vn.

Opinions gold or brass are null
We chuck our flattery or abuse,
Called Caesar's due, as Charon's
dues,

V the teeth of some dead sage or fool.
To mend the grinning of a skull.

vin.

Be abstinent in praise and blame.
The man's still mortal, who stands
first,

And mortal only, if last and worst.
Then slowly lift so frail a fame,
Or softly drop so poor a shame.

A FORCED RECRUIT AT SOLFERINO.

L

In the ranks of the Austrian you found him;

He died with his face to you all: Yet bury him here where around him. You honor your bravest that fall.

Xl

Venetian, fair-featured and slender,
He lies shot to death in his youth,

With a smile on his lips over-tender
For any mere soldier's dead mouth,

m.

No stranger, and yet not a traitor!

Though alien the cloth on his breast, Underneath it how seldom a greater

Young heart, has a shot sent to rest!

iT.

By your enemy tortured and goaded To march with them, stand in their file.

His musket (see !) never was loaded— He facing your guns with that smile.

As orphans yearn on their mothers,

He yearned to your patriot bands,— 'Let me die for one Italy, brothers, .If not in your ranks, by your hands I

vi.

'Aim straightly, fire steadily ; spare me A ball in the body, which may

Deliver my heart here and tear me
This badge of the Austrian away.'

vtt.

So thought he, so died he this morning.

What then 1 many others have died. Ay—but easy for men to die scorning

The death-stroke, who fought side by side;

vm.

One tricolor floating above them;

Struck down mid triumphant acclaims Of an Italy rescued to love them,

And brazen the brass with their names.

iX

But he—without witness or honor,

Mixed, shared in his country's regard, With the tyrants who march in upon . her—

Died faithful and passive : 'twas hard, x.

'Twas sublime. In a cruel restriction

Cut off from the guerdon of sons, 'With most filial obedience, conviction, His soul kissed the lips of her guns.

Xi.

That moves you? Nay, grudge not to show it,

While digging a grave for him here. The others who died, says our poet. Have glory: let him have a Mar.

GARIBALDI.

He bent his head upon his breast Wherein his lion-heart lay sick :— 'Perhaps we are not ill-repaid—

Perhaps this is not a true test;

Perhaps that was not a foul trick; Perhaps none wronged, and none betrayed.

'Perhaps tlie people's vote which here United, there may disunite, And both be lawful as they think.

Perhaps a patriot statesman, dear

For chartering nations, can with right Disfranchise those who hold the ink.

ui.

'Perhaps men's wisdom is not craft;

Men's greatness, not a selfish greed;

Men's justice, not the safer side. Perhaps even women when they laughed,

Wept, thanked us that the land was freed,

Not wholly (though they kissed us) lied.

iv.

'Perhaps no more than this we meant, When up at Austria's guns we flew And spiked them with a cry apiece,

** Italia .'"—Yet a dream was sent . . The little house my father knew The olives and the palms of Nice.'

v.

He paused, and drew his sword out slow,—.

Then pored upon the blade intent As if to read some written thing: While many murmured,' He will go In that despairing sentiment And break his sword before the King.'

vi.

He pouring still upon the blade

His large lid quivered, something fell. 'Perhaps,' lie said, ' I was not born

With such fine brains to treat and trade,
And if a woman knew it well
Her falsehood only meant herscorn.

vtt.

Yet through Varese's cannon-smoke My eye saw clear: men feared this man

At Como, where his sword could deal Death's protocol at every stroke.

And now . , the drop there, scarcely can

Impair the keenness of the steel.

vitt.

'So man and sword may have their use;

And if the soil beneath my foot

In valor's act is forfeited,
I'll strike the harder, take my dues

Out nobler, and the loss confute

From ampler heavens above my head.

iX.

'My King, King Victor, I am thine!
So much Nice-dust as what I am
(To make our Italy) must cleave.

Forgive that.'—Forward with a sign
He went.—You've seen the telegram 1
Palermo*s tahen, we believe.

ONLY A CURL.

Friends of faces unknown and a land

Unvisited over the sea,
Who tell me how lonely you stand,
With a single gold curl in the hand

Held up to be looked at by me!

tt.

While you ask me to ponder and say

What a father and mother can do, With the bright yellow locks put away Out of reach, beyond kiss, in the clay, Where the violets press nearer than you :—

iu.

Shall I speak like a poet, or run

Into weak woman's tears for relief?

Oh, children! I never lost one.

But my arm's round my own little son. And Love knows the secret of Grief.

iv.

And I feel what it must be and is

When God draws a new angel so Through the house of a man up to His, With a murmur of music yon miss. And a rapture of light you forego, v.

How you think, staring on at the door Where the face of your angel flashed

in,

That its brightness, familiar before.
Burns off from you ever the more
Kor the dark of your sorrow and sin.

vi.

'God lent him and takes him,' you sigh . . .

—Nay, there let me break with your pain.

God's generous in giving, say I,
And the thing which He gives, I deny
That He can ever take back again.

vtt.

He gives what He gives. I appeal

To all who bear babes! In the hour When the vail of the body we feci Rent round us, while torments reveal The motherhood's advent in power;

viu.

And the babe cries,—have all of us known

By apocalypse (God being there, Full in nature! ihe child xsour own,— Life of life, love of love, moan of

moan.

Through all changes, all times, everywhere.

iX.

He's ours and forever. Believe,

O father !--0 mother, look back To the first love's assurance! To give Means, with God, not to tempt or deceive

With a cup thrust in Benjamin's sack. X,

He gives what He gives: be content.

He resumes nothing given,—be sure. God lend 1—where the usurers lent In His temple, indignant he went

And scourged away all those impure.

Xi.

