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A Song Of Italy

by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Inscribed With All Devotion and Reverence To: JOSEPH MAZZINI

DIRAE

I saw the double-featured statue stand

Of Memnon or of Janus, half with night

Veiled, and fast bound with iron; half with light

Crowned, holding all men's future in his hand.

And all the old westward face of time grown grey

Was writ with cursing and inscribed for death;

But on the face that met the mornings breath

Fear died of hope as darkness dies of day.

Upon a windy night of stars that fell

At the wind's spoken spell,

Swept with sharp strokes of agonizing light

From the clear gulf of night,

Between the fixed and fallen glories one

Against my vision shone,

More fair and fearful and divine than they

That measure night and day,

And worthier worship; and within mine eyes

The formless folded skies

Took shape and were unfolded like as flowers.

And I beheld the hours

As maidens, and the days as labouring men,

And the soft nights again

As wearied women to their own souls wed,

And ages as the dead.

And over these living, and them that died,

From one to the other side

A lordlier light than comes of earth or air

Made the world's future fair.

A woman like to love in face, but not

A thing of transient lot,

And like to hope, but having hold on truth,

And like to joy or youth,

Save that upon the rock her feet were set,

And like what men forget,

Faith, innocence, high thought, laborious peace,

And yet like none of these,

Being not as these are mortal, but with eyes

That sounded the deep skies

And clove like wings or arrows their clear way

Through night and dawn and day,

So fair a presence over star and sun

Stood, making these as one.

For in the shadow of her shape were all

Darkened and held in thrall,

So mightier rose she past them; and I felt

Whose form, whose likeness knelt

With covered hair and face and clasped her knees;

And knew the first of these

Was Freedom, and the second Italy.

And what sad words said she

For mine own grief I knew not, nor had heart

Therewith to bear my part

And set my songs to sorrow; nor to hear

How tear by sacred tear

Fell from her eyes as flowers or notes that fall

In some slain feaster's hall

Where in mid music and melodious breath

Men singing have seen death.

So fair, so lost, so sweet she knelt; or so

In our lost eyes below

Seemed to us sorrowing; and her speech being said,

Fell, as one who falls dead.

And for a little she too wept, who stood

Above the dust and blood

And thrones and troubles of the world; then spake,

As who bids dead men wake.

"Because the years were heavy on thy head;

Because dead things are dead;

Because thy chosen on hill-side, city and plain

Are shed as drops of rain;

Because all earth was black, all heaven was blind,

And we cast out of mind;

Because men wept, saying _Freedom_, knowing of thee,

Child, that thou wast not free;

Because wherever blood was not shame was

Where thy pure foot did pass;

Because on Promethean rocks distent

Thee fouler eagles rent;

Because a serpent stains with slime and foam

This that is not thy Rome;

Child of my womb, whose limbs were made in me,

Have I forgotten thee?

In all thy dreams through all these years on wing,

Hast thou dreamed such a thing?

The mortal mother-bird outsoars her nest,

The child outgrows the breast;

But suns as stars shall fall from heaven and cease,

Ere we twain be as these;

Yea, utmost skies forget their utmost sun,

Ere we twain be not one.

My lesser jewels sewn on skirt and hem,

I have no heed of them

Obscured and flawed by sloth or craft or power;

But thou, that wast my flower,

The blossom bound between my brows and worn

In sight of even and morn

From the last ember of the flameless west

To the dawn's baring breast,

I were not Freedom if thou wert not free,

Nor thou wert Italy.

O mystic rose ingrained with blood, impearled

With tears of all the world!

The torpor of their blind brute-ridden trance

Kills England and chills France;

And Spain sobs hard through strangling blood; and snows

Hide the huge eastern woes.

But thou, twin-born with morning, nursed of noon,

And blessed of star and moon!

What shall avail to assail thee any more,

From sacred shore to shore?

Have Time and Love not knelt down at thy feet,

Thy sore, thy soiled, thy sweet,

Fresh from the flints and mire of murderous ways

And dust of travelling days?

Hath Time not kissed them, Love not washed them fair,

And wiped with tears and hair?

