And sigh for Italy with some safe sigh
Cooped up in music 'twist an oh and ah,—
Nay, hand in hand with that young child, will I
Rather go singing "Bella libertà,"
Than, with those poets, croon the dead or cry
"Se tu men bella fossi, Italia!"
VI.
Is so far plain in this—that Italy,
Long trammelled with the purple of her youth
Against her age's due activity,
Sate still upon her graves, without the ruth
Of death, but also without energy
And hope of life. "What's Italy?" men ask:
And others answer, "Virgil, Cicero,
Catullus, Cæsar." And what more? to task
The memory closer—"Why, Boccaccio,
Dante, Petrarca,"— and if still the flask
Appears to yield its wine by drops too slow,—
"Angelo, Raffael, Pergolese,"—all
Whose strong hearts beat through stone, or charged, again,
Cloth-threads with fire of souls electrical,
Or broke up heaven for music. What more then?
Why, then, no more. The chaplet's last beads fall
In naming the last saintship within ken,
And, after that, none prayeth in the land.
Alas, this Italy has too long swept
Heroic ashes up for hour-glass sand;
Of her own past, impassioned nympholept!
Consenting to be nailed by the hand
To the same bay-tree under which she stepped
