Part I

I HEARD last night a little child go singing

'Neath Casa Guidi windows, by the church,

"O bella libertà, O bella!" stringing

The same words still on notes he went in search

So high for, you concluded the upspringing

Of such a nimble bird to sky from perch

Must leave the whole bush in a tremble green;

And that the heart of Italy must beat,

While such a voice had leave to rise serene

Twixt church and palace of a Florence street!—

A little child, too, who not long had been

By mother's finger steadied on his feet;

And still O bella libertà he sang.

Then I thought, musing, of the innumerous

Sweet songs which for this Italy outrang

From older singers' lips, who sang not thus

Exultingly and purely, yet, with pang

Sheathed into music, touched the heart of us

So finely that the pity scarcely pained!

I thought how Filicaja led on others,

Bewailers for their Italy enchained.

And how they called her childless among mother

Widow of empires, ay, and scarce refrained

Cursing her beauty to her face, as brothers

Might a shamed sister,—"Had she been less

She were less wretched,"—how, evoking so

From congregated wrong and heaped despair

Of men and women writhing under blow,

Harrowed and hideous in their filthy lair,

A personating Image, wherein woe

Was wrapt in beauty from offending much,

They called it Cybele, or Niobe,

Or laid it corpse-like on a bier for such,

Where the whole world might drop for Italy

Those cadenced tears which burn not where they touch,—

"Juliet of nations, canst thou die as we?

And was the violet crown that crowned thy head

So over large, though new buds made it rough,

It slipped down and across thine eyelids dead,

O sweet, fair Juliet?"—Of such songs enough;

Too many of such complaints! Behold, instead,

Void at Verona, Juliet's marble trough!

And void as that is, are all images

Men set between themselves and actual wrong,

To catch the weight of pity, meet the stress

Of conscience; though 'tis easier to gaze long

On personations, masks, and effigies,

Than to see live weak creatures crushed by strong.

Where worthier poets stood and sang before,

      I kiss their footsteps, yet their words gainsay:

I can but muse in hope upon this shore

      Of golden Arno, as it shoots away

Straight through the heart of Florence, 'neath the four

      Bent bridges, seeming to strain off like bows,

And tremble, while the arrowy undertide

      Shoots on and cleaves the marble as it goes,

And strikes up palace-walls on either side,

      And froths the cornice out in glittering rows,

With doors and windows quaintly multiplied,

      And terrace-sweeps, and gazers upon all,

By whom if flower or kerchief were thrown out,

      From any lattice there, the same would fall

Into the river underneath, no doubt,—

      It runs so close and fast 'twixt wall and wall.

How beautiful! The mountains from without

      Listen in silence for the word said next,

(What word will men say?) here where Giotto planted

      His campanile, like an unperplexed

Question to Heaven, concerning the things granted

      To a great people, who, being greatly vexed

In act, in aspiration keep undaunted!

      (What word says God?) The sculptor's Night and Day,

And Dawn and Twilight, wait in marble scorn,

      Like dogs couched on a dunghill, on the clay

From whence the Medicean stamp's outworn,—

      The final putting off of all such sway

By all such hands, and freeing of the unborn

In Florence, and the world outside his Florence.

That's Michel Angelo! his statues wait

      In the small chapel of the dim St. Lawrence!

Day's eyes are breaking bold and passionate

      Over his shoulder, and will flash abhorrence

On darkness, and with level looks meet fate,

      When once loose from that marble film of theirs:

The Night has wild dreams in her sleep; the Dawn

      Is haggard as the sleepless: Twilight wears

A sort of horror: as the veil withdrawn

      'Twixt the artist's soul and works had left them heirs

Of the deep thoughts which would not quail nor fawn,

      His angers and contempts, his hope and love;

For not without a meaning did he place

      Princely Urbino on the seat above

With everlasting shadow on his face;

      While the slow dawns and twilights disapprove

The ashes of his long-extinguished race,

      Which never shall clog more the feet of men.

That winter-hour, in Via Larga, when

Thou wert commanded to build up in snow

      Some marvel of thine art, which straight again

Dissolved beneath the sun's Italian glow,

While thine eyes, still broad with the plastic passion,

Thawed, too, in drops of wounded manhood,..since,

      Mocking alike thine art and indignation,

Laughed at the palace-window the new prince,..

      "Aha! this genius needs for exaltation,

When all's said, and howe'er the proud may wince,

      A little marble from our princely mines!"

I do believe that hour thou laughedst too,

      For the whole world and for thy Florentines,

After those few tears—which were only few!

      That as, beneath the sun, the grand white lines

Of thy snow-statue trembled and withdrew,—

      The head, erect as Jove's, being palsied first,

The eyelids flattened, the full brow turned blank,-

      When the right hand, upraised as if it cursed,

Dropped, a mere snowball, and the people sank

      Their voices, though a louder laughter burst

From the window,—Michel, then, thy soul could thank

      God and the prince, for promise and presage,

And laugh the laugh back, I think, verily,

      Thine eyes being purged by tears of righteous rage,

To read a wrong into a prophecy,

      And measure a true great man's heritage

Against a mere Grand-duke's posterity.

      I think thy soul said then, "I do not need

A princedom and its quarries, after all;

      For if I write, paint, carve a word, indeed,

On book or board or dust, on floor or wall,

      The same is kept of God who taketh heed

That not a letter of the meaning fall,

Or ere it teach and teach His world's deep heart,

Outlasting, therefore, all your lordships, Sir!

      So keep your stone, beseech you, for your part,

To cover up your grave-place and refer

      The proper titles! I live by my art!

The thought I threw into this snow shall stir

      This gazing people when their gaze is done;

And the tradition of your act and mine,

      When all the snow is melted in the sun,

Shall gather up, for unborn men, a sign

      Of what is the true princedom! ay, and none

Shall laugh that day, except the drunk with wine."

And, if we laugh not on it, shall we weep?