Though God forget thee, I will not forget;

Though heaven and earth be set

Against thee, O unconquerable child,

Abused, abased, reviled,

Lift thou not less from no funereal bed

Thine undishonoured head;

Love thou not less, by lips of thine once prest,

This my now barren breast;

Seek thou not less, being well assured thereof,

O child, my latest love.

For now the barren bosom shall bear fruit,

Songs leap from lips long mute,

And with my milk the mouths of nations fed

Again be glad and red

That were worn white with hunger and sorrow and thirst;

And thou, most fair and first,

Thou whose warm hands and sweet live lips I feel

Upon me for a seal,

Thou whose least looks, whose smiles and little sighs,

Whose passionate pure eyes,

Whose dear fair limbs that neither bonds could bruise

Nor hate of men misuse,

Whose flower-like breath and bosom, O my child,

O mine and undefiled,

Fill with such tears as burn like bitter wine

These mother's eyes of mine,

Thrill with huge passions and primeval pains

The fullness of my veins,

O sweetest head seen higher than any stands,

I touch thee with mine hands,

I lay my lips upon thee, O thou most sweet,

To lift thee on thy feet

And with the fire of mine to fill thine eyes;

I say unto thee, Arise."

She ceased, and heaven was full of flame and sound,

And earth's old limbs unbound

Shone and waxed warm with fiery dew and seed

Shed through her at this her need:

And highest in heaven, a mother and full of grace,

With no more covered face,

With no more lifted hands and bended knees,

Rose, as from sacred seas

Love, when old time was full of plenteous springs,

That fairest-born of things,

The land that holds the rest in tender thrall

For love's sake in them all,

That binds with words and holds with eyes and hands

All hearts in all men's lands.

So died the dream whence rose the live desire

That here takes form and fire,

A spirit from the splendid grave of sleep

Risen, that ye should not weep,

Should not weep more nor ever, O ye that hear

And ever have held her dear,

Seeing now indeed she weeps not who wept sore,

And sleeps not any more.

Hearken ye towards her, O people, exalt your eyes;

Is this a thing that dies?

Italia! by the passion of the pain

That bent and rent thy chain;

Italia! by the breaking of the bands,

The shaking of the lands;

Beloved, O men's mother, O men's queen,

Arise, appear, be seen!

Arise, array thyself in manifold

Queen's raiment of wrought gold;

With girdles of green freedom, and with red

Roses, and white snow shed

Above the flush and frondage of the hills

That all thy deep dawn fills

And all thy clear night veils and warms with wings

Spread till the morning sings;

The rose of resurrection, and the bright

Breast lavish of the light,

The lady lily like the snowy sky

Ere the stars wholly die;

As red as blood, and whiter than a wave,

Flowers grown as from thy grave,

From the green fruitful grass in Maytime hot,

Thy grave, where thou art not.

Gather the grass and weave, in sacred sign

Of the ancient earth divine,

The holy heart of things, the seed of birth,

The mystical warm earth.

O thou her flower of flowers, with treble braid

Be thy sweet head arrayed,

In witness of her mighty motherhood

Who bore thee and found thee good,

Her fairest-born of children, on whose head

Her green and white and red

Are hope and light and life, inviolate

Of any latter fate.

Fly, O our flag, through deep Italian air,

Above the flags that were,

The dusty shreds of shameful battle-flags

Trampled and rent in rags,

As withering woods in autumn's bitterest breath

Yellow, and black as death;

Black as crushed worms that sicken in the sense,

And yellow as pestilence.

Fly, green as summer and red as dawn and white

As the live heart of light,

The blind bright womb of colour unborn, that brings

Forth all fair forms of things,

As freedom all fair forms of nations dyed

In divers-coloured pride.

Fly fleet as wind on every wind that blows

Between her seas and snows,

From Alpine white, from Tuscan green, and where

Vesuvius reddens air.

Fly! and let all men see it, and all kings wail,

And priests wax faint and pale,

And the cold hordes that moan in misty places

And the funereal races

And the sick serfs of lands that wait and wane

See thee and hate thee in vain.

In the clear laughter of all winds and waves,

In the blown grass of graves,

In the long sound of fluctuant boughs of trees,

In the broad breath of seas,

Bid the sound of thy flying folds be heard;

And as a spoken word

Full of that fair god and that merciless

Who rends the Pythoness,

So be the sound and so the fire that saith

She feels her ancient breath

And the old blood move in her immortal veins.

