freedom, union, and all true
&nbspBrave patriots who are aided by God’s grace!”
Nor was it ill when Leopoldo drew
&nbspHis little children to the window-place
He stood in at the Pitti, to suggest
&nbspThey too should govern as the people willed.
What a cry rose then! some, who saw the best,
&nbspDeclared his eyes filled up and overfilled
With good warm human tears which unrepressed
&nbspRan down. I like his face; the forehead’s build
Has no capacious genius, yet perhaps
&nbspSufficient comprehension,—mild and sad,
And careful nobly,—not with care that wraps
&nbspSelf-loving hearts, to stifle and make mad,
But careful with the care that shuns a lapse
&nbspOf faith and duty, studious not to add
A burden in the gathering of a gain.
&nbspAnd so, God save the Duke, I say with those
Who that day shouted it; and while dukes reign,
&nbspMay all wear in the visible overflows
Of spirit, such a look of careful pain!
&nbspFor God must love it better than repose.

And all the people who went up to let
&nbspTheir hearts out to that Duke, as has been told—
Where guess ye that the living people met,
&nbspKept tryst, formed ranks, chose leaders, first unrolled
Their banners?

&nbsp       &nbspIn the Loggia? where is set
Cellini’s godlike Perseus, bronze or gold,
&nbsp(How name the metal, when the statue flings
Its soul so in your eyes?) with brow and sword
&nbspSuperbly calm, as all opposing things,
Slain with the Gorgon, were no more abhorred
Since ended?

&nbspNo, the people sought no wings
From Perseus in the Loggia, nor implored
&nbspAn inspiration in the place beside
From that dim bust of Brutus, jagged and grand,
&nbspWhere Buonarroti passionately tried
From out the close-clenched marble to demand
&nbspThe head of Rome’s sublimest homicide,
Then dropt the quivering mallet from his hand,
&nbspDespairing he could find no model-stuff
Of Brutus in all Florence where he found
&nbspThe gods and gladiators thick enough.
Nor there! the people chose still holier ground:
&nbspThe people, who are simple, blind and rough,
Know their own angels, after looking round.
Whom chose they then? where met they?

&nbsp       &nbsp       &nbspOn the stone
Called Dante’s,—a plain flat stone scarce discerned
&nbspFrom others in the pavement,—whereupon
He used to bring his quiet chair out, turned
&nbspTo Brunelleschi’s church, and pour alone
The lava of his spirit when it burned:
&nbspIt is not cold to-day. O passionate
Poor Dante who, a banished Florentine,
&nbspDidst sit austere at banquets of the great
And muse upon this far-off stone of thine
&nbspAnd think how oft some passer used to wait
A moment, in the golden day’s decline,
&nbspWith “Good night, dearest Dante!”—well, good night!
I muse now, Dante, and think verily,
&nbspThough chapelled in the byeway out of sight,
Ravenna’s bones would thrill with ecstasy,
&nbspCouldst know thy favourite stone’s elected right
As tryst-place for thy Tuscans to foresee
&nbspTheir earliest chartas from. Good night, good morn,
Henceforward, Dante! now my soul is sure
&nbspThat thine is better comforted of scorn,
And looks down earthward in completer cure
&nbspThan when, in Santa Croce church forlorn
Of any corpse, the architect and hewer
&nbspDid pile the empty marbles as thy tomb.
For now thou art no longer exiled, now
&nbspBest honoured: we salute thee who art come
Back to the old stone with a softer brow
&nbspThan Giotto drew upon the wall, for some
Good lovers of our age to track and plough
&nbspTheir way to, through time’s ordures stratified,
And startle broad awake into the dull
&nbspBargello chamber: now thou’rt milder-eyed,—
Now Beatrix may leap up glad to cull
&nbspThy first smile, even in heaven and at her side,
Like that which, nine years old, looked beautiful
&nbspAt May-game. What do I say? I only meant
That tender Dante loved his Florence well,
&nbspWhile Florence, now, to love him is content;
And, mark ye, that the piercingest sweet smell
&nbspOf love’s dear incense by the living sent
To find the dead, is not accessible
&nbspTo lazy livers—no narcotic,—not
Swung in a censer to a sleepy tune,—
&nbspBut trod out in the morning air by hot
Quick spirits who tread firm to ends foreshown,
&nbspAnd use the name of greatness unforgot,
To meditate what greatness may be done.

