Volume IV Part 11 (1/2)
But wherefore should we look out any more From Casa Guidi windows? Shut them straight, And let us sit down by the folded door, And veil our saddened faces and, so, wait What next the judgment-heavens make ready for.
I have grown too weary of these windows. Sights Come thick enough and clear enough in thought, Without the suns.h.i.+ne; souls have inner lights.
And since the Grand-duke has come back and brought This army of the North which thus requites His filial South, we leave him to be taught.
His South, too, has learnt something certainly, Whereof the practice will bring profit soon; And peradventure other eyes may see, From Casa Guidi windows, what is done Or undone. Whatsoever deeds they be, Pope Pius will be glorified in none.
Record that gain, Mazzini!--it shall top Some heights of sorrow. Peter's rock, so named, Shall lure no vessel any more to drop Among the breakers. Peter's chair is shamed Like any vulgar throne the nations lop To pieces for their firewood unreclaimed,-- And, when it burns too, we shall see as well In Italy as elsewhere. Let it burn.
The cross, accounted still adorable, Is Christ's cross only!--if the thief's would earn Some stealthy genuflexions, we rebel; And here the impenitent thief's has had its turn, As G.o.d knows; and the people on their knees Scoff and toss back the crosiers stretched like yokes To press their heads down lower by degrees.
So Italy, by means of these last strokes, Escapes the danger which preceded these, Of leaving captured hands in cloven oaks,-- Of leaving very souls within the buckle Whence bodies struggled outward,--of supposing That freemen may like bondsmen kneel and truckle, And then stand up as usual, without losing An inch of stature.
Those whom she-wolves suckle Will bite as wolves do in the grapple-closing Of adverse interests. This at last is known (Thank Pius for the lesson), that albeit Among the popedom's hundred heads of stone Which blink down on you from the roof's retreat In Siena's tiger-striped cathedral, Joan And Borgia 'mid their fellows you may greet, A harlot and a devil,--you will see Not a man, still less angel, grandly set With open soul to render man more free.
The fishers are still thinking of the net, And, if not thinking of the hook too, we Are counted somewhat deeply in their debt; But that's a rare case--so, by hook and crook They take the advantage, agonizing Christ By rustier nails than those of Cedron's brook, I' the people's body very cheaply priced,-- And quote high priesthood out of Holy book, While buying death-fields with the sacrificed.
Priests, priests,--there's no such name!--G.o.d's own, except Ye take most vainly. Through heaven's lifted gate The priestly ephod in sole glory swept When Christ ascended, entered in, and sate (With victor face sublimely overwept) At Deity's right hand, to mediate, He alone, He for ever. On His breast The Urim and the Thummim, fed with fire From the full G.o.dhead, flicker with the unrest Of human pitiful heart-beats. Come up higher, All Christians! Levi's tribe is dispossest.
That solitary alb ye shall admire, But not cast lots for. The last chrism, poured right, Was on that Head, and poured for burial And not for domination in men's sight.
What _are_ these churches? The old temple-wall Doth overlook them juggling with the sleight Of surplice, candlestick and altar-pall; East church and west church, ay, north church and south, Rome's church and England's,--let them all repent, And make concordats 'twixt their soul and mouth, Succeed Saint Paul by working at the tent, Become infallible guides by speaking truth, And excommunicate their pride that bent And cramped the souls of men.
Why, even here Priestcraft burns out, the twined linen blazes; Not, like asbestos, to grow white and clear, But all to peris.h.!.+--while the fire-smell raises To life some swooning spirits who, last year, Lost breath and heart in these church-stifled places.
Why, almost, through this Pius, we believed The priesthood could be an honest thing, he smiled So saintly while our corn was being sheaved For his own granaries! Showing now defiled His hireling hands, a better help's achieved Than if they blessed us shepherd-like and mild.
False doctrine, strangled by its own amen, Dies in the throat of all this nation. Who Will speak a pope's name as they rise again?
What woman or what child will count him true?
What dreamer praise him with the voice or pen?
What man fight for him?--Pius takes his due.