Strange travail and strong pains,

Our mother, hast thou borne these many years

While thy pure blood and tears

Mixed with the Tyrrhene and the Adrian sea;

Light things were said of thee,

As of one buried deep among the dead;

Yea, she hath been, they said,

She was when time was younger, and is not;

The very cerecloths rot

That flutter in the dusty wind of death,

Not moving with her breath;

Far seasons and forgotten years enfold

Her dead corpse old and cold

With many windy winters and pale springs:

She is none of this world's things.

Though her dead head like a live garland wear

The golden-growing hair

That flows over her breast down to her feet,

Dead queens, whose life was sweet

In sight of all men living, have been found

So cold, so clad, so crowned,

With all things faded and with one thing fair,

Their old immortal hair,

When flesh and bone turned dust at touch of day:

And she is dead as they.

So men said sadly, mocking; so the slave,

Whose life was his soul's grave;

So, pale or red with change of fast and feast,

The sanguine-sandalled priest;

So the Austrian, when his fortune came to flood,

And the warm wave was blood;

With wings that widened and with beak that smote,

So shrieked through either throat

From the hot horror of its northern nest

That double-headed pest;

So, triple-crowned with fear and fraud and shame,

He of whom treason came,

The herdsman of the Gadarean swine;

So all his ravening kine,

Made fat with poisonous pasture; so not we,

Mother, beholding thee.

Make answer, O the crown of all our slain,

Ye that were one, being twain,

Twain brethren, twin-born to the second birth,

Chosen out of all our earth

To be the prophesying stars that say

How hard is night on day,

Stars in serene and sudden heaven rerisen

Before the sun break prison

And ere the moon be wasted; fair first flowers

In that red wreath of ours

Woven with the lives of all whose lives were shed

To crown their mother's head

With leaves of civic cypress and thick yew,

Till the olive bind it too,

Olive and laurel and all loftier leaves

That victory wears or weaves

At her fair feet for her beloved brow;

Hear, for she too hears now,

O Pisacane, from Calabrian sands;

O all heroic hands

Close on the sword-hilt, hands of all her dead;

O many a holy head,

Bowed for her sake even to her reddening dust;

O chosen, O pure and just,

Who counted for a small thing life's estate,

And died, and made it great;

Ye whose names mix with all her memories; ye

Who rather chose to see

Death, than our more intolerable things;

Thou whose name withers kings,

Agesilao; thou too, O chiefliest thou,

The slayer of splendid brow,

Laid where the lying lips of fear deride

The foiled tyrannicide,

Foiled, fallen, slain, scorned, and happy; being in fame,

Felice, like thy name,

Not like thy fortune; father of the fight,

Having in hand our light.

Ah, happy! for that sudden-swerving hand

Flung light on all thy land,

Yea, lit blind France with compulsory ray,

Driven down a righteous way;

Ah, happiest! for from thee the wars began,

From thee the fresh springs ran;

From thee the lady land that queens the earth

Gat as she gave new birth.

O sweet mute mouths, O all fair dead of ours,

Fair in her eyes as flowers,

Fair without feature, vocal without voice,

Strong without strength, rejoice!

Hear it with ears that hear not, and on eyes

That see not let it rise,

Rise as a sundawn; be it as dew that drips

On dumb and dusty lips;

Eyes have ye not, and see it; neither ears,

And there is none but hears.

This is the same for whom ye bled and wept;

She was not dead, but slept.

This is that very Italy which was

And is and shall not pass.

But thou, though all were not well done, O chief,

Must thou take shame or grief?

Because one man is not as thou or ten,

Must thou take shame for men?

Because the supreme sunrise is not yet,

Is the young dew not wet?

Wilt thou not yet abide a little while,

Soul without fear or guile,

Mazzini, O our prophet, O our priest,

A little while at least?

A little hour of doubt and of control,

Sustain thy sacred soul;

Withhold thine heart, our father, but an hour;

Is it not here, the flower,

Is it not blown and fragrant from the root,

And shall not be the fruit?

Thy children, even thy people thou hast made,

Thine, with thy words arrayed,

Clothed with thy thoughts and girt with thy desires,

Yearn up toward thee as fires.

Art thou not father, O father, of all these?