For Dante sits in heaven and ye stand here,
&nbspAnd more remains for doing, all must feel,
Than trysting on his stone from year to year
&nbspTo shift processions, civic toe to heel,
The town’s thanks to the Pitti. Are ye freer
&nbspFor what was felt that day? a chariot-wheel
May spin fast, yet the chariot never roll.
&nbspBut if that day suggested something good,
And bettered, with one purpose, soul by soul,—
&nbspBetter means freer. A land’s brotherhood
Is most puissant: men, upon the whole,
&nbspAre what they can be,—nations, what they would.

Will therefore, to be strong, thou Italy!
&nbspWill to be noble! Austrian Metternich
Can fix no yoke unless the neck agree;
&nbspAnd thine is like the lion’s when the thick
Dews shudder from it, and no man would be
&nbspThe stroker of his mane, much less would prick
His nostril with a reed. When nations roar
&nbspLike lions, who shall tame them and defraud
Of the due pasture by the river-shore?
&nbspRoar, therefore! shake your dewlaps dry abroad:
The amphitheatre with open door
&nbspLeads back upon the benches who applaud
The last spear-thruster.

Yet the Heavens forbid
&nbspThat we should call on passion to confront
The brutal with the brutal and, amid
&nbspThis ripening world, suggest a lion-hunt
And lion’s-vengeance for the wrongs men did
&nbspAnd do now, though the spears are getting blunt.
We only call, because the sight and proof
&nbspOf lion-strength hurts nothing; and to show
A lion-heart, and measure paw with hoof,
&nbspHelps something, even, and will instruct a foe
As well as the onslaught, how to stand aloof:
&nbspOr else the world gets past the mere brute blow
Or given or taken. Children use the fist
&nbspUntil they are of age to use the brain;
And so we needed Cæsars to assist
&nbspMan’s justice, and Napoleons to explain
God’s counsel, when a point was nearly missed,
&nbspUntil our generations should attain
Christ’s stature nearer. Not that we, alas,
&nbspAttain already; but a single inch
Will raise to look down on the swordsman’s pass.
&nbspAs knightly Roland on the coward’s flinch:
And, after chloroform and ether-gas,
&nbspWe find out slowly what the bee and finch
Have ready found, through Nature’s lamp in each,
&nbspHow to our races we may justify
Our individual claims and, as we reach
&nbspOur own grapes, bend the top vines to supply
The children’s uses,—how to fill a breach
&nbspWith olive-branches,—how to quench a lie
With truth, and smite a foe upon the cheek
&nbspWith Christ’s most conquering kiss. Why, these are things
Worth a great nation’s finding, to prove weak
&nbspThe “glorious arms” of military kings.
And so with wide embrace, my England, seek
&nbspTo stifle the bad heat and flickerings
Of this world’s false and nearly expended fire!
&nbspDraw palpitating arrows to the wood,
And twang abroad thy high hopes and thy higher
&nbspResolves, from that most virtuous altitude!
Till nations shall unconsciously aspire
&nbspBy looking up to thee, and learn that good
And glory are not different. Announce law
&nbspBy freedom; exalt chivalry by peace;
Instruct how clear calm eyes can overawe,
&nbspAnd how pure hands, stretched simply to release
A bond-slave, will not need a sword to draw
&nbspTo be held dreadful. O my England, crease
Thy purple with no alien agonies,
&nbspNo struggles toward encroachment, no vile war!
Disband thy captains, change thy victories,
&nbspBe henceforth prosperous as the angels are,
Helping, not humbling.

