Volume IV Part 8 (2/2)
The same blue waters where the dolphins swim Suggest the tritons. Through the blue Immense Strike out, all swimmers! cling not in the way Of one another, so to sink; but learn The strong man's impulse, catch the freshening spray He throws up in his motions, and discern By his clear westering eye, the time of day.
Thou, G.o.d, hast set us worthy gifts to earn Besides Thy heaven and Thee! and when I say There's room here for the weakest man alive To live and die, there's room too, I repeat, For all the strongest to live well, and strive Their own way, by their individual heat,-- Like some new bee-swarm leaving the old hive, Despite the wax which tempts so violet-sweet.
Then let the living live, the dead retain Their grave-cold flowers!--though honour's best supplied By bringing actions, to prove theirs not vain.
Cold graves, we say? it shall be testified That living men who burn in heart and brain, Without the dead were colder. If we tried To sink the past beneath our feet, be sure The future would not stand. Precipitate This old roof from the shrine, and, insecure, The nesting swallows fly off, mate from mate.
How scant the gardens, if the graves were fewer!
The tall green poplars grew no longer straight Whose tops not looked to Troy. Would any fight For Athens, and not swear by Marathon?
Who dared build temples, without tombs in sight?
Or live, without some dead man's benison?
Or seek truth, hope for good, and strive for right, If, looking up, he saw not in the sun Some angel of the martyrs all day long Standing and waiting? Your last rhythm will need Your earliest key-note. Could I sing this song, If my dead masters had not taken heed To help the heavens and earth to make me strong, As the wind ever will find out some reed And touch it to such issues as belong To such a frail thing? None may grudge the Dead Libations from full cups. Unless we choose To look back to the hills behind us spread, The plains before us sadden and confuse; If orphaned, we are disinherited.
I would but turn these lachrymals to use, And pour fresh oil in from the olive-grove, To furnish them as new lamps. Shall I say What made my heart beat with exulting love A few weeks back?-- The day was such a day As Florence owes the sun. The sky above, Its weight upon the mountains seemed to lay, And palpitate in glory, like a dove Who has flown too fast, full-hearted--take away The image! for the heart of man beat higher That day in Florence, flooding all her streets And piazzas with a tumult and desire.
The people, with acc.u.mulated heats And faces turned one way, as if one fire Both drew and flushed them, left their ancient beats And went up toward the palace-Pitti wall To thank their Grand-duke who, not quite of course, Had graciously permitted, at their call, The citizens to use their civic force To guard their civic homes. So, one and all, The Tuscan cities streamed up to the source Of this new good at Florence, taking it As good so far, presageful of more good,-- The first torch of Italian freedom, lit To toss in the next tiger's face who should Approach too near them in a greedy fit,-- The first pulse of an even flow of blood To prove the level of Italian veins Towards rights perceived and granted. How we gazed From Casa Guidi windows while, in trains Of orderly procession--banners raised, And intermittent bursts of martial strains Which died upon the shout, as if amazed By gladness beyond music--they pa.s.sed on!
The Magistracy, with insignia, pa.s.sed,-- And all the people shouted in the sun, And all the thousand windows which had cast A ripple of silks in blue and scarlet down (As if the houses overflowed at last), Seemed growing larger with fair heads and eyes.
The Lawyers pa.s.sed,--and still arose the shout, And hands broke from the windows to surprise Those grave calm brows with bay-tree leaves thrown out.
The Priesthood pa.s.sed,--the friars with worldly-wise Keen sidelong glances from their beards about The street to see who shouted; many a monk Who takes a long rope in the waist, was there: Whereat the popular exultation drunk With indrawn ”vivas” the whole sunny air, While through the murmuring windows rose and sunk A cloud of kerchiefed hands,--”The church makes fair Her welcome in the new Pope's name.” Ensued The black sign of the ”Martyrs”--(name no name, But count the graves in silence). Next were viewed The Artists; next, the Trades; and after came The People,--flag and sign, and rights as good-- And very loud the shout was for that same Motto, ”Il popolo.” IL POPOLO,-- The word means dukedom, empire, majesty, And kings in such an hour might read it so.
