Pressing the casque of foeman unhelmeted;—
Whose fair renown for feat triumphant
Art on the orb of thy shield inscribing?
An archon's name, who boldly in face of Wrong
The freeman's law upheld and immunity?
A consul's, far and wide the Latin
Limit and glory and awe enlarging?
Thee throned on Alpine pinnacle loftily,
Radiant 'mid tempest, heralding might I hear,
Kings and peoples, here stands Italy,
Weaponed to strike for her soil and honour.
Lydia, the while, a garland of flowerets,
By sad October strewn o'er the wreck of Rome,
To deck thee braids, and gently bending,
Questioneth, as at thy foot she lays it:
'What thoughts, what visions. Victory, came to thee,
Years on years in the humid imprisonment
Of earth immured? the German horses
Heardest thou stamp o'er thy brow Hellenic?'
'I heard,' she answers, flashing and fulminant,
'Heard and endured, for glory of Greece am I,
And strength of Rome, in bronze immortal
Sped without flaw through the fleeting ages,
'The ages passed like the twelve birds ominous,
Descried by gaze of Romulus anciently:
They passed, I rose: thy Gods, proclaimings
Italy, see! and thy buried heroes,
'Proud of her fortune, Brescia enshrined me,
Brescia the stalwart, Brescia the iron-girt,
Italia's lioness, her vesture
Dyed in the blood of her land's invaders.' "
A large proportion of Carducci's lyrics flow with more of liquid ease in more familiar metres, better adapted for
