When Marcus Brutus he conceived complete,
And strove to hurl him out by blow on blow
Upon the marble, at Art's thunderheat,
Till haply some pre-shadow rising slow
Of what his Italy would fancy meet
To be called Brutus, straight his plastic hand
Fell back before his prophet soul, and left
A fragment . . . a maimed Brutus,—but more grand
Than this, so named of Rome, was!
Let thy weft
Be of one woof and warp, Mazzini!—stand
With no man of a spotless fame bereft—
Not for Italia! Neither stand apart,
No, not for the republic!—from those pure
Brave men who hold the level of thy heart
In patriot truth, as lover and as doer,
Albeit they will not follow where thou art
As extreme theorist. Trust and distrust fewer;
And so bind strong and keep unstained the cause
Which, at God's signal, war-trumps newly blown
Shall yet annuntiate to the world's applause.
XX.
A Fair-going world. Imperial England draws
The flowing ends of the earth, from Fez, Canton,
Delhi and Stockholm, Athens and Madrid,
The Russias and the vast Americas,
As a queen gathers in her robes amid
Her golden cincture,—isles, peninsulas,
Capes, continents, far inland countries hid
By jaspar sands and hills of chrysopras,
All trailing in their splendours through the door
