Page:A History of Italian Literature - Garnett (1898).djvu/365

A people dispersed doth arouse and awaken,
With senses all straining and pulses all shaken,
At a sound of strange clamour that swells like a wave.

In visages pallid, and eyes dim and shrouded,
As blinks the pale sun through a welkin beclouded,
The might of their fathers a moment is seen;
In eye and in countenance doubtfully blending,
The shame of the present seems dumbly contending
With pride in the thought of a past that hath been.

Now they gather in hope to disperse panic-stricken,
And in tortuous ways their pace slacken or quicken,
As, 'twixt longing and fear, they advance or stand still,
Gazing once and again where, despairing and scattered,
The host of their tyrants flies broken and shattered
From the wrath of the swords that are drinking their fill.
 
As wolves that the hunter hath cowed and subjected,
Their hair on their hides in dire horror erected,
So these to their covert distractedly fly;
And hope springs anew in the breast of the peasant;
O'ertaking the future in joy of the present,
He deems his chain broken, and broken for aye.

Nay, hearken! Yon heroes in victory warring,
From refuge and rescue the routed debarring,
By path steep and rugged have come from afar,
Forsaking the halls of their festive carousing,
From downy repose on soft couches arousing,
In haste to obey the shrill summons of war.

They have left in their castles their wives broken-hearted,
Who, striving to part, still refused to be parted,
With pleadings and warnings that died on the tongue.
The war-dinted helmet the brow hath surmounted,
And soon the dark chargers are saddled and mounted,
And hollow the bridge to their gallop hath rung.

From land unto land they have speeded and fleeted,
With lips that the lay of the soldier repeated,
But hearts that have harboured their home and its bowers.