227
II.
High priest of heaven and hell and purgatory:
Thy lips are loud with strains of oldworld story,
But the red prey was rent out of thy paws
Long since: and they that dying brake down thy laws
Have with the fires of death-enkindled glory
Put out the flame that faltered on thy hoary
High altars, waning with the world’s applause.
This Italy was Dante’s: Bruno died
Here: Campanella, too sublime for pride,
Endured thy God’s worst here, and hence went home.
And what art thou, that time’s full tide should shrink
For thy sake downward? What art thou, to think
Thy God shall give thee back for birthright Rome?
January, 1882.