He lends not, but gives to the end,

As He loves to the end. If it seem That he draws back a gift, comprehend 'Tis to add to it rather . . . amend. And finish it up to your dream,—

Xtt.

Or keep ... as a mother may toys
loo costly though given by herself.
Till the room shall be stiller from noise,
And the children more fit for such joys.
Kept over their heads on the shelf.

Xitt.

So look up, friends! You who indeed Have possessed in your house a sweet piece

Of the heaven which men strive for,

must need Be more earnest than others are, speed Where they loiter, persist where they cease.

Xiv.

You know how one angel smiles there.

Then courage I 'Tis easy for you To be drawn by a single gold hair Of that curl, from earth's storm and despair

To the safe place above us. Adieu!

A VIEW ACROSS THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA. i86i.

L

Over the dumb campagna sea,

Out in the offing through mist and rain,

St. Peter's church heaves silently
Like a mighty ship in pain,
Facing the tempest with struggle and
strain.

tt.

Motionless waifs of ruined towers.

Soundless breakers of desolate land! The sullen surf of the mist devours

That mountain range upon eithe* hand.

Eaten away from its outline grand. itt.

And oVer the dumb campagna sea Where the ship of the Church he»ve, □n to wreck.

Alone and silent as God must be The Christ walks!—Ay, but Peter's neck

Is stiff to turn on the foundering deck.

iv.

Peter, Peter, if such be thy name. Now leave the ship for another to steer,

And proving thy faith evermore the same

Come fortli tread out through the

dark and drear, Since He who walks on the sea is

here!

v.

Peter, Peter !—he does not speak—
He is not as rash as in old Galilee.

Safer a ship though it toss and leak,
Than a reeling foot on a rolling sea!
And he's got to be round in the girth,
thinks he.

vt.

Peter, Peter !—he does not stir—

His nets are heavy with silver fish; He reckons his gains, and is keen to infer,

. 'The broil on the shore, if the Lord

should wish— Rut the sturgeon goes to Caesar's dish.'

vtt.

Peter, Peter, thou fisher of men,

Fisher of fish wouldst thou live instead—

Haggling for pence with the other Ten, Cheating the market at so much a head.

Griping the Bag of the traitor Dead? vm.

At the triple crow of the Gallic cock Thou weep'st not, thou, though thine

eyes be dazed . What bird comes next in the tempest

shock?

. . Vultures! See—-as when Romulus gazed—

To inaugurate Rome for a world amazed!

PARTING LOVERS.

StENNA,

I Love thee, I love thee, Giulio!

Some call me cold, and some demure, And if you have ever guessed that so

I loved thee . . . well ; the proof was poor.

And no one could be sure.

Ii.

Before thy song (with shifted rhymes
To suit my name) did I undo

The persian? If it moved sometimes.
Thou hast not seen a hand push

through A flower or two.

Ht.

My mother listening to my sleep

Heard nothing but a sigh at night.—

The short sigh rippling on the deep,— When hearts run out of breath and sight

Of men, to God's clear light.

iv

When others named thee, .... thought thy brows Where straight, thy smile was tender, ... * Here He comes between the vineyardrows !'— I said not ' Ay,' nor waited, Dear, To feel thee step too near.

v.

I left such things to bolder girls,

Olivia or Clotilda. Nay, When that Clotilda thought her curls

Held both thin? eyes in hers one day,

I marvelled, let me say.

vt.

I could not try the woman's trick:

Between us straightway fell the blu«h. Which kept me separate, blind, a«,d sick.

A wind came with thee in a flush,
As blown through Horeb's bush.

vtt.

But now that Italy invokes

Her young men 10 go forth and chase The foe or perish,—nothing chokes

My voice, or drives me from the place;

I look thee in the face.

vttt.

I love thee! it is understood,

Confest: I do not shrink or start:

No blushes: all my bcdy's blood
Has gone to greaten this poor heart.
That, loving, we may part.

rx.

Our Italy invokes the youth

To die if need be. Still there's room, 'Though earth is strained with dead, in truth,

Since twice the lilies were in bloom They have not grudged a tomb.

And many a plighted maid and wife And mother, who can say since then

. My country,' cannot say through life 'My son,' ' my spouse,' 'my flower

of men,' And not weep dumb again.

Xt.

Heroic males the country bears,
But daughters give up more than sons.

flags wave, drums beat, and unawares You flash your souls out with the guns And take your Heaven at once I

Xtt.

8ut we,—we empty heart and home

Of life's life, love! we bear to think Vou're gone, . . to feel you may not come,

To hear the door-latch stir and click, Yet no more you, . , nor sink.

xin,

Dear God I when Italy is one
And perfected from bound to bound,

Suppose Jfor my share) earth's undone My one grave in't! as one small wound

May kill a man, 'tis found.

Xiv.

What then? If love's delight must end. At least we'll clear its truth from flaws.

I love thee, love thee, sweetest friend! Now take my sweetest without a pause.

To help the nation's cause.

xv.

And thus of noble Italy

We'll both be worthy. \Jct her show

The future how we made her free,
Not sparing life, nor Giulio,
Nor this . . this heart-break.

MOTHER AND POET.

(Turin—After news from ftafta, 1S6i.)
t.

Dead! one of them shot by the sea in the east.

And one of them shot in the west by the sea.

Dead! both my boys! When you sit
at the feast
And are wanting a great song for
Italy free,
Let none look at me!

n.

Yet I was a poetess only last year, And good at my art, for a woman, men said.

But this woman, this, who is agonised here.

The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head Forever instead.

nr.

What art can a woman be good at? Oh vain!

What art is she good at, but hurting her breast With the milk-teeth of habes, and a smile at the pain ? . Ah, boys, how you hurt! you were strong as you pressed. And / proud, by that test.