Page:Italian Literature.pdf/28

Ah! who may hear the murmurs of the dying?
Haste! let the tale of triumph be reveal'd!
E'en now the courier to his steed is flying,
He spurs—he speeds—with tidings of the day.
To rouse up cities in his lightning way.

Why pour ye forth from your deserted homes,
O eager multitudes! around him pressing?
Each hurrying where his breathless courser foams,
Each tongue, each eye, infatuate hope confessing!
Know ye not whence th' ill-omen'd herald comes,
And dare ye dream he' comes with words of blessing?—
Brothers, by brothers slain, lie low and cold,—
Be ye content! the glorious tale is told.

I hear the voice of joy, th' exulting cry!
They deck the shrine, they swell the choral strains,
E'en now the homicides assail the sky
With pœans, which indignant Heaven disdains!—
But from the soaring Alps the stranger's eye
Looks watchful down on our ensanguin'd plains,
And, with the cruel rapture of a foe,
Numbers the mighty, stretch'd in death below.

Haste! form your lines again, ye brave and true!
Haste, haste! your triumphs and your joys suspending;
Th' invader comes, your banners raise anew,
Rush to the strife, your country's call attending!
Victors! why pause ye?—Are ye weak and few?—
Aye! such he deem'd you, and for this descending,
He waits you on the field ye know too well,
The same red war-field where your brethren fell.

O thou devoted land! that can'st not rear
In peace thine offspring; thou, the lost and won,
The fair and fatal soil, that dost appear
Too narrow still for each contending son;
Receive the stranger, in his fierce career.
Parting thy spoils! thy chastening is begun!
And, wresting from thy kings the guardian sword,
Foes, whom thou ne'er hadst wrong'd, sit proudly at thy hoard.

Are these infatuate too?—Oh! who hath known
A people e'er by guilt's vain triumph blest?
The wrong'd, the vanquish'd, suffer not alone,