      Much more we shall not. Through the mournful hum

Of poets sonneteering in their sleep

      'Neath the pale olives, which droop, tickling some

On chin and forehead from a dream too deep,—

      Through all that drowsy hum of voices smooth,

The hopeful bird mounts carolling from brake;

      The hopeful child, with leaps to catch his growth,

Sings open-eyed for liberty's sweet sake;

      And I, who am a singer too, forsooth,

Prefer to sing with these who are awake,

      With birds, with babes, with men who will not fear

The baptism of the holy morning dew,

      (And many of such wakers now are here,

Complete in their anointed manhood, who

      Will greatly dare and greather persevere!)

Than join those old thin voices with my new,

And sigh for Italy with some safe sigh

Cooped up in music 'twist an oh and ah,—

      Nay, hand in hand with that young child, will I

Rather go singing "Bella libertà,"

      Than, with those poets, croon the dead or cry

"Se tu men bella fossi, Italia!"

Is so far plain in this—that Italy,

      Long trammelled with the purple of her youth

Against her age's due activity,

      Sate still upon her graves, without the ruth

Of death, but also without energy

      And hope of life. "What's Italy?" men ask:

And others answer, "Virgil, Cicero,

      Catullus, Cæsar." And what more? to task

The memory closer—"Why, Boccaccio,

      Dante, Petrarca,"— and if still the flask

Appears to yield its wine by drops too slow,—

      "Angelo, Raffael, Pergolese,"—all

Whose strong hearts beat through stone, or charged, again,

      Cloth-threads with fire of souls electrical,

Or broke up heaven for music. What more then?

      Why, then, no more. The chaplet's last beads fall

In naming the last saintship within ken,

      And, after that, none prayeth in the land.

Alas, this Italy has too long swept

      Heroic ashes up for hour-glass sand;

Of her own past, impassioned nympholept!

      Consenting to be nailed by the hand

To the same bay-tree under which she stepped

A queen of old, and plucked a leafy branch;

And licensing the world too long, indeed,

      To use her brood phylacteries to staunch

And stop her bloody lips, which took no heed

      How one quick breath would draw an avalanche

Of living sons around her, to succeed

      The vanished generations. Could she count

Those oil-eaters, with large, live, mobile mouths

      Agape for maccaroni, in the amount

Of consecrated heroes of her south's

      Bright rosary? The pitcher at the fount,

The gift of gods, being broken,—why, one loathes

      To let the ground-leaves of the place confer

A natural bowl. And thus, she chose to seem

      No nation, but the poet's pensioner,

With alms from every land of song and dream;

      While her own pipers sweetly piped of her,

Until their proper breaths, in that extreme

      Of sighing, split the reed on which they played!

Of which, no more: but never say "no more"

      To Italy! Her memories undismayed

Say rather "evermore"—her graves implore

      Her future to be strong and not afraid—

Her very statues send their looks before!

God lives, and lifts his glorious mornings up

      Before the eyes of men, who wake at last,

And put away the meats they used to sup,

      And on the dry dust of the ground outcast

The dregs remaining of the ancient cup,

      And turn to wakeful prayer and worthy act.

The dead, upon their awful 'vantage ground,—

The sun not in their faces,—shall abstract

No more our strength: we will not be discrowned

      Through treasuring their crowns, nor deign transact

A barter of the present, in a sound,

      For what was counted good in foregone days.

O Dead, ye shall no longer cling to us

      With your stiff hands of desiccating praise,

And hold us backward by the garment thus,

      To stay and laud you in long virelays!

Still, no! we will not be oblivious

      Of our own lives, because ye lived before,

Nor of our acts, because ye acted well,—

      We thank you that ye first unlatched the door—

We will not make it inaccessible

      By thankings in the doorway any more,

But will go onward to extinguish hell

      With our fresh souls, our younger hope, and God's

Maturity of purpose. Soon shall we

      Be the dead too! and, that our periods

Of life may round themselves to memory,

      As smoothly as on our graves the funeral sods,

We must look to it to excel as ye,

      And bear our age as far, unlimited

By the last sea-mark! so, to be invoked

      By future generations, as the Dead.

A great man's voice, the common words he said

Turn oracles,—the meanings which he yoked

      Like horses, draw like griffins!—this is true

And acceptable. Also I desire,

When men make reoord, with the flowers they strew,

"Savonarola's soul went out in fire

      Upon our Grand-duke's piazza, and burned through

A moment first, or ere he did expire,

      The veil betwixt the right and wrong, and showed

How near God sate and judged the judges there,—"

      Desire, upon the pavement ovenstrewed,

To cast my violets with as reverent care,

      And prove that all the winters which have snowed

Cannot snow out the scent, from stones and air,

      Of a sincere man's virtues. This was he,

Savonarola, who, while Peter sank

      With his whole boat-load, called courageously

"Wake Christ, wake Christ!"—who, having tried the tank

      Of the church-waters used for baptistry

Ere Luther lived to spill them, said they stank!

      Who also, by a princely deathbed, cried

"Loose Florence, or God will not loose thy soul,"

      While the Magnificent fell back and died

Beneath the star-looks, shooting from the cowl,

      Which turned to wormwood bitterness the wide

Deep sea of his ambitions. It were foul

      To grudge Savonarola and the rest

Their violets! rather pay them quick and fresh!

      The emphasis of death makes manifest

The eloquence of action in our flesh;

      And men who, living, were but dimly guessed,

When once free from their life's entangled mesh,

Show their full length in graves, or even indeed

Exaggerate their stature, in the flat,

      To noble admirations which exceed

Nobly, nor sin in such excess. For that

      Is wise and righteous. We, who are the seed

Of buried creatures, if we turned and spate

      Upon our antecedents, we were vile.

Bring violets rather! If these had not walked

      Their furlong, could we hope to walk our mile?

Therefore bring violets! Yet if we, self-baulked,

      Stand still a-strewing violets all the while,

These had as well not moved, ourselves not talked

      Of these. So rise up with a cheerful smile,

And, having strewn the violets, reap the corn,

      And, having reaped and garnered, bring the plough

And draw new furrows 'neath the healthy morn,

      And plant the great Hereafter in this Now.