&nbsp       &nbspDrums and battle-cries
Go out in music of the morning-star—
&nbspAnd soon we shall have thinkers in the place
Of fighters, each found able as a man
&nbspTo strike electric influence through a race,
Unstayed by city-wall and barbican.
&nbspThe poet shall look grander in the face
Than even of old (when he of Greece began
&nbspTo sing “that Achillean wrath which slew
So many heroes”)—seeing he shall treat
&nbspThe deeds of souls heroic toward the true,
The oracles of life, previsions sweet
&nbspAnd awful like divine swans gliding through
White arms of Ledas, which will leave the heat
&nbspOf their escaping godship to endue
The human medium with a heavenly flush.

Meanwhile, in this same Italy we want
&nbspNot popular passion, to arise and crush,
But popular conscience, which may covenant
&nbspFor what it knows. Concede without a blush,
To grant the “civic guard” is not to grant
&nbspThe civic spirit, living and awake:
Those lappets on your shoulders, citizens,
&nbspYour eyes strain after sideways till they ache
(While still, in admirations and amens,
&nbspThe crowd comes up on festa-days to take
The great sight in)—are not intelligence,
&nbspNot courage even—alas, if not the sign
Of something very noble, they are nought;
&nbspFor every day ye dress your sallow kine
With fringes down their cheeks, though unbesought
&nbspThey loll their heavy heads and drag the wine
And bear the wooden yoke as they were taught
&nbspThe first day. What ye want is light—indeed
Not sunlight—(ye may well look up surprised
&nbspTo those unfathomable heavens that feed
Your purple hills)—but God’s light organized
&nbspIn some high soul, crowned capable to lead
The conscious people, conscious and advised,—
&nbspFor if we lift a people like mere clay,
It falls the same. We want thee, O unfound
&nbspAnd sovran teacher! if thy beard be grey
Or black, we bid thee rise up from the ground
&nbspAnd speak the word God giveth thee to say,
Inspiring into all this people round,
&nbspInstead of passion, thought, which pioneers
All generous passion, purifies from sin,
&nbspAnd strikes the hour for. Rise up, teacher! here’s
A crowd to make a nation!—best begin
&nbspBy making each a man, till all be peers
Of earth’s true patriots and pure martyrs in
&nbspKnowing and daring. Best unbar the doors
Which Peter’s heirs keep locked so overclose
&nbspThey only let the mice across the floors,
While every churchman dangles, as he goes,
&nbspThe great key at his girdle, and abhors
In Christ’s name, meekly. Open wide the house,
&nbspConcede the entrance with Christ’s liberal mind,
And set the tables with His wine and bread.
&nbspWhat! “commune in both kinds?” In every kind—
Wine, wafer, love, hope, truth, unlimited,
&nbspNothing kept back. For when a man is blind
To starlight, will he see the rose is red?
&nbspA bondsman shivering at a Jesuit’s foot—
“Væ! meâ culpâ!”—is not like to stand
&nbspA freedman at a despot’s and dispute
His titles by the balance in his hand,
&nbspWeighing them “suo jure.” Tend the root
If careful of the branches, and expand
&nbspThe inner souls of men before you strive
For civic heroes.

&nbsp       &nbspBut the teacher, where?
From all these crowded faces, all alive,
&nbspEyes, of their own lids flashing themselves bare,
And brows that with a mobile life contrive
&nbspA deeper shadow,—may we in no wise dare
To put a finger out and touch a man,
&nbspAnd cry “this is the leader”? What, all these!
Broad heads, black eyes,—yet not a soul that ran
&nbspFrom God down with a message? All, to please
The donna waving measures with her fan,
&nbspAnd not the judgment-angel on his knees
(The trumpet just an inch off from his lips),
&nbspWho when he breathes next, will put out the sun?

