Classic Poem

( VICTOR HUGO TO GARIBALDI .)

( " Ces jeunes gens, combien etaient-ils? " )

Young soldiers of the noble Latin blood,
How many are ye — Boys? Four thousand odd.
How many are there dead? Six hundred: count!
Their limbs lie strewn about the fatal mount,
Blackened and torn, eyes gummed with blood, hearts rolled
Out from their ribs, to give the wolves of the wold
A red feast; nothing of them left but these
Pierced relics, underneath the olive trees,
Show where the gin was sprung — the scoundrel-trap
Which brought those hero-lads their foul mishap.
See how they fell in swathes — like barley-ears!
Their crime? to claim Rome and her glories theirs;
To fight for Right and Honour; — foolish names!
Come — Mothers of the soil! Italian dames!
Turn the dead over! — try your battle luck!
(Bearded or smooth, to her that gave him suck
The man is always child) — Stay, here's a brow
Split by the Zouaves' bullets! This one, now,
With the bright curly hair soaked so in blood,
Was yours, ma donna! — sweet and fair and good.
The spirit sat upon his fearless face
Before they murdered it, in all the grace
Of manhood's dawn. Sisters, here's yours! his lips,
Over whose bloom the bloody death-foam slips,
Lisped house-songs after you, and said your name
In loving prattle once. That hand, the same
Which lies so cold over the eyelids shut,
Was once a small pink baby-fist, and wet
With milk beads from thy yearning breasts.
Take thou
Thine eldest, — thou, thy youngest born. Oh, flow
Of tears never to cease! Oh, Hope quite gone,
Dead like the dead! — Yet could they live alone —
Without their Tiber and their Rome? and be
Young and Italian — and not also free?
They longed to see the ancient eagle try
His lordly pinions in a modern sky.
They bore — each on himself — the insults laid
On the dear foster-land: of naught afraid,
Save of not finding foes enough to dare
For Italy. Ah, gallant, free, and rare
Young martyrs of a sacred cause, — Adieu!
No more of life — no more of love — for you!
No sweet long-straying in the star-lit glades
At Ave-Mary, with the Italian maids;
No welcome home!