VI

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!