As each man gained on each, securely!—how

Each by his own strength sought his own ideal,

      The ultimate Perfection leaning bright

From out the sun and stars, to bless the leal

      And earnest search of all for Fair and Right,

Through the dim forms, by earth accounted real!

      Because old Jubal blew into delight

The souls of men, with dear-piped melodies,

      What if young Asaph were content at most

To draw from Jubal's grave, with listening eyes,

      Traditionary music's floating ghost

Into the grass-grown silence? were it wise?

      Is it not wiser, Jubal's breath being lost,

That Miriam dashed her cymbals to surprise

      The sun between her white arms flung apart,

With new, glad, golden sounds? that David's strings

      O'erflowed his hand with music from his heart?

So harmony grows full from many springs,

      And happy accident turns holy art.

Santa Maria Novella church. You pass

The left stair, where, at plague-time, Macchiavel

      Saw one with set fair face as in a glass,

Dressed out against the fear of death and hell,

      Rustling her silks in pauses of the mass,

To keep the thought off how her husband fell,

      When she left home, stark dead across her feet—

The stair leads up to what Orgagna gave

      Of Dante's dæmons; but you, passing it,

Ascend the right stair of the farther nave,

      To muse in a small chapel scarcely lit

By Cimabue's Virgin. Bright and brave,

      That picture was accounted, mark, of old!

A king stood bare before its sovran grace;

      A reverent people shouted to behold

The picture, not the king; and even the place

      Containing such a miracle, grew bold,

Named the Glad Borgo from that beauteous face,

      Which thrilled the artist, after work, to think

That his ideal Mary-smile should stand

      So very near him!—he, within the brink

Of all that glory, let in by his hand

      With too divine a rashness! Yet none shrink

Who gaze here now—albeit the thing is planned

      Sublimely in the thought's simplicity.

The Virgin, throned in empyreal state,

      Minds only the young babe upon her knee;

While, each side, angels bear the royal weight,

      Prostrated meekly, smiling tenderly

Oblivion of their wings! the Child thereat

      Stretches its hand like God. If any should,

Because of some stiff draperies and loose joints,

      Gaze scorn down from the heights of Raffaelhood,

On Cimabue's picture,—Heaven anoints

      The head of no such critic, and his blood

The poet's curse strikes full on, and appoints

      To ague and cold spasms for evermore.

A noble picture! worthy of the shout

      Wherewith along the streets the people bore

Its cherub faces, which the sun threw out

      Until they stooped and entered the church door!

Yet rightly was young Giotto talked about,

      Whom Cimabue found among the sheep,

And knew, as gods know gods, and carried home

      To paint the things he painted, with a deep

And fuller insight, and so overcome

      His chapel-Virgin with a heavenlier sweep

Of light. For thus we mount into the sum

      Of great things known or acted. I hold, too,

That Cimabue smiled upon the lad,

      At the first stroke which passed what he could do,—

Or else his Virgin's smile had never had

      Such sweetness in't. All great men who foreknew

Their heirs in art, for art's sake have been glad,

      And bent their old white heads as if uncrowned,

Fanatics of their pure ideals still,

      Far more than of their laurels which were found

With some less stalwart struggle of the will.

      If old Margheritone trembled, swooned,

And died despairing at the open sill

      Of other men's achievements, (who achieved,

By loving art beyond the master!) he

      Was old Margheritone and conceived

Never, at youngest and most ecstasy,

      A Virgin like that dream of one, which heaved

The death-sigh from his heart. If wistfully

      Margheritone sickened at the smell

Of Cimabue's laurel, let him go!—

      Strong Cimabue stood up very well

In spite of Giotto's—and Angelico,

      The artist-saint, kept smiling in his cell

The smile with which he welcomed the sweet slow

      Inbreak of angels, (whitening through the dim

That he might paint them!) while the sudden sense

      Of Raffael's future was revealed to him

By force of his own fair works' competence.

      The same blue waters where the dolphins swim

Suggest the Tritons. Through the blue Immense

      Strike out all swimmers! cling not in the way

Of one another, so to sink; but learn

      The strong man's impulse, catch the fresh'ning spray

He throws up in his motions, and discern

      By his dear, westering eye, the time of day.

O God, thou hast set us worthy gifts to earn,

      Beside thy heaven and Thee! and when I say

'Tis worth while for the weakest man alive

      To live and die,—there's room too, I repeat,

For all the strongest to live well, and strive

      Their own way, by their individual heat,

Like a new bee-swarm leaving the old hive

      Despite the wax which tempteth violet-sweet.

So let the living live, the dead retain

      Flowers on cold graves!—though honour's best, supplied.

When we bring actions, to prove their's not vain.

That living mm who throb in heart and train,

      Without the dead, were colder. If we tried

To sink the past beneath our feet, be sure

      The future would not stand. Precipitate

This old roof from the shrine—and, insecure,

      The nesting swallows fly off, mate from mate.

Scant were the gardens, if the graves were fewer!

      And the green poplars grew no longer straight,

Whose tops not looked to Troy. Why, who would fight

      For Athena, and not swear by Marathon?

Who would build temples, without tombs in sight?

      Who live, without some dead man's benison?

Who seek truth, hope for good, or strive for right,

      If, looking up, he saw not in the sun

Some angel of the martyrs, all day long

      Standing and waiting! your last rhythms will need

The earliest key-note. Could I sing this song,

      If my dead masters had not taken heed

To help the heavens and earth to make me strong,

      As the wind ever will find out some reed,

And touch it to such issues as belong

      To such a frail thing? Who denies the dead,

Libations from full cups? Unless we choose

      To look back to the hills behind us spread,

The plains before us sadden and confuse;

      If orphaned, we are disinherited.

Fill them with fresh oil from the olive grove,

To feed the new lamp fuller. Shall I say

      What made my heart beat with exulting love,

A few weeks back?

As Florence owes the sun. The sky above,

Its weight upon the mountains seemed to lay,

      And palpitate in glory, like a dove

Who has flown too fast, full-hearted. Take away

      The image! for the heart of man beat higher

That day in Florence, flooding all her streets

      And piazzas with a tumult and desire.