From thine own Genoese

To where of nights the lower extreme lagune

Feels its Venetian moon,

Nor suckling's mouth nor mother's breast set free

But hath that grace through thee.

The milk of life on death's unnatural brink

Thou gavest them to drink,

The natural milk of freedom; and again

They drank, and they were men.

The wine and honey of freedom and of faith

They drank, and cast off death.

Bear with them now; thou art holier: yet endure,

Till they as thou be pure.

Their swords at least that stemmed half Austria's tide

Bade all its bulk divide;

Else, though fate bade them for a breath's space fall,

She had not fallen at all.

Not by their hands they made time's promise true;

Not by their hands, but through.

Nor on Custoza ran their blood to waste,

Nor fell their fame defaced

Whom stormiest Adria with tumultuous tides

Whirls undersea and hides.

Not his, who from the sudden-settling deck

Looked over death and wreck

To where the mother's bosom shone, who smiled

As he, so dying, her child;

For he smiled surely, dying, to mix his death

With her memorial breath;

Smiled, being most sure of her, that in no wise,

Die whoso will, she dies:

And she smiled surely, fair and far above,

Wept not, but smiled for love.

Thou too, O splendour of the sudden sword

That drove the crews abhorred

From Naples and the siren-footed strand,

Flash from thy master's hand,

Shine from the middle summer of the seas

To the old Aeolides,

Outshine their fiery fumes of burning night,

Sword, with thy midday light;

Flame as a beacon from the Tyrrhene foam

To the rent heart of Rome,

From the island of her lover and thy lord,

Her saviour and her sword.

In the fierce year of failure and of fame,

Art thou not yet the same

That wast as lightning swifter than all wings

In the blind face of kings?

When priests took counsel to devise despair,

And princes to forswear,

She clasped thee, O her sword and flag-bearer

And staff and shield to her,

O Garibaldi; need was hers and grief,

Of thee and of the chief,

And of another girt in arms to stand

As good of hope and hand,

As high of soul and happy, albeit indeed

The heart should burn and bleed,

So but the spirit shake not nor the breast

Swerve, but abide its rest.

As theirs did and as thine, though ruin clomb

The highest wall of Rome,

Though treason stained and spilt her lustral water,

And slaves led slaves to slaughter,

And priests, praying and slaying, watched them pass

From a strange France, alas,

That was not freedom; yet when these were past

Thy sword and thou stood fast,

Till new men seeing thee where Sicilian waves

Hear now no sound of slaves,

And where thy sacred blood is fragrant still

Upon the Bitter Hill,

Seeing by that blood one country saved and stained,

Less loved thee crowned than chained,

And less now only than the chief: for he,

Father of Italy,

Upbore in holy hands the babe new-born

Through loss and sorrow and scorn,

Of no man led, of many men reviled;

Till lo, the new-born child

Gone from between his hands, and in its place,

Lo, the fair mother's face.

Blessed is he of all men, being in one

As father to her and son,

Blessed of all men living, that he found

Her weak limbs bared and bound,

And in his arms and in his bosom bore,

And as a garment wore

Her weight of want, and as a royal dress

Put on her weariness.

As in faith's hoariest histories men read,

The strong man bore at need

Through roaring rapids when all heaven was wild

The likeness of a child

That still waxed greater and heavier as he trod,

And altered, and was God.

Praise him, O winds that move the molten air,

O light of days that were,

And light of days that shall be; land and sea,

And heaven and Italy:

Praise him, O storm and summer, shore and wave,

O skies and every grave;

O weeping hopes, O memories beyond tears,

O many and murmuring years,

O sounds far off in time and visions far,

O sorrow with thy star,

And joy with all thy beacons; ye that mourn,

And ye whose light is born;

O fallen faces, and O souls arisen,

Praise him from tomb and prison,

Praise him from heaven and sunlight; and ye floods,

And windy waves of woods;

Ye valleys and wild vineyards, ye lit lakes

And happier hillside brakes,

Untrampled by the accursed feet that trod

Fields golden from their god,

Fields of their god forsaken, whereof none

Sees his face in the sun,

Hears his voice from the floweriest wildernesses;

