Classic Poem

(3 RD N OVEMBER 1880)

First of the dismal host, unaccompanied,
Rode the Dictator silently, wrapped in thought;
Grey, cheerless, cold, the earth and heaven
Sullenly, gloomily round him lowered.

Clear through the stillness echoed his horse's hoof
Splashing the mud; behind him a measured tramp
Resounds of marching feet, and stifled
Sighs in the night of some breast heroic.

But from the corpse-strewn soil of the battlefield,
But from the sod dyed crimson with blood, where'er
Lay stretched amid that dreadful carnage,
Mothers of Italy, thy beloved ones.

Leapt upward flames like stars to the firmament,
Streamed upward voices chanting victoriously,
Shone forth the vision of Rome triumphant,
Swept down the breezes the thund'rous paean:

" Mentana saw the shame of the centuries
From Peter's fatal union with Caesar rise:
Thou hast, Garibaldi, in Mentana
Peter and Caesar beneath thee trampled.

" Come, O thou splendid rebel of Aspromont,
Mentana's haughty champion, we call to thee;
Tell tales of Rome, tales of Palermo,
Housed on the Capitol, to Camillus."

Thus spirit voices sang from Italian
Skies to his inmost soul solemn prophesies
That day when cowards barked against him,
Curs that a slash of the whip would scatter.

Thou art to-day the idol of Italy,
And Rome renewed hails thee her new Romulus:
Godlike ascendest thou: and never
Shall the long silence of death enfold thee.

Over the common gulf of men's souls art thou,
Towering resplendent, called by the centuries
To take thy seat in that high Council
Formed of our Italy's native Godheads.

Thou dost ascend: and Dante to Virgil cries:
" Hero of nobler mould ne'er imagined we";
And Livy smiling answers: " Poets,
History makes him her own for ever.

" Yea, he belongs to Italy's history,
This hardy scion sprung of Liguria,
In justice rooted deep, who gazeth
Upward to heights of sublime ideals."

Glory to thee, O Father! Thy lion-heart
Breathes in grim Etna's thunderous lava-streams;
It breathes in Alpine storms, for ever
Battling with barbarous kings and tyrants.

Thy childlike heart shines in the cerulean
Smile of the ocean, heav'n, and the blossoming
Spring-seasons that scatter sweet flowers
Over the marble-built tombs of heroes.