The people, with accumulated heats,

      And faces turned one way, as if one fire

Did draw and flush them, leaving their old beats,

      Went upward to the palace Pitti wall,

To thank their Grand-duke, who, not quite of course,

      Had graciously permitted, at their call,

The citizens to use their civic force

To guard their civic homes. So, one and all,

The Tuscan cities streamed up to the source

      Of this new good, at Florence; taking it

As good so far, presageful of more good,—

      The first torch of Italian freedom, lit

To toss in the next tiger's face who should

      Approach too near them in a cruel fit,—

The first pulse of an even flow of blood,

      To prove the level of Italian veins

Toward rights perceived and granted. How we gazed

      From Casa Guidi windows, while, in trains

Of orderly procession—banners raised,

      And intermittent bursts of martial strains

Which died upon the shout, as if amazed

      By gladness beyond music—they passed on!

The magistrates, with their insignia, passed;

      And all the people shouted in the sun,

And all the thousand windows which had cast

      A ripple of silks, in blue and scarlet, down,

As if the houses overflowed at last,

      Seemed to grow larger with fair heads and eyes.

The lawyers passed; and still arose the shout,

      And hands broke from the windows, to surprise

Those grave calm brows with bay-tree leaves thrown out.

      The priesthood passed: the friars, with worldly-wise

Keen, sidelong glances from their beards, about

      The street, to see who shouted! many a monk

Who takes a long rope in the waist, was there!

      Whereat the popular exultation drunk

With indrawn "vivas," the whole sunny air,

While through the murmuring windows rose and sunk

A cloud of kerchiefed hands! "the church makes fair

      Her welcome in the new Pope's name." Ensued

The black sign of the "martyrs!" name no name,

      But count the graves in silence. Next, were viewed

The artists; next, the trades; and after came

      The populace, with flag and rights as good;

And very loud the shout was for that same

      Motto, "Il popolo," Il Popolo,—

The word meant dukedom, empire, majesty,

      And kings in such an hour might read it so.

And next, with banners, each in his degree,

      Deputed representatives a-row,

Of every separate state of Tuscany:

      Siena's she-wolf, bristling on the fold

Of the first flag, preceded Pisa's hare;

      And Massa's lion floated calm in gold,

Pienza's following with his silver stare;

      Arezzo's steed pranced clear from bridle-hold,—

And well might shout our Florence, greeting there

      These, and more brethren! Last, the world had sent

The various children of her teeming flanks—

      Greeks, English, French—as to some parliament

Of lovers of her Italy, in ranks,

      Each bearing its land's symbols reverent;

At which the stones seemed breaking into thanks

      And rattling up to the sky, such sounds in proof

Arose! the very house-walls seemed to bend,

      The very windows, up from door to roof,

Flashed out a rapture of bright heads, to mend,

With passionate looks, the gesture's whirling off

A hurricane of leaves! Three hours did end

      While all these passed; and ever in the crowd,

Rude men, unconscious of the tears that kept

      Their beards moist, shouted; and some laughed aloud,

And none asked any why they laughed and wept:

      Friends kissed each other's cheeks, and foes long vowed

Did it more warmly; two-months' babies leapt

      Right upward in their mother's arms, whose black

Wide, glittering eyes looked elsewhere; lovers pressed

      Each before either, neither glancing back;

And peasant maidens, smoothly 'tired and tressed,

      Forgot to finger on their throats the slack

Great pearl-strings; while old blind men would not rest,

      But pattered with their staves and with their shoes

Still on the stones, and smiled as if they saw.

      O Heaven! I think that day had noble use

Among God's days. So near stood Right and Law,

      Both mutually forborne! Law would not bruise,

Nor Right deny; and each in reverent awe

      Honoured the other. What if, ne'ertheless,

The sun did, that day, leave upon the vines

      No charta, and the liberal Duke's excess

Did scarce exceed a Guelf's or Ghibelline's

      In the specific actual righteousness

Of what that day he granted; still the signs

Are good, and full of promise, we must say,

When multitudes thank kings for granting prayers,

      And kings concede their people's right to pray,

Both in the sunshine! Griefs are not despairs,

      So uttered; nor can royal claims dismay,

When men, from humble homes and ducal chairs,

      Hate wrong together. It was well to view

Those banners ruffled in a Grand-duke's face,

      Inscribed, "Live freedom, union, and all true

Brave patriots who are aided by God's grace!"

      Nor was it ill, when Leopoldo drew

His little children to the window-place

      He stood in at the Pitti, to suggest

They, too, should govern as the people willed.

      What a cry rose then! some, who saw the best,

Sware that his eyes filled up, and overfilled

      With good warm human tears, which unrepressed

Ran down. I like his face: the forehead's build

      Has no capacious genius, yet perhaps

Sufficient comprehension,—mild and sad,

      And careful nobly,—not with care that wraps

Self-loving hearts, to stifle and make mad,

      But careful with the care that shuns a lapse

Of faith and duty,—studious not to add

      A burden in the gathering of a gain.

And so, God save the Duke, I say with those

      Who that day shouted it, and while dukes reign,

May all wear, in the visible overflows

      Of spirit, such a look of careful pain!

Methinks God loves it better than repose.

Their hearts out to that Duke, as has been told—

Where guess ye that the living people met,

      Kept tryst, formed ranks, chose leaders, first unrolled

Their banners?

                                          In the Loggia? where is set

      Cellini's godlike Perseus, bronze—or gold—

(How name the metal, when the statue flings

      Its soul so in your eyes?) with brow and sword

Superbly calm, as all opposing things

      Slain with the Gorgon, were no more abhorred

Since ended?

                                          No! the people sought no wings

      From Perseus in the Loggia, nor implored

An inspiration in the place beside,

      From that dim bust of Brutus, jagged and grand,

Where Buonarotti passionately tried

      Out of the clenched marble to demand

The head of Rome's sublimest homicide,

      Then dropt the quivering mallet from his hand,

Despairing he could find no model stuff

      Of Brutus, in all Florence, where he found

The gods and gladiators thick enough?