And, barren of his tresses,

Ye bays unplucked and laurels unentwined,

That no men break or bind,

And myrtles long forgetful of the sword,

And olives unadored,

Wisdom and love, white hands that save and slay,

Praise him; and ye as they,

Praise him, O gracious might of dews and rains

That feed the purple plains,

O sacred sunbeams bright as bare steel drawn,

O cloud and fire and dawn;

Red hills of flame, white Alps, green Apennines,

Banners of blowing pines,

Standards of stormy snows, flags of light leaves,

Three wherewith Freedom weaves

One ensign that once woven and once unfurled

Makes day of all a world,

Makes blind their eyes who knew not, and outbraves

The waste of iron waves;

Ye fields of yellow fullness, ye fresh fountains,

And mists of many mountains;

Ye moons and seasons, and ye days and nights;

Ye starry-headed heights,

And gorges melting sunward from the snow,

And all strong streams that flow,

Tender as tears, and fair as faith, and pure

As hearts made sad and sure

At once by many sufferings and one love;

O mystic deathless dove

Held to the heart of earth and in her hands

Cherished, O lily of lands,

White rose of time, dear dream of praises past,

For such as these thou wast,

That art as eagles setting to the sun,

As fawns that leap and run,

As a sword carven with keen floral gold,

Sword for an armed god's hold,

Flower for a crowned god's forehead O our land,

Reach forth thine holiest hand,

O mother of many sons and memories,

Stretch out thine hand to his

That raised and gave thee life to run and leap

When thou wast full of sleep,

That touched and stung thee with young blood and breath

When thou wast hard on death.

Praise him, O all her cities and her crowns,

Her towers and thrones of towns;

O noblest Brescia, scarred from foot to head

And breast-deep in thy dead,

Praise him from all the glories of thy graves

That yellow Mela laves

With gentle and golden water, whose fair flood

Ran wider with thy blood:

Praise him, O born of that heroic breast,

O nursed thereat and blest,

Verona, fairer than thy mother fair,

But not more brave to bear:

Praise him, O Milan, whose imperial tread

Bruised once the German head;

Whose might, by northern swords left desolate,

Set foot on fear and fate:

Praise him, O long mute mouth of melodies,

Mantua, with louder keys,

With mightier chords of music even than rolled

From the large harps of old,

When thy sweet singer of golden throat and tongue,

Praising his tyrant, sung;

Though now thou sing not as of other days,

Learn late a better praise.

Not with the sick sweet lips of slaves that sing,

Praise thou no priest or king,

No brow-bound laurel of discoloured leaf,

But him, the crownless chief.

Praise him, O star of sun-forgotten times,

Among their creeds and crimes

That wast a fire of witness in the night,

Padua, the wise men's light:

Praise him, O sacred Venice, and the sea

That now exults through thee,

Full of the mighty morning and the sun,

Free of things dead and done;

Praise him from all the years of thy great grief,

That shook thee like a leaf

With winds and snows of torment, rain that fell

Red as the rains of hell,

Storms of black thunder and of yellow flame,

And all ill things but shame;

Praise him with all thy holy heart and strength;

Through thy walls' breadth and length

Praise him with all thy people, that their voice

Bid the strong soul rejoice,

The fair clear supreme spirit beyond stain,

Pure as the depth of pain,

High as the head of suffering, and secure

As all things that endure.

More than thy blind lord of an hundred years

Whose name our memory hears,

Home-bound from harbours of the Byzantine

Made tributary of thine,

Praise him who gave no gifts from oversea,

But gave thyself to thee.

O mother Genoa, through all years that run,

More than that other son,

Who first beyond the seals of sunset prest

Even to the unfooted west,

Whose back-blown flag scared from, their sheltering seas

The unknown Atlantides,

And as flame climbs through cloud and vapour clomb

Through streams of storm and foam,

Till half in sight they saw land heave and swim,

More than this man praise him.

One found a world new-born from virgin sea;

And one found Italy.

O heavenliest Florence, from the mouths of flowers

Fed by melodious hours,

From each sweet mouth that kisses light and air,

Thou whom thy fate made fair,

As a bound vine or any flowering tree,

Praise him who made thee free.

For no grape-gatherers trampling out the wine

Tread thee, the fairest vine;

For no man binds thee, no man bruises, none

Does with thee as these have done.

