SUMMING UP IN ITALY.
(INSCRIBED TO INTELLIGENT PUBLICS OUT OF IT.)
I.
OBSERVE how it will be at last,
When our Italy stands at full stature,
A year ago tied down so fast
That the cord cut the quick of her nature!
You’ll honour the deed and its scope,
Then, in logical sequence upon it,
Will use up the remnants of rope
By hanging the men who have done it.
II.
The speech in the Commons, which hits you
A sketch off, how dungeons must feel, —
The official despatch, which commits you
From stamping out groans with your heel, —
Suggestions in journal or book for
Good efforts, — are praised as is meet:
But what in this world can men look for,
Who only achieve and complete? —
III.
True, you’ve praise for the fireman who sets his
Brave face to the axe of the flame,
Disappears in the smoke, and then fetches
A babe down, or idiot that’s lame, —
For the boor even, who rescues through pity
A sheep from the brute who would kick it:
But saviours of nations!— ‘tis pretty,
And doubtful: they may be so wicked:
IV.
Azeglio, Farini, Mamiani,
Eicasoli, — doubt by the dozen! — here’s
Pepoli too, and Cipriani,
Imperial cousins and cozeners —
Arese, Laiatico, — courtly
Of manners, if stringent of mouth:
Garibaldi! we’ll come to him shortly,
(As soon as he ends in the South).
V.
Napoleon — as strong as ten armies,
Corrupt as seven devils — a fact
You accede to, then seek where the harm is
Drained off from the man to his act,
And find — a free nation! Suppose
Some hell-brood in Eden’s sweet greenery,
Convoked for creating — a rose!
Would it suit the infernal machinery?
VI.
Cavour, — to the despot’s desire,
Who his own thought so craftily marries —
What is he but just a thin wire
For conducting the lightning from Paris?
Yes, write down the two as compeers,
Confessing (you would not permit a lie)
He bore up his Piedmont ten years
Till she suddenly smiled and was Italy.
VII.
And the King, with that ‘ stain on his scutcheon,’
Savoy — as the calumny runs;
(If it be not his blood, — with his clutch on
The sword, and his face to the guns.)
O first, where the battle-storm gathers,
O loyal of heart on the throne,
Let those keep the ‘graves of their fathers,’
Who quail, in a nerve, from their own!
VIII.
For thee — through the dim Hades-portal
The dream of a voice— ‘Blessed thou
‘Who hast made all thy race twice immortal!
‘No need of the sepulchres now!
— ‘Left to Bourbons and Hapsburgs, who fester
‘Above-ground with worm-eaten souls,
‘While the ghost of some pale feudal jester
‘ Before them strews treaties in holes.’
IX.
But hush! — am I dreaming a poem
Of Hades, Heaven, Justice? Not I —
I began too far off, in my proem,
With what men believe and deny:
And on earth, whatsoever the need is,
(To sum up as thoughtful reviewers)
The moral of every great deed is
The virtue of slandering the doers.
DIED...
(The ‘Times’ Obituary.)
I.
WHAT shall we add now? He is dead.
And I who praise and you who blame,
With wash of words across his name,
Find suddenly declared instead —
‘On Sunday, third of August, dead.’
II.
Which stops the whole we talked today.
I, quickened to a plausive glance
At his large general tolerance
By common people’s narrow way,
Stopped short in praising. Dead, they say.
III.
And you, who had just put in a sort
Of cold deduction— “rather, large
Through weakness of the continent marge,
Than greatness of the thing contained “ —
Broke off. Dead! — there, you stood restrained.
IV.
As if we had talked in following one
Up some long gallery. ‘Would you choose
An air like that? The gait is loose —
Or noble.’ Sudden in the sun
An oubliette winks. Where is he? Gone.
V.
Dead. Man’s ‘I was ‘ by God’s ‘I am ‘ —
All hero-worship comes to that.
High heart, high thought, high fame, as flat
As a gravestone. Bring your Jacet jam —
The epitaph ‘s an epigram.
VI.
Dead. There’s an answer to arrest
All carping. Dust’s his natural place?
He’ll let the flies buzz round his face
And, though you slander, not protest?
— From such an one, exact the Best?
VII.
Opinions gold or brass are null.
We chuck our flattery or abuse,
Called Cæsar’s due, as Charon’s dues,
I’ the teeth of some dead sage or fool,
To mend the grinning of a skull.
VIII.
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.
THE FORCED RECRUIT.
SOLFERINO, 1859.
I.
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 honour your bravest that fall.
II.
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.
III.
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!
IV.
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!
V.
As orphans yearn on to their mothers,
He yearned to your patriot bands; —
‘Let me die for our Italy, brothers,
If not in your ranks, by your hands!
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!’
VII.
So thought he, so died he this morning.
What then? many others have died.
Ay, but easy for men to die scorning
The death-stroke, who fought side by side
VIII.
One tricolour floating above them;
Struck down ‘mid triumphant acclaims
Of an Italy rescued to love
them
And blazon the brass with their names.
IX.
But he, — without witness or honour,
Mixed, shamed 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 your poet,
Have glory, — let him have a tear.
GARIBALDI.
I.
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.
II.
‘Perhaps the people’s vote which here
United, there may disunite,
And both be lawful as they think;
Perhaps a patriot statesman, dear
Por chartering nations, can with right
Disfranchise those who hold the ink.
III.
‘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 quenched 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 poring still upon the blade,
His large lid quivered, something fell.
‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘I was not born
With such fine brains to treat and trade, —
And if a woman knew it well,
Her falsehood only meant her scorn.
VII.
‘Yet through Varese’s cannon-smoke
My eye saw clear: men feared this man
At Como, where this sword could seal
Death’s protocol with every stroke:
And now.. the drop there scarcely can
Impair the keenness of the steel.
VIII.
So man and sword may have their use;
And if the soil beneath my foot
In valour’s act is forfeited,
I’ll strike the harder, take my dues
Out nobler, and all 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
Palermo’s taken, we believe.
ONLY A CURL.
I.
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, —
II.
While you ask me to ponder and say
What a father and mother can do,
With the bright fellow-locks put away
Out of reach, beyond kiss, in the clay
Where the violets press nearer than you.
III.
Shall I speak like a poet, or run
Into weak woman’s tears for relief?
Oh, children! — I never lost one, —
Yet 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, you miss,
And a rapture of light, you forgo.
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
For 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 ever can take back again.
VII.
He gives what He gives. I appeal
To all who bear babes — in the hour
When the veil of the body we feel
Rent round us, — while torments reveal
The motherhood’s advent in power,
VIII.
And the babe cries! — has each of us known
By apocalypse (God being there
Pull in nature) the child is our own,
Life of life, love of love, moan of moan,
Through all changes, all times, everywhere.
IX.
‘ He’s ours and for ever. Believe,
O father! — O 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? 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, —
XII.
Or keep, — as a mother will toys
Too 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.
XIII.
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 weep not. ‘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.
1861.
I.
OVER the dumb Campagna-sea,
Out in the offing through mist and rain,
Saint Peter’s Church heaves silently
Like a mighty ship in pain,
Pacing the tempest with struggle and strain’.
II.
Motionless waifs of ruined towers,
Soundless breakers of desolate land:
The sullen surf of the mist devours
That mountain-range upon
either hand,
Eaten away from its outline grand.
III.
And over the dumb Campagna-sea
Where the ship of the Church heaves on 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 forth, 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.
VI.
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;
But the sturgeon goes to the Cæsar’s dish.’
VII.
Peter, Peter! thou fisher of men,
Complete Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Page 120