Piedmont
A MONG the jagged, glittering peaks
The chamois bounds: woods bend and crack,
Swept by the ice-born avalanche
Adown its thundering track.
But from the silent azure sails
The eagle slowly into sight,
And through the sunshine wheeling spreads
His dark and solemn flight.
Hail, Piedmont! With a music sad
Yet echoing thund'rous as thine own
Brave people's epic battle-songs,
The mountain-streams leap down.
Leap downward swift and bold as thine
Own hundred regiments, to seek
Out towns and villages with whom
Of thy renown to speak:
Ancient Aosta, cloaked in royal
Ramparts, barring the foeman's march,
Who o'er barbarian mansions still
Lifts her imperial arch;
Ivrea the fair, whose rose-red towers
Dream, mirrored in blue Dora's breast,
While o'er her glooms King Arduin's ghost,
The ghost that will not rest;
Biella, who 'twixt green plain and hill
Naught but the fertile valley sees,
Rejoicing in her arms and ploughs
And smoking furnaces:
Strong, patient Cuneo, Mondovi
That on soft meadow-slopes reclines,
And Aleramo boasting of
His castle and his vines;
And by Superga victory-crowned
Turin the royal, amid her great,
Glad choir of Alpine giants, and then
Asti's republic state.
Proud of her slaughtered Goths and proud
Of Frederick's wrath, she, Piedmont, gave
To thee Alfieri's stern new song,
Born of her crashing wave.
That great one came like the great bird
Whence he was named: untiringly,
Fiercely o'er the low land he flew,
‘Italy, Italy’
Crying to spirits downtrodden, to ears
Unused to hear, to hearts grown slack;
And ‘Italy’ Ravenna's tomb
And Arquà's answered back.
Beneath his flight through all the dark
Peninsula's graveyard the dry
Bones rattled, yearning for their swords
Once more to fight, to die.
‘Italy, Italy’: the dead
Folk rose again with battle-shout;
And, lo, a king drew sword, whose heart
And pale face marked him out
Death's victim. Oh, portentous year,
Oh, springtime of this land of ours,
Oh, days—oh, latest days of May
Fair with a thousand flowers,
Oh, sound of the first Italian triumph,
That pierced my boyish heart! Whence I,
Italy's seer in fairer times,
Grey-haired to-day, now try
To sing thee, king of my fresh youth,
King for so long bewailed, unblest,
Who rode forth, sword in hand, sackcloth
Upon thy Christian breast,
Italian Hamlet. 'Neath the fire
And steel of Piedmont, 'neath the blow
Aosta struck, 'neath Cuneo's nerve,
Melted the vanquished foe.
Faintly behind the Austrian rout
The last gun's thunder died away:
The King rode down towards the West,
Where sank the star of day:
And to the horsemen, smoke-begrimed,
Victorious, who towards him sped,
From an unfolded note the words
‘Peschiera 's ours,’ he read.
From breasts that swelled with pride of race,
Savoy's fair standards waving high,
How deafening rose one shout: ‘Long live
The King of Italy!’
The Lombard plain flamed with bright gold,
By the red sunset glorified:
The lake of Virgil quivered, like
The veil of a young bride
Oped to the kiss of promised love.
Eyes fixed, pale-faced, on horseback stayed
The King unmoved: alone he saw
The Trocadero's shade.
For him Novara's fogs, for him
Oporto waited, bourne of all
His failures. Oh, lone House beside
The Douro, 'mid thy tall
Chestnuts, who hear'st the Atlantic surge
Before thee, while camellias grow
By thy fresh streams, how coldly thou
Did'st harbour such deep woe!
He lay a-dying in that twilight
Between two lives, when sense doth cease,
The King beheld a wondrous vision:
The Mariner of Nice,
Fair-haired, spurred from Janiculum
'Gainst Gaulish outrage: like a red,
Sun-smitten carbuncle round him flamed
Blood by Italians shed.
In the dim eyes gathered a tear,
Flickered a faint smile. Then a band
Of spirits flew down from Heaven, and round
The dead King took their stand.
Santorre of Santarosa, who
In Alexandria first outspread
The Tricolour, in Pylos now
Sleeping, O Piedmont, led
Those spirits, who all bore up to God
Charles Albert's soul. ‘Behold him, Lord:
The King our foe, the King our scourge,
The man whom we abhorred:
‘He, too, hath died now, as we died,
For Italy. To us restore
Our land! To quick and dead, by all
The plains that reek with gore,
‘By all the sorrow which on hut
And palace both alike hath come,
Oh, God, by our past deeds of fame,
Our present martyrdom,
‘Restore to that brave, pleading dust,
To this exultant angel band,
Their country; to the Italian folk
Th' Italian Fatherland.’