      Not there! the people chose still holier ground!

The people, who are simple, blind, and rough,

      Know their own angels, after looking round.

What chose they then? where met they?

Call'd Dante's,—a plain flat stone, scarce discerned

From others in the pavement,—whereupon

      He used to bring his quiet chair out, turned

To Brunelleschi's church, and pour alone

The lava of his spirit when it burned—

It is not cold to-day. O passionate

      Poor Dante, who, a banished Florentine,

Didst sit austere at banquets of the great,

      And muse upon this far-off stone of thine,

And think how oft the passers used to wait

      A moment, in the golden day's decline,

With "good night, dearest Dante!"—Well, good night!

      I muse now, Dante, and think, verily,

Though chapelled in Ravenna's byeway, might

      Thy buried bones be thrilled to ecstasy,

Could'st know thy favourite stone's elected right

      As tryst-place for thy Tuscans to foresee

Their earliest chartas from! good night, good morn,

      Henceforward, Dante! now my soul is sure

That thine is better comforted of scorn,

      And looks down from the stars in fuller cure,

Than when, in Santa Croce church, forlorn

      Of any corpse, the architect and hewer

Did pile the empty marbles as thy tomb!

      For now thou art no longer exiled, now

Best honoured!-we salute thee who art come

      Back to the old stone with a softer brow

Than Giotto drew upon the wall, for some

      Good lovers of our age to track and plough

Their way to, through Time's ordures stratified,

      And startle broad awake into the dull

Bargello chamber. Now, thou'rt milder eyed,

And Beatrix might leap up glad to cull

Thy first smile, even in heaven and at her side,

      Like that which, nine years old, looked beautiful

At Tuscan May-game. Foolish words! I meant

      Only that Dante loved his Florence well,

And Florence, now, to love him is content!

      I mean too, certes, that the sweetest smell

Of lovers dear incense, by the living sent

      To find the dead, is not accessible

To your low livers! no narcotic,—not

      Swung in a censer to a sleepy tune,—

But trod out in the morning air, by hot

      Quick spirits, who tread firm to ends foreshown,

And use the name of greatness unforgot,

      To meditate what greatness may be done.

And more remains for doing, all must feel,

Than trysting on his stone from year to year

      To shift processions, civic heel to heel,

The town's thanks to the Pitti. Are ye freer

      For what was felt that day? A chariot wheel

May spin fast, yet the chariot never roll.

      But if that day suggested something good,

And bettered, with one purpose, soul by soul,—

      Better means freer. A land's brotherhood

Is most puissant! Men, upon the whole,

      Are what they can be,—nations, what they would.

Will to be noble! Austrian Metternich

Can fix no yoke unless the neck agree;

      And thine is like the lion's when the thick

Dews shudder from it, and no man would be

      The stroker of his mane, much less would prick

His nostril with a reed. When nations roar

      Like lions, who shall tame them, and defraud

Of the due pasture by the river-shore?

      Roar, therefore! shake your dew-laps dry abroad.

The amphitheatre with open door

      Leads back upon the benches who applaud

The last spear-thruster!

That we should call on passion to confront

The brutal with the brutal, and, amid

      This ripening world, suggest a lion-hunt

And lion-vengeance for the wrongs men did

      And do now, though the spears are getting blunt.

We only call, because the sight and proof

      Of lion-strength hurts nothing; and to show

A lion-heart, and measure paw with hoof,

      Helps something, even, and will instruct a foe

Well as the onslaught, how to stand aloof!

      Or else the world gets past the mere brute blow

Given or taken. Children use the fist

      Until they are of age to use the brain:

And so we needed Cæsars to assist

      Man's justice, and Napoleons to explain

God's counsel, when a point was nearly missed,

      Until our generations should attain

Christ's stature nearer. Not that we, alas!

      Attain already; but a single inch

Will help to look down on the swordsman's pass,

As Roland on a coward who could flinch;

And, after chloroform and ether-gas,

      We find out slowly what the bee and finch

Have ready found, through Nature's lamp in each,—

      How to our races we may justify

Our individual claims, and, as we reach

      Our own grapes, bend the top vines to supply

The children's uses: how to fill a breach

      With olive branches; how to quench a lie

With truth, and smite a foe upon the cheek

      With Christ's most conquering kiss! why, these are things

Worth a great nation's finding, to prove weak

      The "glorious arms" of military kings!

And so with wide embrace, my England, seek

      To stifle the bad heat and flickerings

Of this world's false and nearly expended fire!

      Draw palpitating arrows to the wood,

And send abroad thy high hopes, and thy higher

      Resolves, from that most virtuous altitude,

Till nations shall unconsciously aspire

      By looking up to thee, and learn that good

And glory are not different. Announce law

      By freedom; exalt chivalry by peace;

Instruct how clear calm eyes can overawe,

      And how pure hands, stretched simply to release

A bond-slave, will not need a sword to draw

      To be held dreadful. O my England, crease

Thy purple with no alien agonies

      Which reach thee through the net of war! No war!

Disband thy captains, change thy victories,

      Be henceforth prosperous as the angels are—

Helping, not humbling.

Go out in music of the morning star—

And soon we shall have thinkers in the place

      Of fighters; each found able as a man

To strike electric influence through a race,

      Unstayed by city-wall and barbican.

The poet shall look grander in the face

      Than ever he looked of old, when he began

To sing that "Achillean wrath which slew

      So many heroes,"—seeing he shall treat

The deeds of souls heroic toward the true—

      The oracles of life—previsions sweet

And awful, like divine swans gliding through

      White arms of Ledas, which will leave the heat

Of their escaping godship to endue

      The human medium with a heavenly flush.

Meanwhile, in this same Italy we want

      Not popular passion, to arise and crush.

But popular conscience, which may covenant

      For what it knows. Concede without a blush—

To grant the "civic guard" is not to grant

      The civic spirit, living and awake.