And next, with banners, each in his degree, Deputed representatives a-row Of every separate state of Tuscany: Siena's she-wolf, bristling on the fold Of the first flag, preceded Pisa's hare, And Ma.s.sa's lion floated calm in gold, Pienza's following with his silver stare, Arezzo's steed pranced clear from bridle-hold,-- And well might shout our Florence, greeting there These, and more brethren. Last, the world had sent The various children of her teeming flanks-- Greeks, English, French--as if to a parliament Of lovers of her Italy in ranks, Each bearing its land's symbol reverent; At which the stones seemed breaking into thanks And rattling up the sky, such sounds in proof Arose; the very house-walls seemed to bend; The very windows, up from door to roof, Flashed out a rapture of bright heads, to mend With pa.s.sionate looks the gesture's whirling off A hurricane of leaves. Three hours did end While all these pa.s.sed; and ever in the crowd, Rude men, unconscious of the tears that kept Their beards moist, shouted; some few laughed aloud, And none asked any why they laughed and wept: Friends kissed each other's cheeks, and foes long vowed More warmly did it; two-months' babies leapt Right upward in their mother's arms, whose black Wide glittering eyes looked elsewhere; lovers pressed Each before either, neither glancing back; And peasant maidens smoothly 'tired and tressed Forgot to finger on their throats the slack Great pearl-strings; while old blind men would not rest, But pattered with their staves and slid their shoes Along the stones, and smiled as if they saw.
O heaven, I think that day had n.o.ble use Among G.o.d's days! So near stood Right and Law, Both mutually forborne! Law would not bruise Nor Right deny, and each in reverent awe Honoured the other. And if, ne'ertheless, That good day's sun delivered to the vines No charta, and the liberal Duke's excess Did scarce exceed a Guelf's or Ghibelline's In any special actual righteousness Of what that day he granted, still the signs Are good and full of promise, we must say, When mult.i.tudes approach their kings with prayers And kings concede their people's right to pray Both in one suns.h.i.+ne. Griefs are not despairs, So uttered, nor can royal claims dismay When men from humble homes and ducal chairs Hate wrong together. It was well to view Those banners ruffled in a ruler's face Inscribed, ”Live freedom, union, and all true Brave patriots who are aided by G.o.d's grace!”
Nor was it ill when Leopoldo drew His little children to the window-place He stood in at the Pitti, to suggest _They_ too should govern as the people willed.
What a cry rose then! some, who saw the best, Declared his eyes filled up and overfilled With good warm human tears which unrepressed Ran down. I like his face; the forehead's build Has no capacious genius, yet perhaps Sufficient comprehension,--mild and sad, And careful n.o.bly,--not with care that wraps Self-loving hearts, to stifle and make mad, But careful with the care that shuns a lapse Of faith and duty, studious not to add A burden in the gathering of a gain.
And so, G.o.d save the Duke, I say with those Who that day shouted it; and while dukes reign, May all wear in the visible overflows Of spirit, such a look of careful pain!
For G.o.d must love it better than repose.
And all the people who went up to let Their hearts out to that Duke, as has been told-- Where guess ye that the living people met, Kept tryst, formed ranks, chose leaders, first unrolled Their banners?
In the Loggia? where is set Cellini's G.o.dlike Perseus, bronze or gold, (How name the metal, when the statue flings Its soul so in your eyes?) with brow and sword Superbly calm, as all opposing things, Slain with the Gorgon, were no more abhorred Since ended?
No, the people sought no wings From Perseus in the Loggia, nor implored An inspiration in the place beside From that dim bust of Brutus, jagged and grand, Where Buonarroti pa.s.sionately tried From out the close-clenched marble to demand The head of Rome's sublimest homicide, Then dropt the quivering mallet from his hand, Despairing he could find no model-stuff Of Brutus in all Florence where he found The G.o.ds and gladiators thick enough.
Nor there! the people chose still holier ground: The people, who are simple, blind and rough, Know their own angels, after looking round.
Whom chose they then? where met they?
On the stone Called Dante's,--a plain flat stone scarce discerned From others in the pavement,--whereupon He used to bring his quiet chair out, turned To Brunelleschi's church, and pour alone The lava of his spirit when it burned: It is not cold to-day. O pa.s.sionate Poor Dante who, a banished Florentine, Didst sit austere at banquets of the great And muse upon this far-off stone of thine And think how oft some pa.s.ser used to wait A moment, in the golden day's decline, With ”Good night, dearest Dante!”--well, good night!