The chamois bounds: woods bend and crack,
Swept by the ice-born avalanche
Adown its thundering track.
But from the silent azure sails
The eagle slowly into sight,
And through the sunshine wheeling spreads
His dark and solemn flight.
Hail, Piedmont! With a music sad
Yet echoing thund'rous as thine own
Brave people's epic battle-songs,
The mountain-streams leap down.
Leap downward swift and bold as thine
Own hundred regiments, to seek
Out towns and villages with whom
Of thy renown to speak:
Ancient Aosta, cloaked in royal
Ramparts, barring the foeman's march,
Who o'er barbarian mansions still
Lifts her imperial arch;
Ivrea the fair, whose rose-red towers
Dream, mirrored in blue Dora's breast,
While o'er her glooms King Arduin's ghost,
The ghost that will not rest;
Biella, who 'twixt green plain and hill
Naught but the fertile valley sees,
Rejoicing in her arms and ploughs
And smoking furnaces:
Strong, patient Cuneo, Mondovi
That on soft meadow-slopes reclines,
And Aleramo boasting of
His castle and his vines;
And by Superga victory-crowned
Turin the royal, amid her great,
Glad choir of Alpine giants, and then
Asti's republic state.
Proud of her slaughtered Goths and proud
Of Frederick's wrath, she, Piedmont, gave
To thee Alfieri's stern new song,
Born of her crashing wave.
That great one came like the great bird
Whence he was named: untiringly,
Fiercely o'er the low land he flew,
‘Italy, Italy’
Crying to spirits downtrodden, to ears
Unused to hear, to hearts grown slack;
And ‘Italy’ Ravenna's tomb
And Arquà's answered back.
Beneath his flight through all the dark
Peninsula's graveyard the dry
Bones rattled, yearning for their swords
Once more to fight, to die.
‘Italy, Italy’: the dead
Folk rose again with battle-shout;
And, lo, a king drew sword, whose heart
And pale face marked him out
Death's victim. Oh, portentous year,
Oh, springtime of this land of ours,
Oh, days—oh, latest days of May
Fair with a thousand flowers,
Oh, sound of the first Italian triumph,
That pierced my boyish heart! Whence I,
Italy's seer in fairer times,
Grey-haired to-day, now try
To sing thee, king of my fresh youth,
King for so long bewailed, unblest,
Who rode forth, sword in hand, sackcloth
Upon thy Christian breast,
Italian Hamlet. 'Neath the fire
And steel of Piedmont, 'neath the blow
Aosta struck, 'neath Cuneo's nerve,
Melted the vanquished foe.
Faintly behind the Austrian rout
The last gun's thunder died away:
The King rode down towards the West,
Where sank the star of day:
And to the horsemen, smoke-begrimed,
Victorious, who towards him sped,
From an unfolded note the words
‘Peschiera 's ours,’ he read.
From breasts that swelled with pride of race,
Savoy's fair standards waving high,
How deafening rose one shout: ‘Long live
The King of Italy!’
The Lombard plain flamed with bright gold,
By the red sunset glorified:
The lake of Virgil quivered, like
The veil of a young bride
Oped to the kiss of promised love.
Eyes fixed, pale-faced, on horseback stayed
The King unmoved: alone he saw
The Trocadero's shade.
For him Novara's fogs, for him
Oporto waited, bourne of all
His failures. Oh, lone House beside
The Douro, 'mid thy tall
Chestnuts, who hear'st the Atlantic surge
Before thee, while camellias grow
By thy fresh streams, how coldly thou
Did'st harbour such deep woe!
He lay a-dying in that twilight
Between two lives, when sense doth cease,
The King beheld a wondrous vision:
The Mariner of Nice,
Fair-haired, spurred from Janiculum
'Gainst Gaulish outrage: like a red,
Sun-smitten carbuncle round him flamed
Blood by Italians shed.
In the dim eyes gathered a tear,
Flickered a faint smile. Then a band
Of spirits flew down from Heaven, and round
The dead King took their stand.
Santorre of Santarosa, who
In Alexandria first outspread
The Tricolour, in Pylos now
Sleeping, O Piedmont, led
Those spirits, who all bore up to God
Charles Albert's soul. ‘Behold him, Lord:
The King our foe, the King our scourge,
The man whom we abhorred:
‘He, too, hath died now, as we died,
For Italy. To us restore
Our land! To quick and dead, by all
The plains that reek with gore,
‘By all the sorrow which on hut
And palace both alike hath come,
Oh, God, by our past deeds of fame,
Our present martyrdom,
‘Restore to that brave, pleading dust,
To this exultant angel band,
Their country; to the Italian folk
Th' Italian Fatherland.’
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