Yet mankind’s self were foundered in eclipse,
&nbspIf lacking doers, with great works to be done;
And lo, the startled earth already dips
&nbspBack into light; a better day’s begun;
And soon this leader, teacher, will stand plain,
&nbspAnd build the golden pipes and synthesize
This people-organ for a holy strain.
&nbspWe hold this hope, and still in all these eyes
Go sounding for the deep look which shall drain
&nbspSuffused thought into channelled enterprise.
Where is the teacher? What now may he do,
&nbspWho shall do greatly? Doth he gird his waist
With a monk’s rope, like Luther? or pursue
&nbspThe goat, like Tell? or dry his nets in haste,
Like Masaniello when the sky was blue?
&nbspKeep house, like other peasants, with inlaced
Bare brawny arms about a favourite child,
&nbspAnd meditative looks beyond the door
(But not to mark the kidling’s teeth have filed
T       &nbsphe green shoots of his vine which last year bore
Full twenty bunches), or, on triple-piled
&nbspThrone-velvets sit at ease to bless the poor,
Like other pontiffs, in the Poorest’s name?
&nbspThe old tiara keeps itself aslope
Upon his steady brows which, all the same,
&nbspBend mildly to permit the people’s hope?

Whatever hand shall grasp this oriflamme,
&nbspWhatever man (last peasant or first pope
Seeking to free his country) shall appear,
&nbspTeach, lead, strike fire into the masses, fill
These empty bladders with fine air, insphere
&nbspThese wills into a unity of will,
And make of Italy a nation—dear
&nbspAnd blessed be that man! the Heavens shall kill
No leaf the earth lets grow for him, and Death
&nbspShall cast him back upon the lap of Life
To live more surely, in a clarion-breath
&nbspOf hero-music. Brutus with the knife,
Rienzi with the fasces, throb beneath
&nbspRome’s stones,—and more who threw away joy’s fife
Like Pallas, that the beauty of their souls
&nbspMight ever shine untroubled and entire:
But if it can be true that he who rolls
&nbspThe Church’s thunders will reserve her fire
For only light,—from eucharistic bowls
&nbspWill pour new life for nations that expire,
And rend the scarlet of his papal vest
&nbspTo gird the weak loins of his countrymen,—
I hold that he surpasses all the rest
&nbspOf Romans, heroes, patriots; and that when
He sat down on the throne, he dispossessed
&nbspThe first graves of some glory. See again,
This country-saving is a glorious thing:
&nbspAnd if a common man achieved it? well.
Say, a rich man did? excellent. A king?
&nbspThat grows sublime. A priest? improbable.
A pope? Ah, there we stop, and cannot bring
&nbspOur faith up to the leap, with history’s bell
So heavy round the neck of it—albeit
&nbspWe fain would grant the possibility
For thy sake, Pio Nono!

&nbsp       &nbspStretch thy feet
In that case—I will kiss them reverently
&nbspAs any pilgrim to the papal seat:
And, such proved possible, thy throne to me
&nbspShall seem as holy a place as Pellico’s
Venetian dungeon, or as Spielberg’s grate
&nbspAt which the Lombard woman hung the rose
Of her sweet soul by its own dewy weight,
&nbspTo feel the dungeon round her sunshine close,
And pining so, died early, yet too late
&nbspFor what she suffered. Yea, I will not choose
Betwixt thy throne, Pope Pius, and the spot
&nbspMarked red for ever, spite of rains and dews,
Where Two fell riddled by the Austrian’s shot,
&nbspThe brothers Bandiera, who accuse,
With one same mother-voice and face (that what
&nbspThey speak may be invincible) the sins
Of earth’s tormentors before God the just,
&nbspUntil the unconscious thunderbolt begins
To loosen in His grasp.

