Two Nations | Page 4

our more intolerable things; Thou whose name withers
kings, Agesilao; thou too, O chiefliest thou, The slayer of splendid
brow, Laid where the lying lips of fear deride The foiled tyrannicide,
Foiled, fallen, slain, scorned, and happy; being in fame, Felice, like thy
name, Not like thy fortune; father of the fight, Having in hand our light.
Ah, happy! for that sudden-swerving hand Flung light on all thy land,
Yea, lit blind France with compulsory ray, Driven down a righteous
way; Ah, happiest! for from thee the wars began, From thee the fresh
springs ran; From thee the lady land that queens the earth Gat as she
gave new birth. O sweet mute mouths, O all fair dead of ours, Fair in
her eyes as flowers, Fair without feature, vocal without voice, Strong
without strength, rejoice! Hear it with ears that hear not, and on eyes
That see not let it rise, Rise as a sundawn; be it as dew that drips On
dumb and dusty lips; Eyes have ye not, and see it; neither ears, And
there is none but hears. This is the same for whom ye bled and wept;
She was not dead, but slept. This is that very Italy which was And is
and shall not pass.
§ But thou, though all were not well done, O chief, Must thou take
shame or grief? Because one man is not as thou or ten, Must thou take
shame for men? Because the supreme sunrise is not yet, Is the young
dew not wet? Wilt thou not yet abide a little while, Soul without fear or
guile, Mazzini,--O our prophet, O our priest, A little while at least? A
little hour of doubt and of control, Sustain thy sacred soul; Withhold
thine heart, our father, but an hour; Is it not here, the flower, Is it not
blown and fragrant from the root, And shall not be the fruit? Thy
children, even thy people thou hast made, Thine, with thy words
arrayed, Clothed with thy thoughts and girt with thy desires, Yearn up
toward thee as fires. Art thou not father, O father, of all these? From

thine own Genoese To where of nights the lower extreme lagune Feels
its Venetian moon, Nor suckling's mouth nor mother's breast set free
But hath that grace through thee. The milk of life on death's unnatural
brink Thou gavest them to drink, The natural milk of freedom; and
again They drank, and they were men. The wine and honey of freedom
and of faith They drank, and cast off death. Bear with them now; thou
art holier: yet endure, Till they as thou be pure. Their swords at least
that stemmed half Austria's tide Bade all its bulk divide; Else, though
fate bade them for a breath's space fall, She had not fallen at all. Not by
their hands they made time's promise true; Not by their hands, but
through. Nor on Custoza ran their blood to waste, Nor fell their fame
defaced Whom stormiest Adria with tumultuous tides Whirls undersea
and hides. Not his, who from the sudden-settling deck Looked over
death and wreck To where the mother's bosom shone, who smiled As
he, so dying, her child; For he smiled surely, dying, to mix his death
With her memorial breath; Smiled, being most sure of her, that in no
wise, Die whoso will, she dies: And she smiled surely, fair and far
above, Wept not, but smiled for love. Thou too, O splendour of the
sudden sword That drove the crews abhorred From Naples and the
siren-footed strand, Flash from thy master's hand, Shine from the
middle summer of the seas To the old Aeolides, Outshine their fiery
fumes of burning night, Sword, with thy midday light; Flame as a
beacon from the Tyrrhene foam To the rent heart of Rome, From the
island of her lover and thy lord, Her saviour and her sword. In the
fierce year of failure and of fame, Art thou not yet the same That wast
as lightning swifter than all wings In the blind face of kings? When
priests took counsel to devise despair, And princes to forswear, She
clasped thee, O her sword and flag-bearer And staff and shield to her, O
Garibaldi; need was hers and grief, Of thee and of the chief, And of
another girt in arms to stand As good of hope and hand, As high of soul
and happy, albeit indeed The heart should burn and bleed, So but the
spirit shake not nor the breast Swerve, but abide its rest. As theirs did
and as thine, though ruin clomb The highest wall of Rome, Though
treason stained and spilt her lustral water, And slaves led slaves to
slaughter, And priests, praying and slaying, watched them pass