Those lappets on your shoulders, citizens,

      Your eyes strain after sideways till they ache,

While still, in admirations and amens,

      The crowd comes up on festa-days, to take

The great sight in—are not intelligence,

      Not courage even—alas, if not the sign

Of something very noble, they are nought;

      For every day ye dress your sallow kine

With fringes down their cheeks, though unbesought

      They loll their heavy heads and drag the wine,

And bear the wooden yoke as they were taught

      The first day. What ye want is light-indeed

Not sunlight—(ye may well look up surprised

      To those unfathomable heavens that feed

Your purple hills!)—but God's light organised

      In some high soul, crowned capable to lead

The conscious people,—conscious and advised,—

      For if we lift a people like mere clay,

It falls the same. We want thee, O unfound

      And sovran teacher!—if thy beard be grey

Or black, we bid thee rise up from the ground

      And speak the word God giveth thee to say,

Inspiring into all this people round,

      Instead of passion, thought, which pioneers

All generous passion, purifies from sin,

      And strikes the hour for. Rise thou teacher! here's

A crowd to make a nation!—best begin

      By making each a man, till all be peers

Of earth's true patriots and pure martyrs in

      Knowing and daring. Best unbar the doors

Which Peter's heirs keep locked so overclose

      They only let the mice across the floors,

While every churchman dangles as he goes

      The great key at his girdle, and abhors

In Christ's name, meekly. Open wide the house—

      Concede the entrance with Christ's liberal mind,

And set the tables with His wine and bread.

      What! commune in "both kinds?" In every kind—

Wine, wafer, love, hope, truth, unlimited,

      Nothing kept back. For, when a man is blind

To starlight, will he see the rose is red?

      A bondsman shivering at a Jesuit's foot—

"Væ! meá culpâ!" is not like to stand

      A freedman at a despot's, and dispute

His titles by the balance in his hand,

      Weighing them "suo jure." Tend the root,

If careful of the branches; and expand

      The inner souls of men, before you strive

For civic heroes.

From all these crowded faces, all alive,—

Eyes, of their own lids flashing themselves bare,—

      And brows that with a mobile life contrive

A deeper shadow,—may we no wise dare

      To point a finger out, and touch a man,

And cry "this is the leader." What, all these!—

      Broad heads, black eyes,—yet not a soul that ran

From God down with a message? All, to please

      The donna waving measures with her fan,

And not the judgment-angel on his knees—

      The trumpet just an inch off from his lips—

Who when he breathes next, will put out the sun?

      Yet mankind's self were foundered in eclipse,

If lacking, with a great work to be done,

      A doer. No, the earth already dips

Back into light—a better day's begun—

      And soon this doer, teacher, will stand plain,

And build the golden pipes and synthesize

      This people-organ for a holy strain:

And we who hope thus, still in all these eyes,

      Go sounding for the deep look which shall drain

Suffused thought into channelled enterprise!

      Where is the teacher? What now may he do,

Who shall do greatly? Doth he gird his waist

With a monk's rope, like Luther? or pursue

The goat, like Tell? or dry his nets in haste,

      Like Masaniello when the sky was blue?

Keep house like any peasant, with inlaced,

      Bare, brawny arms about his favourite child,

And meditative looks beyond the door.—

      (But not to mark the kidling's teeth have filed

The green shoots of his vine which last year bore

      Full twenty bunches;) or, on triple-piled

Throne-velvets, shall we see him bless the poor.

      Like any Pontiff, in the Poorest's name,—

While the tiara holds itself aslope

      Upon his steady brows, which, all the same,

Bend mildly to permit the people's hope?

Whatever man (last peasant or first Pope

      Seeking to free his country!) shall appear,

Teach, lead, strike fire into the masses, fill

      These empty bladders with fine air, insphere

These wills into a unity of will.

      And make of Italy a nation—dear

And blessed be that man! the Heavens shall kill

      No leaf the earth shall grow for him; and Death

Shall cast him back upon the lap of Life,

      To live more surely, in a clarion-breath

Of hero-music! Brutus, with the knife,

      Rienzi, with the fasces, throb beneath

Rome's stones; and more, who threw away joy's fife

      Like Pallas, that the beauty of their souls

Might ever shine untroubled and entire!

      But if it can be true that he who rolls

The Church's thunders will reserve her fire

For only light; from eucharistic bowls

Will pour new life for nations that expire,

      And rend the scarlet of his Papal vest

To gird the weak loins of his countrymen—

      I hold that man surpasses all the rest

Of Romans, heroes, patriots,—and that when

      He sat down on the throne, he dispossessed

The first graves of some glory. See again,

      This country-saving is a glorious thing!

Why, say a common man achieved it? Well!

      Say, a rich man did? Excellent! A king?

That grows sublime! A priest? Improbable!

      A Pope? Ah, there we stop and cannot bring

Our faith up to the leap, with history's bell

      So heavy round the neck of it—albeit

We fain would grant the possibility

      For thy sake, Pio Nono!

In that case—I will kiss them reverently

      As any pilgrim to the Papal seat!

And, such proved possible, thy throne to me

      Shall seem as holy a place as Pellico's

Venetian dungeon; or as Spielberg's grate,

      Where the fair Lombard woman hung the rose

Of her sweet soul, by its own dewy weight,

      (Because her sun shone inside to the close!)

And pining so, died early, yet too late

      For what she suffered! Yea, I will not choose

Betwixt thy throne, Pope Pius, and the spot

      Marked red for ever spite of rains and dews,

Where two fell riddled by the Austrian's shot

      The brothers Bandiera, who accuse,

With one same mother-voice and face, (that what

      They speak may be invincible,) the sins

Of earth's tormentors before God, the just,

      Until the unconscious thunder-bolt begins

To loosen in His grasp.

Beware, and mark the natural kiths and kins

Of circumstance and office, and distrust

      A rich man reasoning in a poor man's hut;

A poet who neglects pure truth to prove

      Statistic fact; a child who leaves a rut

For the smooth road; a priest who vows his glove

      Exhales no grace; a prince who walks a-foot;

A woman who has sworn she will not love;

      Ninth Pius sitting in Seventh Gregory's chair,

With Andrea Doria's forehead!