_I_ muse now, Dante, and think verily, Though chapelled in the byeway out of sight, Ravenna's bones would thrill with ecstasy, Couldst know thy favourite stone's elected right As tryst-place for thy Tuscans to foresee Their earliest chartas from. Good night, good morn, Henceforward, Dante! now my soul is sure That thine is better comforted of scorn, And looks down earthward in completer cure Than when, in Santa Croce church forlorn Of any corpse, the architect and hewer Did pile the empty marbles as thy tomb.[9]
For now thou art no longer exiled, now Best honoured: we salute thee who art come Back to the old stone with a softer brow Than Giotto drew upon the wall, for some Good lovers of our age to track and plough[10]
Their way to, through time's ordures stratified, And startle broad awake into the dull Bargello chamber: now thou'rt milder-eyed,-- Now Beatrix may leap up glad to cull Thy first smile, even in heaven and at her side, Like that which, nine years old, looked beautiful At May-game. What do I say? I only meant That tender Dante loved his Florence well, While Florence, now, to love him is content; And, mark ye, that the piercingest sweet smell Of love's dear incense by the living sent To find the dead, is not accessible To lazy livers--no narcotic,--not Swung in a censer to a sleepy tune,-- But trod out in the morning air by hot Quick spirits who tread firm to ends foreshown, And use the name of greatness unforgot, To meditate what greatness may be done.
For Dante sits in heaven and ye stand here, And more remains for doing, all must feel, Than trysting on his stone from year to year To s.h.i.+ft processions, civic toe to heel, The town's thanks to the Pitti. Are ye freer For what was felt that day? a chariot-wheel May spin fast, yet the chariot never roll.
But if that day suggested something good, And bettered, with one purpose, soul by soul,-- Better means freer. A land's brotherhood Is most puissant: men, upon the whole, Are what they can be,--nations, what they would.
Will therefore, to be strong, thou Italy!
Will to be n.o.ble! Austrian Metternich Can fix no yoke unless the neck agree; And thine is like the lion's when the thick Dews shudder from it, and no man would be The stroker of his mane, much less would p.r.i.c.k His nostril with a reed. When nations roar Like lions, who shall tame them and defraud Of the due pasture by the river-sh.o.r.e?
Roar, therefore! shake your dewlaps dry abroad: The amphitheatre with open door Leads back upon the benches who applaud The last spear-thruster.
Yet the Heavens forbid That we should call on pa.s.sion to confront The brutal with the brutal and, amid This ripening world, suggest a lion-hunt And lion's-vengeance for the wrongs men did And do now, though the spears are getting blunt.
We only call, because the sight and proof Of lion-strength hurts nothing; and to show A lion-heart, and measure paw with hoof, Helps something, even, and will instruct a foe As well as the onslaught, how to stand aloof: Or else the world gets past the mere brute blow Or given or taken. Children use the fist Until they are of age to use the brain; And so we needed Caesars to a.s.sist Man's justice, and Napoleons to explain G.o.d's counsel, when a point was nearly missed, Until our generations should attain Christ's stature nearer. Not that we, alas, Attain already; but a single inch Will raise to look down on the swordsman's pa.s.s.
As knightly Roland on the coward's flinch: And, after chloroform and ether-gas, We find out slowly what the bee and finch Have ready found, through Nature's lamp in each, How to our races we may justify Our individual claims and, as we reach Our own grapes, bend the top vines to supply The children's uses,--how to fill a breach With olive-branches,--how to quench a lie With truth, and smite a foe upon the cheek With Christ's most conquering kiss. Why, these are things Worth a great nation's finding, to prove weak The ”glorious arms” of military kings.
And so with wide embrace, my England, seek To stifle the bad heat and flickerings Of this world's false and nearly expended fire!
Draw palpitating arrows to the wood, And tw.a.n.g abroad thy high hopes and thy higher Resolves, from that most virtuous alt.i.tude!
Till nations shall unconsciously aspire By looking up to thee, and learn that good And glory are not different. Announce law By freedom; exalt chivalry by peace; Instruct how clear calm eyes can overawe, And how pure hands, stretched simply to release A bond-slave, will not need a sword to draw To be held dreadful. O my England, crease Thy purple with no alien agonies, No struggles toward encroachment, no vile war!
Disband thy captains, change thy victories, Be henceforth prosperous as the angels are, Helping, not humbling.
Drums and battle-cries Go out in music of the morning-star-- And soon we shall have thinkers in the place Of fighters, each found able as a man To strike electric influence through a race, Unstayed by city-wall and barbican.
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