&nbsp       &nbspAnd yet we must
Beware, and mark the natural kiths and kins
&nbspOf circumstance and office, and distrust
The rich man reasoning in a poor man’s hut,
&nbspThe poet who neglects pure truth to prove
Statistic fact, the child who leaves a rut
&nbspFor a smoother road, the priest who vows his glove
Exhales no grace, the prince who walks afoot,
&nbspThe woman who has sworn she will not love,
And this Ninth Pius in Seventh Gregory’s chair,
&nbspWith Andrea Doria’s forehead!

&nbsp       &nbspCount what goes
To making up a pope, before he wear
&nbspThat triple crown. We pass the world-wide throes
Which went to make the popedom,—the despair
&nbspOf free men, good men, wise men; the dread shows
Of women’s faces, by the faggot’s flash
&nbspTossed out, to the minutest stir and throb
O’ the white lips, the least tremble of a lash,
&nbspTo glut the red stare of a licensed mob;
The short mad cries down oubliettes, and plash
&nbspSo horribly far off; priests, trained to rob,
And kings that, like encouraged nightmares, sat
&nbspOn nations’ hearts most heavily distressed
With monstrous sights and apophthegms of fate—
&nbspWe pass these things,—because “the times” are prest
With necessary charges of the weight
&nbspOf all this sin, and “Calvin, for the rest,
Made bold to burn Servetus. Ah, men err!”—
&nbspAnd so do churches! which is all we mean
To bring to proof in any register
&nbspOf theological fat kine and lean:
So drive them back into the pens! refer
&nbspOld sins (with pourpoint, “quotha” and “I ween”)
Entirely to the old times, the old times;
&nbspNor ever ask why this preponderant
Infallible pure Church could set her chimes
&nbspMost loudly then, just then,—most jubilant,
Precisely then, when mankind stood in crimes
&nbspFull heart-deep, and Heaven’s judgments were not scant.
Inquire still less, what signifies a church
&nbspOf perfect inspiration and pure laws
Who burns the first man with a brimstone-torch,
&nbspAnd grinds the second, bone by bone, because
The times, forsooth, are used to rack and scorch!
&nbspWhat is a holy Church unless she awes
The times down from their sins? Did Christ select
&nbspSuch amiable times to come and teach
Love to, and mercy? The whole world were wrecked
&nbspIf every mere great man, who lives to reach
A little leaf of popular respect,
&nbspAttained not simply by some special breach
In the age’s customs, by some precedence
&nbspIn thought and act, which, having proved him higher
Than those he lived with, proved his competence
&nbspIn helping them to wonder and aspire.

My words are guiltless of the bigot’s sense;
&nbspMy soul has fire to mingle with the fire
Of all these souls, within or out of doors
&nbspOf Rome’s church or another. I believe
In one Priest, and one temple with its floors
&nbspOf shining jasper gloom’d at morn and eve
By countless knees of earnest auditors,
&nbspAnd crystal walls too lucid to perceive,
That none may take the measure of the place
&nbspAnd say “So far the porphyry, then, the flint—
To this mark mercy goes, and there ends grace,”
&nbspThough still the permeable crystals hint
At some white starry distance, bathed in space.
&nbspI feel how nature’s ice-crusts keep the dint
Of undersprings of silent Deity.
&nbspI hold the articulated gospels which
Show Christ among us crucified on tree.
&nbspI love all who love truth, if poor or rich
In what they have won of truth possessively.
&nbspNo altars and no hands defiled with pitch
Shall scare me off, but I will pray and eat
&nbspWith all these—taking leave to choose my ewers—
And say at last “Your visible churches cheat
&nbspTheir inward types; and, if a church assures
Of standing without failure and defeat,
&nbspThe same both fails and lies.”