To making up a Pope, before he wear

That triple crown. We pass the world-wide throes

      Which went to make the Popedom,—the despair

Of free men, good men, wise men; the dread shows

      Of women's faces, by the faggot's flash,

Tossed out, to the minutest stir and throb

      Of the white lips, least tremble of a lash,

To glut the red stare of the licensed mob!

      The short mad cries down oubliettes,—the plash

So horribly far off! priests, trained to rob;

      And kings that, like encouraged nightmares, sate

On nations' hearts most heavily distressed

      With monstrous sights and apophthegms of fate.

We pass these things,—because "the times" are prest

      With necessary charges of the weight

Of all the sin; and "Calvin, for the rest,

      Made bold to burn Servetus—Ah, men err!"—

And, so do Churches! which is all we mean

      To bring to proof in any register

Of theological fat kine and lean—

      So drive them back into the pens! refer

Old sins with long beards, and "I wis and ween,"

      Entirely to the times—the times—the times!

Nor ever ask why this preponderant,

      Infallible, pure Church could set her chimes

Most loudly then, just then; most jubilant,

      Precisely then—when mankind stood in crimes

Full heart-deep, and Heaven's judgments were not scant.

      Inquire still less, what signifies a Church

Of perfect inspiration and pure laws,

      Who burns the first man with a brimstone torch,

And grinds the second, bone by bone, because

      The times, forsooth, are used to rack and scorch!

What is a holy Church, unless she awes

      The times down from their sins? Did Christ select

Such amiable times, to come and teach

      Love to, and mercy? Why, the world were wrecked,

If every mere great man, who lives to reach

      A little leaf of popular respect,

Attained not simply by some special breach

      In his land's customs,—by some precedence

In thought and act—which, having proved him higher

      Than his own times, proved too his competence

Of helping them to wonder and aspire.

My soul has fire to mingle with the fire

      Of all these souls, within or out of doors

Of Rome's Church or another. I believe

      In one priest, and one temple, with its floors

Of shining jasper, gloom'd at morn and eve

      By countless knees of earnest auditors;

And crystal walls, too lucid to perceive,—

      That none may take the measure of the place

And say, "so far the porphyry; then, the flint—

      To this mark, mercy goes, and there, ends grace,"

While still the permeable crystals hint

      At some white starry distance, bathed in space!

I feel how nature's ice-crusts keep the dint

      Of undersprings of silent Deity;

I hold the articulated gospels, which

      Show Christ among us, crucified on tree;

I love all who love truth, if poor or rich

      In what they have won of truth possessively!

No altars and no hands defiled with pitch

      Shall scare me off, but I will pray and eat

With all these—taking leave to choose my ewers

      And say at last, "Your visible Churches cheat

Their inward types; and if a Church assures

      Of standing without failure and defeat,

That Church both fails and lies!"

Of wider subject through past years,—behold,

We come back from the Popedom to the Pope,

      To ponder what he must be, ere we are bold

For what he may be, with our heavy hope

      To trust upon his soul. So, fold by fold,

Explore this mummy in the priestly cope

      Transmitted through the darks of time, to catch

The man within the wrappage, and discern

      How he, an honest man, upon the watch

Full fifty years, for what a man may learn,

      Contrived to get just there; with what a snatch

Of old world oboli he had to earn

      The passage through; with what a drowsy sop

To drench the busy barkings of his brain;

      What ghosts of pale tradition, wreathed with hop

'Gainst wakeful thought, he had to entertain

      For heavenly visions; and consent to stop

The clock at noon, and let the hour remain

      (Without vain windings up) inviolate,

Against all chimings from the belfry. Lo!

      From every given pope, you must abate,

Albeit you love him, some things-good, you know

      Which every given heretic you hate

Claims for his own, as being plainly so.

      A pope must hold by popes a little,—yes,

By councils,—from Nicæa up to Trent,—

      By hierocratic empire, more or less

Irresponsible to men,-he must resent

      Each man's particular conscience, and repress

Inquiry, meditation, argument,

      As tyrants faction. Also, he must not

Love truth too dangerously, but prefer

      "The interests of the Church," because a blot

Is better than a rent in miniver,—

      Submit to see the people swallow hot

Husk-porridge which his chartered churchmen stir

Quoting the only true God's epigraph,

"Feed my lambs, Peter!"—must consent to sit

      Attesting with his pastoral ring and staff,

To such a picture of our Lady, hit

      Off well by artist angels, though not half

As fair as Giotto would have painted it;

      To such a vial, where a dead man's blood

Runs yearly warm beneath a churchman's finger;

      To such a holy house of stone and wood,

Whereof a cloud of angels was the bringer

      From Bethlehem to Loreto!—Were it good

For any pope on earth to be a flinger

      Of stones against these high-niched counterfeits?

Apostates only are iconoclasts.

      He dares not say, while this false thing abets

That true thing, "this is false!" he keepeth fasts

      And prayers, as prayers and fasts were silver frets

To change a note upon a string that lasts,

      And make a lie a virtue. Now, if he

Did more than this,—higher hoped and braver dared,—

      I think he were a pope in jeopardy,

Or no pope rather! for his soul had barred

      The vaulting of his life. And certainly,

If he do only this, mankind's regard

      Moves on from him at once, to seek some new

Teacher and leader! He is good and great

      According to the deeds a pope can do;

Most liberal, save those bonds; affectionate,

      As princes may be; and, as priests are, true—

But only the ninth Pius after eight,

      When all's praised most. At best and hopefullest,

He's pope—we want a man! his heart beats warm,

      But, like the prince enchanted to the waist,

He sits in stone, and hardens by a charm

      Into the marble of his throne high-placed!

Mild benediction, waves his saintly arm—

      So good! but what we want's a perfect man,

Complete and all alive: half travertine

      Half suits our need, and ill subserves our plan.

Feet, knees, nerves, sinews, energies divine

      Were never yet too much for men who ran

In such exalted ways as this of thine,

      Deliverer whom we seek, whoe'er thou art,

Pope, prince, or peasant! If, indeed, the first,

      The noblest, therefore! since the heroic heart

Within thee must be great enough to burst

      Those trammels buckling to the baser part

Thy saintly peers in Rome, who crossed and cursed

      With the same finger.