From where spring hears loud through her long lit vales

Triumphant nightingales,

In many a fold of fiery foliage hidden,

Withheld as things forbidden,

But clamorous with innumerable delight

In May's red, green, and white,

In the far-floated standard of the spring,

That bids men also sing,

Our flower of flags, our witness that we are free,

Our lamp for land and sea;

From where Majano feels through corn and vine

Spring move and melt as wine,

And Fiesole's embracing arms enclose

The immeasurable rose;

From hill-sides plumed with pine, and heights wind-worn

That feel the refluent morn,

Or where the moon's face warm and passionate

Burns, and men's hearts grow great,

And the swoln eyelids labour with sweet tears,

And in their burning ears

Sound throbs like flame, and in their eyes new light

Kindles the trembling night;

From faint illumined fields and starry valleys

Wherefrom the hill-wind sallies,

From Vallombrosa, from Valdarno raise

One Tuscan tune of praise.

O lordly city of the field of death,

Praise him with equal breath,

From sleeping streets and gardens, and the stream

That threads them as a dream

Threads without light the untravelled ways of sleep

With eyes that smile or weep;

From the sweet sombre beauty of wave and wall

That fades and does not fall;

From coloured domes and cloisters fair with fame,

Praise thou and thine his name.

Thou too, O little laurelled town of towers,

Clothed with the flame of flowers,

From windy ramparts girdled with young gold,

From thy sweet hillside fold

Of wallflowers and the acacia's belted bloom

And every blowing plume,

Halls that saw Dante speaking, chapels fair

As the outer hills and air,

Praise him who feeds the fire that Dante fed,

Our highest heroic head,

Whose eyes behold through floated cloud and flame

The maiden face of fame

Like April's in Valdelsa; fair as flowers,

And patient as the hours;

Sad with slow sense of time, and bright with faith

That levels life and death;

The final fame, that with a foot sublime

Treads down reluctant time;

The fame that waits and watches and is wise,

A virgin with chaste eyes,

A goddess who takes hands with great men's grief;

Praise her, and him, our chief.

Praise him, O Siena, and thou her deep green spring,

O Fonte Branda, sing:

Shout from the red clefts of thy fiery crags,

Shake out thy flying flags

In the long wind that streams from hill to hill;

Bid thy full music fill

The desolate red waste of sunset air

And fields the old time saw fair,

But now the hours ring void through ruined lands,

Wild work of mortal hands;

Yet through thy dead Maremma let his name

Take flight and pass in flame,

And the red ruin of disastrous hours

Shall quicken into flowers.

Praise him, O fiery child of sun and sea,

Naples, who bade thee be;

For till he sent the swords that scourge and save,

Thou wast not, but thy grave.

But more than all these praise him and give thanks,

Thou, from thy Tiber's banks,

From all thine hills and from thy supreme dome,

Praise him, O risen Rome.

Let all thy children cities at thy knee

Lift up their voice with thee,

Saying 'for thy love's sake and our perished grief

We laud thee, O our chief;'

Saying 'for thine hand and help when hope was dead

We thank thee, O our head;'

Saying 'for thy voice and face within our sight

We bless thee, O our light;

For waters cleansing us from days defiled

We praise thee, O our child.'

So with an hundred cities' mouths in one

Praising thy supreme son,

Son of thy sorrow, O mother, O maid and mother,

Our queen, who serve none other,

Our lady of pity and mercy, and full of grace,

Turn otherwhere thy face,

Turn for a little and look what things are these

Now fallen before thy knees;

Turn upon them thine eyes who hated thee,

Behold what things they be,

Italia: these are stubble that were steel,

Dust, or a turning wheel;

As leaves, as snow, as sand, that were so strong;

And howl, for all their song,

And wail, for all their wisdom; they that were

So great, they are all stript bare,

They are all made empty of beauty, and all abhorred;

They are shivered and their sword;

They are slain who slew, they are heartless who were wise;

Yea, turn on these thine eyes,

O thou, soliciting with soul sublime

The obscure soul of time,

Thou, with the wounds thy holy body bears

From broken swords of theirs,

Thou, with the sweet swoln eyelids that have bled

Tears for thy thousands dead,

And upon these, whose swords drank up like dew

The sons of thine they slew,

These, whose each gun blasted with murdering mouth

Live flowers of thy fair south,

These, whose least evil told in alien ears

Turned men's whole blood to tears,

These, whose least sin remembered for pure shame

Turned all those tears to flame,

Even upon these, when breaks the extreme blow

And all the world cries woe,

When heaven reluctant rains long-suffering fire

On these and their desire,

When his wind shakes them and his waters whelm

Who rent thy robe and realm,

When they that poured thy dear blood forth as wine

Pour forth their own for thine,

On these, on these have mercy: not in hate,

But full of sacred fate,

Strong from the shrine and splendid from the god,

Smite, with no second rod.

