Classic Poem

I TALIA ! a thousand eyes rest eagerly on thee—
A thousand hearts beat freer in the thought that thou art free;
Because thou hast no common name, and thy dwelling is on high,
And folded in thy fate the fates of many nations lie.

Time set a royal signet indelibly on thee,
And as the lot of common men thy lot can never be.
Three kingdoms have been thine by turns, three sceptres graced thy hand,
Three times the mighty ones of earth have bowed to thy command!

When from thy cold and languid grasp the World's wide sceptre glides,
One moment thou seem'st lost amid the fierce barbaric tides;
When curbed, as if by magic, back from thy throne they roll,
And thou risest 'mid the tempest calm, Empress of the soul.

Then when half Europe roused her might, and rent her from thy sway,
And for a space, as in a trance, thy passive image lay,
A fragrant breath of Beauty and of Melody divine,
Floated around thee sleeping, as around a saintly shrine.

And for the throne of Empires they throned thee Queen of Art,
For the homage of the knee they gave the worship of the heart;
Godlike Art and godlike Nature, circling thee with magic powers,
For a dead crown of gold entwined a living crown of flowers.

“Widow of nations” shall no more be written on thy land,—
Mother of heroes! girt about with thy true-hearted band!
As the maiden in the northern tale started from slumbers deep,
Aroused by the kiss of Freedom, thou hast burst thy spell of sleep;

And the ruins of thy glory are no more that glory's tomb,
For o'er the ruins bound the feet of a new and nobler Rome.
O'er the fountain of the past a morning radiance flits;
By the brink of its still waters a living spirit sits.

No more the dead leaves float there in the gray autumnal glooms,
No more the death-wind stirs it with echoes from the tombs;
For a mighty hand has rolled away the stone from off its brink,
And living beings come once more of its quick'ning waves to drink.

Then, nerved with all the vigour of the old heroic life,
Go forth with tempered courage to the ancient Field of strife:
Not the old barbaric battles, where swords clashed fierce with swords,
Nor the jar of vain polemics and the clang of hollow words;

But to the spirit-combat, with the arms of Work and Thought,
Where, on the widest battle-field, the oldest fight is fought;
Meeting ignorance with patience, and tyranny with light,
And wrong and falsehood with the force of wisdom and of right.

So speed thee to thy lofty work, heroic, calm, and free,
That the tyrant and the scoffer may learn with shame from thee
That Freedom is no empty boast, no prate for boys at school,
No ladder by which those who serve may climb on high to rule;

But a field for holy labours, and a gate for heavenly light,
Freedom to utter truth, do good, and help the wronged to right;
And they who still pine hopelessly in paralyzing thrall,
May learn of thee how well 'tis worth to venture all for all.