XXVII

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.