Because they spared not, do thou rather spare:

Be not one thing they were.

Let not one tongue of theirs who hate thee say

That thou wast even as they.

Because their hands were bloody, be thine white;

Show light where they shed night:

Because they are foul, be thou the rather pure;

Because they are feeble, endure;

Because they had no pity, have thou pity.

And thou, O supreme city,

O priestless Rome that shall be, take in trust

Their names, their deeds, their dust,

Who held life less than thou wert; be the least

To thee indeed a priest,

Priest and burnt-offering and blood-sacrifice

Given without prayer or price,

A holier immolation than men wist,

A costlier eucharist,

A sacrament more saving; bend thine head

Above these many dead

Once, and salute with thine eternal eyes

Their lowest head that lies.

Speak from thy lips of immemorial speech

If but one word for each.

Kiss but one kiss on each thy dead son's mouth

Fallen dumb or north or south.

And laying but once thine hand on brow and breast,

Bless them, through whom thou art blest.

And saying in ears of these thy dead, "Well done,"

Shall they not hear "O son"?

And bowing thy face to theirs made pale for thee,

Shall the shut eyes not see?

Yea, through the hollow-hearted world of death,

As light, as blood, as breath,

Shall there not flash and flow the fiery sense,

The pulse of prescience?

Shall not these know as in times overpast

Thee loftiest to the last?

For times and wars shall change, kingdoms and creeds,

And dreams of men, and deeds;

Earth shall grow grey with all her golden things,

Pale peoples and hoar kings;

But though her thrones and towers of nations fall,

Death has no part in all;

In the air, nor in the imperishable sea,

Nor heaven, nor truth, nor thee.

Yea, let all sceptre-stricken nations lie,

But live thou though they die;

Let their flags fade as flowers that storm can mar,

But thine be like a star;

Let England's, if it float not for men free,

Fall, and forget the sea;

Let France's, if it shadow a hateful head,

Drop as a leaf drops dead;

Thine let what storm soever smite the rest

Smite as it seems him best;

Thine let the wind that can, by sea or land,

Wrest from thy banner-hand.

Die they in whom dies freedom, die and cease,

Though the world weep for these;

Live thou and love and lift when these lie dead

The green and white and red.

O our Republic that shalt bind in bands

The kingdomless far lands

And link the chainless ages; thou that wast

With England ere she past

Among the faded nations, and shalt be

Again, when sea to sea

Calls through the wind and light of morning time,

And throneless clime to clime

Makes antiphonal answer; thou that art

Where one man's perfect heart

Burns, one man's brow is brightened for thy sake,

Thine, strong to make or break;

O fair Republic hallowing with stretched hands

The limitless free lands,

When all men's heads for love, not fear, bow down

To thy sole royal crown,

As thou to freedom; when man's life smells sweet,

And at thy bright swift feet

A bloodless and a bondless world is laid;

Then, when thy men are made,

Let these indeed as we in dreams behold

One chosen of all thy fold,

One of all fair things fairest, one exalt

Above all fear or fault,

One unforgetful of unhappier men

And us who loved her then;

With eyes that outlook suns and dream on graves;

With voice like quiring waves;

With heart the holier for their memories' sake

Who slept that she might wake;

With breast the sweeter for that sweet blood lost,

And all the milkless cost;

Lady of earth, whose large equality

Bends but to her and thee;

Equal with heaven, and infinite of years,

And splendid from quenched tears;

Strong with old strength of great things fallen and fled,

Diviner for her dead;

Chaste of all stains and perfect from all scars,

Above all storms and stars,

All winds that blow through time, all waves that foam,

Our Capitolian Rome.