For only light; from eucharistic bowls
Will pour new life for nations that expire,
And rend the scarlet of his Papal vest
To gird the weak loins of his countrymen—
I hold that man surpasses all the rest
Of Romans, heroes, patriots,—and that when
He sat down on the throne, he dispossessed
The first graves of some glory. See again,
This country-saving is a glorious thing!
Why, say a common man achieved it? Well!
Say, a rich man did? Excellent! A king?
That grows sublime! A priest? Improbable!
A Pope? Ah, there we stop and cannot bring
Our faith up to the leap, with history's bell
So heavy round the neck of it—albeit
We fain would grant the possibility
For thy sake, Pio Nono!
XXII.
In that case—I will kiss them reverently
As any pilgrim to the Papal seat!
And, such proved possible, thy throne to me
Shall seem as holy a place as Pellico's
Venetian dungeon; or as Spielberg's grate,
Where the fair Lombard woman hung the rose
Of her sweet soul, by its own dewy weight,
(Because her sun shone inside to the close!)
And pining so, died early, yet too late
For what she suffered! Yea, I will not choose
Betwixt thy throne, Pope Pius, and the spot
Marked red for ever spite of rains and dews,
Where two fell riddled by the Austrian's shot
The brothers Bandiera, who accuse,
