Classic Poem

Her hair was tawny with gold, her eyes with purple were dark,
Her cheeks' pale opal burnt with a red and restless spark.

Never was lady of Milan nobler in name and in race;
Never was lady of Italy fairer to see in the face.

Never was lady on earth more true as woman and wife,
Larger in judgment and instinct, prouder in manners and life.

She stood in the early morning, and said to her maidens, "Bring
That silken robe made ready to wear at the court of the king.

"Bring me the clasps of diamonds, lucid, clear of the mote,
Clasp me the large at the waist, and clasp me the small at the throat.

"Diamonds to fasten the hair, and diamonds to fasten the sleeves,
Laces to drop from their rays, like a powder of snow from the eaves."

Gorgeous she entered the sunlight which gathered her up in a flame,
While straight, in her open carriage, she to the hospital came.

In she went at the door, and gazing, from end to end,
"Many and low are the pallets, but each is the place of a friend."

Up she passed through the wards, and stood at a young man's bed:
Bloody the band on his brow, and livid the droop of his head.

"Art thou a Lombard, my brother? Happy art thou!" she cried,
And smiled like Italy on him: he dreamed in her face and died.

Pale with his passing soul, she went on still to a second:
He was a grave, hard man, whose years by dungeons were reckoned.

Wounds in his body were sore, wounds in his life were sorer.
"Art thou a Romagnole?" Her eyes drove lightnings before her.

"Austrian and priest had joined to double and tighten the cord
Able to bind thee, O strong one,--free by the stroke of a sword.

"Now be grave for the rest of us, using the life overcast
To ripen our wine of the present (too new) in glooms of the past."

Down she stepped to a pallet where lay a face like a girl's,
Young, pathetic with dying,--a deep black hole in the curls.

"Art thou from Tuscany, brother? and seest thou, dreaming in pain,
Thy mother stand in the piazza, searching the list of the slain?"

Kind as a mother herself, she touched his cheeks with her hands:
"Blessèd is she who has borne thee, although she should weep as she
stands."

On she passed to a Frenchman, his arm carried off by a ball:
Kneeling,... "O more than my brother! how shall I thank thee for all?

"Each of the heroes round us has fought for his land and line,
But thou hast fought for a stranger, in hate of a wrong not thine.

"Happy are all free peoples, too strong to be dispossessed;
But blessèd are those among nations who dare to be strong for the
rest!"

Ever she passed on her way, and came to a couch where pined
One with a face from Venetia, white with a hope out of mind.

Long she stood and gazed, and twice she tried at the name,
But two great crystal tears were all that faltered and came.

Only a tear for Venice?--she turned as in passion and loss,
And stooped to his forehead and kissed it, as if she were kissing
the cross.

Faint with that strain of heart, she moved on then to another,
Stern and strong in his death. "And dost thou suffer, my brother?"

Holding his hands in hers:--"Out of the Piedmont lion
Cometh the sweetness of freedom! sweetest to live or to die on."

Holding his cold, rough hands,--"Well, O, well have ye done
In noble, noble Piedmont, who would not be noble alone."

Back he fell while she spoke. She rose to her feet with a spring,--
"That was a Piedmontese! and this is the Court of the King."