&nbsp       &nbspTo leave which lures
Of wider subject through past years,—behold,
&nbspWe come back from the popedom to the pope,
To ponder what he must be, ere we are bold
&nbspFor what he may be, with our heavy hope
To trust upon his soul. So, fold by fold,
&nbspExplore this mummy in the priestly cope,
Transmitted through the darks of time, to catch
&nbspThe man within the wrappage, and discern
How he, an honest man, upon the watch
&nbspFull fifty years for what a man may learn,
Contrived to get just there; with what a snatch
&nbspOf old-world oboli he had to earn
The passage through; with what a drowsy sop,
&nbspTo drench the busy barkings of his brain;
What ghosts of pale tradition, wreathed with hop
&nbsp’Gainst wakeful thought, he had to entertain
For heavenly visions; and consent to stop
&nbspThe clock at noon, and let the hour remain
(Without vain windings-up) inviolate
&nbspAgainst all chimings from the belfry. Lo,
From every given pope you must abate,
&nbspAlbeit you love him, some things—good, you know—
Which every given heretic you hate,
&nbspAssumes for his, as being plainly so.
A pope must hold by popes a little,—yes,
&nbspBy councils, from Nicæa up to Trent,—
By hierocratic empire, more or less
&nbspIrresponsible to men,—he must resent
Each man’s particular conscience, and repress
&nbspInquiry, meditation, argument,
As tyrants faction. Also, he must not
&nbspLove truth too dangerously, but prefer
“The interests of the Church” (because a blot
&nbspIs better than a rent, in miniver)—
Submit to see the people swallow hot
&nbspHusk-porridge, which his chartered churchmen stir
Quoting the only true God’s epigraph,
&nbsp“Feed my lambs, Peter!”—must consent to sit
Attesting with his pastoral ring and staff
&nbspTo such a picture of our Lady, hit
Off well by artist-angels (though not half
&nbspAs fair as Giotto would have painted it)—
To such a vial, where a dead man’s blood
&nbspRuns yearly warm beneath a churchman’s finger,—
To such a holy house of stone and wood,
&nbspWhereof a cloud of angels was the bringer
From Bethlehem to Loreto. Were it good
&nbspFor any pope on earth to be a flinger
Of stones against these high-niched counterfeits?
&nbspApostates only are iconoclasts.
He dares not say, while this false thing abets
&nbspThat true thing, “This is false.” He keeps his fasts
And prayers, as prayer and fast were silver frets
&nbspTo change a note upon a string that lasts,
And make a lie a virtue. Now, if he
&nbspDid more than this, higher hoped, and braver dared,
I think he were a pope in jeopardy,
&nbspOr no pope rather, for his truth had barred
The vaulting of his life,—and certainly,
&nbspIf he do only this, mankind’s regard
Moves on from him at once, to seek some new
&nbspTeacher and leader. He is good and great
According to the deeds a pope can do;
&nbspMost liberal, save those bonds; affectionate,
As princes may be, and, as priests are, true;
&nbspBut only the Ninth Pius after eight,
When all’s praised most. At best and hopefullest,
&nbspHe’s pope—we want a man! his heart beats warm,
But, like the prince enchanted to the waist,
&nbspHe sits in stone and hardens by a charm
Into the marble of his throne high-placed.
&nbspMild benediction waves his saintly arm—
So, good! but what we want’s a perfect man,
&nbspComplete and all alive: half travertine
Half suits our need, and ill subserves our plan.
&nbspFeet, knees, nerves, sinews, energies divine
Were never yet too much for men who ran
&nbspIn such hard ways as must be this of thine,
Deliverer whom we seek, whoe’er thou art,
&nbspPope, prince, or peasant! If, indeed, the first,
The noblest, therefore! since the heroic heart
&nbspWithin thee must be great enough to burst
Those trammels buckling to the baser part
&nbspThy saintly peers in Rome, who crossed and cursed
With the same finger.

