XXIV

Still, still, the patriot's tomb, the stranger's hate.

      Still Niobe! still fainting in the sun

By whose most dazzling arrows violate

      Her beauteous offspring perished! Has she won

Nothing but garlands for the graves, from Fate?

      Nothing but death-songs?—Yet, be it understood,

Life throbs in noble Piedmont! while the feet

      Of Rome's clay image, dabbled soft in blood,

Grow flat with dissolution, and, as meet,

      Will soon be shovelled off, like other mud,

To leave the passage free in church and street.

And I, who first took hope up in this song,

Because a child was singing one... behold,

      The hope and omen were not, haply, wrong!

Poets are soothsayers still, like those of old

      Who studied flights of doves,—and creatures young

And tender, mighty meanings, may unfold.