V

Of towns and temples, which makes Italy,—

      I sigh amid the sighs which breathe a gust

Of dying century to century,

      Around us on the uneven crater-crust

Of the old worlds,—I bow my soul and knee,

      And sigh and do repent me of my fault

That ever I believed the man was true.

      These sceptred strangers shun the common salt,

And, therefore, when the general board's in view,

      They standing up to carve for blind and halt,

We should suspect the viands which ensue.

      And I repent that in this time and place,

Where all the corpse-lights of experience burn

      From Cæsar's and Lorenzo's festering race,

To illumine groping reasoners, I could learn

      No better counsel for a simple case

Than to put faith in princes, in my turn.

Heavens! had the death-piles of the ancient years

Flared up in vain before me? Knew I not

      What stench arises from their purple gears,

And how the sceptres witness whence they got

      Their briar-wood, crackling through the atmosphere's

Foul smoke, by princely perjuries, kept hot?

      Forgive me, ghosts of patriots,—Brutus, thou,

Who trailest downhill into life again

      Thy blood-weighed cloak, to indict me with thy slow

Reproachful eyes!—for being taught in vain

      That while the illegitimate Cæsars show

Of meaner stature than the first full strain,

      (Confessed incompetent to conquer Gaul)

They swoon as feebly and cross Rubicons

      As rashly as any Julius of them all.

Forgive, that I forgot the mind that runs

      Through absolute races, too unsceptical!

I saw the man among his little sons,

      His lips warm with their kisses while he swore,

And I, because I am a woman, I,

      Who felt my own child's coming life before

The prescience of my soul, and held faith high,

      I could not bear to think, whoever bore,

That lips, so warmed, could shape so cold a lie.