If pope or peasant, come! we hear the cock,

      The courtier of the mountains when first crowned

With golden dawn; and orient glories flock

      To meet the sun upon the highest ground.

Take voice and work! we wait to hear thee knock

      At some one of our Florentine nine gates,

On each of which we imaged a sublime

      Face of a Tuscan genius, which, for hate's

And love's sake both, our Florence in her prime

      Turned boldly on all comers to her states,

As heroes turned their shields in antique time,

      Blazoned with honourable acts. And though

The gates are blank now of such images,

      And Petrarch looks no more from Nicolo

Toward dear Arezzo, 'twixt the acacia trees,

Nor Dante, from gate Gallo—still we know,

Despite the razing of the blazonries,

      Remains the consecration of the shield,

The dead heroic faces will start out

      On all these gates, if foes should take the field,

And blend sublimely, at the earliest shout,

      With our live fighters, who will scorn to yield

A hair's-breadth ev'n, when, gazing round about,

      They find in what a glorious company

They fight the foes of Florence! Who will grudge

      His one poor life, when that great man we see,

Has given five hundred years, the world being judge,

      To help the glory of his Italy?

Who, born the fair side of the Alps, will budge,

      When Dante stays, when Ariosto stays,

When Petrarch stays, for ever? Ye bring swords,

      My Tuscans? Why, if wanted in this haze,

Bring swords, but first bring souls!—bring thoughts and words

      Unrusted by a tear of yesterday's,

Yet awful by its wrong, and cut these cords

      And mow this green lush falseness to the roots,

And shut the mouth of hell below the swathe!

      And if ye can bring songs too, let the lute's

Recoverable music softly bathe

      Some poet's hand, that, through all bursts and bruits

Of popular passion—all unripe and rathe

      Convictions of the popular intellect—

Ye may not lack a finger up the air,

      Annunciative, reproving, pure, erect,

To show whieh way your first Ideal bare

      The whiteness of its wings, when, sorely pecked

By falcons on your wrists, it unaware

      Arose up overhead, and out of sight.

Breathe back the deep breath of their old delight,

To swell the Italian banner just unfurled.

      Help, lands of Europe! for, if Austria fight,

The drums will bar your slumber. Who had curled

      The laurel for your thousand artists' brows,

If these Italian hands had planted none?

      And who can sit down idle in the house,

Nor hear appeals from Buonarotti's stone

      And Raffael's canvas, rousing and to rouse?

Where's Poussin's master? Gallic Avignon

      Bred Laura, and Vaucluse's fount has stirred

The heart of France too strongly,—as it lets

      Its little stream out, like a wizard's bird

Which bounds upon its emerald wings, and wets

      The rocks on each side—that she should not gird

Her loins with Charlemagne's sword, when foes beset

      The country of her Petrarch. Spain may well

Be minded how from Italy she caught,

      To mingle with her tinkling Moorish bell,

A fuller cadence and a subtler thought;

      And even the New World, the receptacle

Of freemen, may send glad men, as it ought,

      To greet Vespucci Amerigo's door;

While England claims, by trump of poetry,

      Verona, Venice, the Ravenna shore,

And dearer holds her Milton's Fiesole

      Than Malvern with a sunset running o'er.

Last June, beloved companion,—where sublime

The mountains live in holy families,

      And the slow pinewoods ever climb and climb

Half up their breasts; just stagger as they seize

      Some grey crag—drop back with it many a time,

And straggle blindly down the precipice!

      The Vallombrosan brooks were strewn as thick

That June-day, knee-deep, with dead beechen leaves,

      As Milton saw them ere his heart grew sick,

And his eyes blind. I think the monks and beeves

      Are all the same too: scarce they have changed the wick

On good St. Gualbert's altar, which receives

      The convent's pilgrims; and the pool in front.

Wherein the hill-stream trout are cast, to wait

      The beatific vision, and the grunt

Used at refectory, keeps its weedy state,

      To baffle saintly abbots, who would count

The fish across their breviary, nor 'bate

      The measure of their steps. O waterfalls

And forests! sound and silence! mountains bare,

      That leap up peak by peak, and catch the palls

Of purple and silver mist, to rend and share

      With one another, at electric calls

Of life in the sunbeams,-till we cannot dare

      Fix your shapes, learn your number! we must think

Your beauty and your glory helped to fill

      The cup of Milton's soul so to the brink,

That he no more was thirsty when God's will

      Had shattered to his sense the last chain-link

By which he drew from Nature's visible

      The fresh well-water. Satisfied by this,

He sang of Adam's paradise and smiled,

      Remembering Vallombrosa. Therefore is

The place divine to English man and child—

      We all love Italy.

The darling of the earth—the treasury, piled

      With reveries of gentle ladies, flung

Aside, like ravelled silk, from life's worn stuff—

      With coins of scholars' fancy, which, being rung

On work-day counter, still sound silver-proof—

      In short, with all the dreams of dreamers young,

Before their heads have time for slipping off

      Hope's pillow to the ground. How oft, indeed,

We all have sent our souls out from the north,

      On bare white feet which would not print nor I bleed,

To climb the Alpine passes and look forth,

      Where the low murmuring Lombard rivers lead

Their bee-like way to gardens almost worth

      The sight which thou and I see afterward

From Tuscan Bellosguardo, wide awake,

      When standing on the actual, blessed sward

Where Galileo stood at nights to take

      The vision of the stars, we find it hard,

Gazing upon the earth and heaven, to make

      A choice of beauty. Therefore let us all

In England, or in any other land

      Refreshed once by the fountain-rise and fall

Of dreams of this fair south,—who understand

      A little how the Tuscan musical

Vowels do round themselves, as if they plann'd

      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!—why, 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!

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 we keep our post

Or truth's and duty's side! As sword to sheath,

      Dust turns to grave, but souls find place in Heaven.

O friends, heroic daring is 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!