Refreshed in England or in other land,

By visions, with their fountain-rise and fall,
Of this earth's darling,—we, who understand
A little how the Tuscan musical

Vowels do round themselves as if they planned
Eternities of separate sweetness,-we,
Who loved Sorrento vines in picture-book,

Or ere in wine-cup we pledged faith or glee,— Who loved Rome's wolf, with demi-gods at suck, Or ere we loved truth's own divinity,Who loved, in brief, the classic hill and brook,

And Ovid's dreaming tales, and Petrarch's song, Or ere we loved Love's self even!-let us give The blessing of our souls, (and wish them strong To bear it to the height where prayers arrive,

When faithful spirits pray against a wrong,) To this great cause of southern men, who strive In God's name for man's rights, and shall not fail.

Behold, they shall not fail. The shouts ascend
Above the shrieks, in Naples, and prevail.
Rows of shot corpses, waiting for the end

Of burial, seem to smile up straight and pale
Into the azure air and apprehend

That final gun-flash from Palermo's coast Which lightens their apocalypse of death.

So let them die! The world shows nothing lost Therefore, not blood. Above or underneath, What matter, brothers, if ye keep your post On duty's side? As sword returns to sheath, So dust to grave, but souls find place in Heaven, Heroic daring is the true success,

The eucharistic bread requires no leaven;

And though your ends were hopeless, we should

bless

Your cause as holy. Strive-and, having striven, Take, for God's recompense, that righteousness!

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 mother's knees again? Could'st 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 worst part hath prevailed)

* See the opening passage of the Agamemnon of Eschylus.

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

เ

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 Cæsar'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 atmos

phere'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 Cæsars 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,

VOL. II 23