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 plas tic hand Fell back before his prophet soul, and left A fragment. . . a maimed Brutus,but more grand Than this so named of Rome, was! 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. XX. 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 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 *Philostratus relates of Apollonius that he objected to the musical instrument of Linus the Rhodian, its incompetence to enrich and beautify. The history of music in our day, would, upon the former point, sufficiently confute the philosopher. No help for women sobbing out of sight Because men made the laws? Νο brothel-lure Burnt out by popular lightnings?— Hast thou found No remedy, my England, for such woes? No outlet, Austria, for the scourged and bound, No entrance for the exiled? No re pose, 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, 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 XXII. In the name of Italy, Meantime, her patriot dead have benizon! 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 springgrowth In beatific green through every bruise. The tyrant should take heed to what he doth, 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. proud.' XXIV. Be 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 water courses, 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? And we sit murmuring for the future though Posterity is smiling on our knees, Convicting us of folly? Let us goWe 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. XXVI. Such cheer I gather from thy smiling Sweet! The self same cherub faces which emboss The Vail, lean inward to the Mercy seat. |