Classic Poem

Through the darkened streets of Florence,
Moving toward thy church, Saint Lorenz,
Marched the bearers, masked and singing,
With their ghostly flambeaux flinging
Ghostlier shadows that went winging
Round the portals and the porches,
As if spirits, which had hovered
In the darkness undiscovered,
Danced about the hissing torches,
Like the moths that whirl and caper
Drunken round an evening taper.
Unconsoled and unconsoling
Rolled the Arno, louder rolling
As the rain poured — and the tolling,
Though the thick shower fell demurely,
Fell from out one turret only
Where the bell swung sad and lonely
Prisoned in the cloud securely.
Masked in black, with voices solemn
Strode the melancholy column,
With a stiff and soulless burden
Bearing to the grave its guerdon,
While the torch flames, vexed and taunted
By the night winds, leapt and flaunted,
Mid the funeral rains that slanted,
Those brave bearers marched and chanted,
Through the darkness thick and dreary,
With a woful voice and weary,

MISERERE

Light to light and dark to dark,
Kindred natures thus agree;
Where the soul soars none can mark,
But the world below may hark —
Miserere, Domine!

Dew to dew, and rain to rain,
Swell the streams and reach the sea;
When the drouth shall burn the plain,
Then the sands shall but remain —
Miserere, Domine

Flame to flame — let ashes fall
Where the fireless ashes be;
Embers black and funeral
Unto dying cinders call —
Miserere, Domine!

Life to life and dust to dust!
Christ, who died upon the tree,
Thine the promise, ours the trust,
We are weak — but thou art just —
Miserere, Domine!

FIRST BYSTANDER

There, stand aside, the very eaves are weeping
As are the heavens in sympathy with us: —
Italia's air hath not within its keeping
A nobler heart than that which lies there sleeping,
For whom the elements are wailing thus.

SECOND BYSTANDER

I reverenced him — he was a marvellous schemer;
Hath built more airy structures in his day
Than ever wild and opiate-breathing dreamer
Hath drugged his dreams with even in Cathay.
His fancy went in marble round the earth
And whitened it with statues — where he trod
The silent people leapt to sudden birth,
And all the sky, exulting high and broad,
Became a mighty Pantheon for God.

THIRD BYSTANDER

You reverenced him? I loved him, with a scope
Of feeling I may never know again;
And love him still, even though beyond all hope
The priest, the bishop, cardinal, and pope,
Should banish him to wear a burning chain
In those great dungeons of the unforgiven,
Under the space-deep castle walls of Heaven.
I know the Church considered it a sin,
I know the Duke considered it a shame —
That our Alzoni would not stoop to win
What any blunderer, now-a-day, may claim,
A niche in Santa Croce, — which hath been,
And is, to them, the very shrine of Fame!
Why, look you, why should one carve out his soul
In bits to meet the world's unthankful stare;
For Ignorance to hold in his control
And sly-eyed Jealousy's detracting glare?
To see the golden glories of his brain
Out-glittered by a brazen counterfeit?
The starriest spirit only shines in vain,
When every rocket can outdazzle it!

CHORUS OF STUDENTS, FOLLOWING

They bear the great Alzoni — he is dead, —
Our hope is dead, and lies on yonder bier;
There is no comfort left for any here
Since he is dead.

Oh, mother Florence, droop your queenly head,
And mingle ashes with your wreath of flowers —
Build funeral altars in your ducal bowers;
For he is dead.

Oh, sacred Arno, be your ripples shed
No more in music o'er your silver sands,
But mourn to death, and wring your watery hands;
For he is dead.

Ye dusky palaces, whose gloom is wed
To princely names that never may depart,
Drown all your lights in tears — the prince of Art,
Your hope, is dead!

Ye spirits who to glory have been led,
In years agone, departed souls of might,
Make joyful space in Heaven, for our delight
On earth is dead.

And thus with melancholy songs they bore him
Into the chapel — 'twixt the columns vast
They set the bier, and lit great tapers o'er him,
And looked their last.

They looked and pondered on his dreamy history
Whose sudden close had left them broken-hearted,
Till cloudy censers veiled the light in mystery,
And they departed.