A SONG OF ITALY.

UPON a windy night of stars that fell
At the wind's spoken spell,

Swept with sharp strokes of agonizing light
From the clear gulf of night,

Between the fixed and fallen glories one

Against my vision shone,

More fair and fearful and divine than they

That measure night and day,

And worthier worship; and within mine eyes The formless folded skies

Took shape and were unfolded like as flowers. And I beheld the hours

As maidens, and the days as labouring men,
And the soft nights again

As wearied women to their own souls wed,
And ages as the dead.

And over these living, and them that died,
From one to the other side

A lordlier light than comes of earth or air
Made the world's future fair.

A woman like to love in face, but not
A thing of transient lot-

And like to hope, but having hold on truth—

And like to joy or youth,

Save that upon the rock her feet were set—

And like what men forget,

Faith, innocence, high thought, laborious peace-
And yet like none of these,

Being not as these are mortal, but with eyes
That sounded the deep skies

And clove like wings or arrows their clear way
Through night and dawn and day—

So fair a presence over star and sun

Stood, making these as one.

For in the shadow of her shape were all
Darkened and held in thrall,

So mightier rose she past them; and I felt

Whose form, whose likeness knelt

With covered hair and face and clasped her knees ;

And knew the first of these

Was Freedom, and the second Italy.

And what sad words said she

For mine own grief I knew not, nor had heart

Therewith to bear my part

And set my songs to sorrow; nor to hear

How tear by sacred tear

Fell from her eyes as flowers or notes that fall

In some slain feaster's hall

Where in mid music and melodious breath
Men singing have seen death.

So fair, so lost, so sweet she knelt ; or so
In our lost eyes below

Seemed to us sorrowing; and her speech being said, Fell, as one who falls dead.

And for a little she too wept, who stood

Above the dust and blood

And thrones and troubles of the world; then spake,

As who bids dead men wake.

'Because the years were heavy on thy head;

Because dead things are dead;

Because thy chosen on hill-side, city and plain

Are shed as drops of rain;

Because all earth was black, all heaven was blind,

And we cast out of mind;

Because men wept, saying Freedom, knowing of thee, Child, that thou wast not free :

Because wherever blood was not shame was

Where thy pure foot did pass ;

Because on Promethean rocks distent

Thee fouler eagles rent;

Because a serpent stains with slime and foam

This that is not thy Rome;

Child of my womb, whose limbs were made in me,
Have I forgotten thee?

In all thy dreams through all these years on wing,
Hast thou dreamed such a thing?

The mortal mother-bird outsoars her nest,

The child outgrows the breast;

But suns as stars shall fall from heaven and cease,

Ere we twain be as these ;

Yea, utmost skies forget their utmost sun,

Ere we twain be not one.

My lesser jewels sewn on skirt and hem,

I have no heed of them

Obscured and flawed by sloth or craft or power;
But thou, that wast my flower,

The blossom bound between my brows and worn
In sight of even and morn

From the last ember of the flameless west

To the dawn's baring breast

I were not Freedom if thou wert not free,
Nor thou wert Italy.

O mystic rose ingrained with blood, impearled
With tears of all the world!

The torpor of their blind brute-ridden trance

Kills England and chills France;

And Spain sobs hard through strangling blood; and

snows

Hide the huge eastern woes.

But thou, twin-born with morning, nursed of noon,

And blessed of star and moon !

What shall avail to assail thee any more,

From sacred shore to shore?

Have Time and Love not knelt down at thy feet,

Thy sore, thy soiled, thy sweet,

Fresh from the flints and mire of murderous ways

And dust of travelling days?

Hath Time not kissed them, Love not washed them

fair,

And wiped with tears and hair?

Though God forget thee, I will not forget;
Though heaven and earth be set

Against thee, O unconquerable child,

Abused, abased, reviled,

Lift thou not less from no funereal bed

Thine undishonoured head;

Love thou not less, by lips of thine once prest,
This my now barren breast;

Seek thou not less, being well assured thereof,
O child, my latest love.

For now the barren bosom shall bear fruit,
Songs leap from lips long mute,

And with my milk the mouths of nations fed

Again be glad and red

That were worn white with hunger and sorrow and

thirst;

And thou, most fair and first,

Thou whose warm hands and sweet live lips I feel

Upon me for a seal,

Thou whose least looks, whose smiles and little sighs, Whose passionate pure eyes,

Whose dear fair limbs that neither bonds could

bruise

Nor hate of men misuse,

Whose flower-like breath and bosom, O my child,

O mine and undefiled,

Fill with such tears as burn like bitter wine

These mother's eyes of mine,

Thrill with huge passions and primeval pains
The fulness of my veins.