&nbsp       &nbspCome, appear, be found,
If pope or peasant, come! we hear the cock,
&nbspThe courtier of the mountains when first crowned
With golden dawn; and orient glories flock
&nbspTo meet the sun upon the highest ground.
Take voice and work! we wait to hear thee knock
&nbspAt some one of our Florentine nine gates,
On each of which was imaged a sublime
&nbspFace of a Tuscan genius, which, for hate’s
And love’s sake, both, our Florence in her prime
&nbspTurned boldly on all comers to her states,
As heroes turned their shields in antique time
&nbspEmblazoned with honourable acts. And though
The gates are blank now of such images,
&nbspAnd Petrarch looks no more from Nicolo
Toward dear Arezzo, ’twixt the acacia-trees,
N       &nbspor Dante, from gate Gallo—still we know,
Despite the razing of the blazonries,
&nbspRemains the consecration of the shield:
The dead heroic faces will start out
&nbspOn all these gates, if foes should take the field,
And blend sublimely, at the earliest shout,
&nbspWith living heroes who will scorn to yield
A hair’s-breadth even, when, gazing round about,
&nbspThey find in what a glorious company
They fight the foes of Florence. Who will grudge
&nbspHis one poor life, when that great man we see
Has given five hundred years, the world being judge,
&nbspTo help the glory of his Italy?
Who, born the fair side of the Alps, will budge,
&nbspWhen Dante stays, when Ariosto stays,
When Petrarch stays for ever? Ye bring swords,
&nbspMy Tuscans? Ay, if wanted in this haze,
Bring swords: but first bring souls!—bring thoughts and words,
&nbspUnrusted by a tear of yesterday’s,
Yet awful by its wrong,—and cut these cords,
&nbspAnd mow this green lush falseness to the roots,
And shut the mouth of hell below the swathe!
&nbspAnd, if ye can bring songs too, let the lute’s
Recoverable music softly bathe
&nbspSome poet’s hand, that, through all bursts and bruits
Of popular passion, all unripe and rathe
&nbspConvictions of the popular intellect,
Ye may not lack a finger up the air,
&nbspAnnunciative, reproving, pure, erect,
To show which way your first Ideal bare
&nbspThe whiteness of its wings when (sorely pecked
By falcons on your wrists) it unaware
&nbspArose up overhead and out of sight.

Meanwhile, let all the far ends of the world
&nbspBreathe back the deep breath of their old delight,
To swell the Italian banner just unfurled.
&nbspHelp, lands of Europe! for, if Austria fight,
The drums will bar your slumber. Had ye curled
&nbspThe laurel for your thousand artists’ brows,
If these Italian hands had planted none?
&nbspCan any sit down idle in the house
Nor hear appeals from Buonarroti’s stone
&nbspAnd Raffael’s canvas, rousing and to rouse?
Where’s Poussin’s master? Gallic Avignon
Bred Laura, and Vaucluse’s fount has stirred
&nbspThe heart of France too strongly, as it lets
Its little stream out (like a wizard’s bird
&nbspWhich bounds upon its emerald wing and wets
The rocks on each side), that she should not gird
&nbspHer loins with Charlemagne’s sword when foes beset
The country of her Petrarch. Spain may well
&nbspBe minded how from Italy she caught,
To mingle with her tinkling Moorish bell,
&nbspA fuller cadence and a subtler thought.
And even the New World, the receptacle
&nbspOf freemen, may send glad men, as it ought,
To greet Vespucci Amerigo’s door.
&nbspWhile England claims, by trump of poetry,
Verona, Venice, the Ravenna-shore,
&nbspAnd dearer holds John Milton’s Fiesole
Than Langland’s Malvern with the stars in flower.

And Vallombrosa, we two went to see
&nbspLast June, beloved companion,—where sublime
The mountains live in holy families,
&nbspAnd the slow pinewoods ever climb and climb
Half up their breasts, just stagger as they seize
&nbspSome grey crag, drop back with it many a time,
And straggle blindly down the precipice.
&nbspThe Vallombrosan brooks were strewn as thick
That June-day, knee-deep with dead beechen leaves,
&nbspAs Milton saw them ere his heart grew sick
And his eyes blind. I think the monks and beeves
&nbspAre all the same too: scarce have they changed the wick
On good Saint Gualbert’s altar which receives
&nbspThe convent’s pilgrims; and the pool in front
(Wherein the hill-stream trout are cast, to wait
&nbspThe beatific vision and the grunt
Used at refectory) keeps its weedy state,
&nbspTo baffle saintly abbots who would count
The fish across their breviary nor ’bate
&nbspThe measure of their steps. O waterfalls
And forests! sound and silence! mountains bare
&nbspThat leap up peak by peak and catch the palls
Of purple and silver mist to rend and share
&nbspWith one another, at electric calls
Of life in the sunbeams,—till we cannot dare
&nbspFix your shapes, count your number! we must think
Your beauty and your glory helped to fill
&nbspThe cup of Milton’s soul so to the brink,
He never more was thirsty when God’s will
&nbspHad shattered to his sense the last chain-link
By which he had drawn from Nature’s visible
&nbspThe fresh well-water. Satisfied by this,
He sang of Adam’s paradise and smiled,
&nbspRemembering Vallombrosa. Therefore is
The place divine to English man and child,
And pilgrims leave their souls here in a kiss.

For Italy’s the whole earth’s treasury, piled
&nbspWith reveries of gentle ladies, flung
Aside, like ravelled silk, from life’s worn stuff;
&nbspWith coins of scholars’ fancy, which, being rung
On work-day counter, still sound silver-proof;
&nbspIn short, with all the dreams of dreamers young,
Before their heads have time for slipping off
&nbspHope’s pillow to the ground. How oft, indeed,
We’ve sent our souls out from the rigid north,
&nbspOn bare white feet which would not print nor bleed,
To climb the Alpine passes and look forth,
&nbspWhere booming low the Lombard rivers lead
To gardens, vineyards, all a dream is worth,—
&nbspSights, thou and I, Love, have seen afterward
From Tuscan Bellosguardo, wide awake,
&nbspWhen, standing on the actual blessed sward
Where Galileo stood at nights to take
&nbspThe vision of the stars, we have found it hard,
Gazing upon the earth and heaven, to make
A choice of beauty.

&nbsp       &nbspTherefore let us all
Refreshed in England or in other land,
&nbspBy visions, with their fountain-rise and fall,
Of this earth’s darling,—we, who understand
&nbspA little how the Tuscan musical
Vowels do round themselves as if they planned
&nbspEternities of separate sweetness,—we,
Who loved Sorrento vines in picture-book,
&nbspOr ere in wine-cup we pledged faith or glee,—
Who loved Rome’s wolf with demi-gods at suck,
&nbspOr ere we loved truth’s own divinity,—
Who loved, in brief, the classic hill and brook,
&nbspAnd Ovid’s dreaming tales and Petrarch’s song,
Or ere we loved Love’s self even,—let us give
&nbspThe blessing of our souls (and wish them strong
To bear it to the height where prayers arrive,
&nbspWhen faithful spirits pray against a wrong,)
To this great cause of southern men who strive
&nbspIn God’s name for man’s rights, and shall not fail.

Behold, they shall not fail. The shouts ascend
&nbspAbove the shrieks, in Naples, and prevail.
Rows of shot corpses, waiting for the end
&nbspOf burial, seem to smile up straight and pale
Into the azure air and apprehend
&nbspThat final gun-flash from Palermo’s coast
Which lightens their apocalypse of death.
&nbspSo let them die! The world shows nothing lost;
Therefore, not blood. Above or underneath,
&nbspWhat matter, brothers, if ye keep your post
On duty’s side? As sword returns to sheath,
&nbspSo dust to grave, but souls find place in Heaven.
Heroic daring is the true success,
&nbspThe eucharistic bread requires no leaven;
And though your ends were hopeless, we should bless
&nbspYour cause as holy. Strive—and, having striven,
Take, for God’s recompense, that righteousness!