Record that gain, Mazzini!--Yes, but first Set down thy people's faults; set down the want Of soul-conviction; set down aims dispersed, And incoherent means, and valour scant Because of scanty faith, and schisms accursed That wrench these brother-hearts from covenant With freedom and each other. Set down this, And this, and see to overcome it when The seasons bring the fruits thou wilt not miss If wary. Let no cry of patriot men Distract thee from the stern a.n.a.lysis Of ma.s.ses who cry only! keep thy ken Clear as thy soul is virtuous. Heroes' blood Splashed up against thy n.o.ble brow in Rome; Let such not blind thee to an interlude Which was not also holy, yet did come 'Twixt sacramental actions,--brotherhood Despised even there, and something of the doom Of Remus in the trenches. Listen now-- Rossi died silent near where Caesar died.
HE did not say ”My Brutus, is it thou?”
But Italy unquestioned testified ”_I_ killed him! _I_ am Brutus.--I avow.”
At which the whole world's laugh of scorn replied ”A poor maimed copy of Brutus!”
Too much like, Indeed, to be so unlike! too unskilled At Philippi and the honest battle-pike, To be so skilful where a man is killed Near Pompey's statue, and the daggers strike At unawares i' the throat. Was thus fulfilled An omen once of Michel Angelo?-- When Marcus Brutus he conceived complete, And strove to hurl him out by blow on blow Upon the marble, at Art's thunderheat, Till haply (some pre-shadow rising slow Of what his Italy would fancy meet To be called BRUTUS) straight his plastic hand Fell back before his prophet-soul, and left A fragment, a maimed Brutus,--but more grand Than this, so named at Rome, was!
Let thy weft Present one woof and warp, Mazzini! Stand With no man hankering for a dagger's heft, No, not for Italy!--nor stand apart, No, not for the Republic!--from those pure Brave men who hold the level of thy heart In patriot truth, as lover and as doer, Albeit they will not follow where thou art As extreme theorist. Trust and distrust fewer; And so bind strong and keep unstained the cause Which (G.o.d's sign granted) war-trumps newly blown Shall yet annunciate to the world's applause.
But now, the world is busy; it has grown A Fair-going world. Imperial England draws The flowing ends of the earth from Fez, Canton, Delhi and Stockholm, Athens and Madrid, The Russias and the vast Americas, As if a queen drew in her robes amid Her golden cincture,--isles, peninsulas, Capes, continents, far inland countries hid By jasper-sands and hills of chrysopras, All trailing in their splendours through the door Of the gorgeous Crystal Palace. Every nation, To every other nation strange of yore, Gives face to face the civic salutation, And holds up in a proud right hand before That congress the best work which she can fas.h.i.+on By her best means. ”These corals, will you please To match against your oaks? They grow as fast Within my wilderness of purple seas.”-- ”This diamond stared upon me as I pa.s.sed (As a live G.o.d's eye from a marble frieze) Along a dark of diamonds. Is it cla.s.sed?”-- ”I wove these stuffs so subtly that the gold Swims to the surface of the silk like cream And curdles to fair patterns. Ye behold!”-- ”These delicatest muslins rather seem Than be, you think? Nay, touch them and be bold, Though such veiled Chakhi's face in Hafiz' dream.”-- ”These carpets--you walk slow on them like kings, Inaudible like spirits, while your foot Dips deep in velvet roses and such things.”-- ”Even Apollonius might commend this flute:[13]
The music, winding through the stops, upsprings To make the player very rich: compute!”
”Here's goblet-gla.s.s, to take in with your wine The very sun its grapes were ripened under: Drink light and juice together, and each fine.”-- ”This model of a steams.h.i.+p moves your wonder?
You should behold it crus.h.i.+ng down the brine Like a blind Jove who feels his way with thunder.”-- ”Here's sculpture! Ah, _we_ live too! why not throw Our life into our marbles? Art has place For other artists after Angelo.”-- ”I tried to paint out here a natural face; For nature includes Raffael, as we know, Not Raffael nature. Will it help my case?”-- ”Methinks you will not match this steel of ours!”-- ”Nor you this porcelain! One might dream the clay Retained in it the larvae of the flowers, They bud so, round the cup, the old Spring-way.”-- ”Nor you these carven woods, where birds in bowers With twisting snakes and climbing cupids, play.”
O Magi of the east and of the west, Your incense, gold and myrrh are excellent!-- What gifts for Christ, then, bring ye with the rest?
Your hands have worked well: is your courage spent In handwork only? Have you nothing best, Which generous souls may perfect and present, And He shall thank the givers for? no light Of teaching, liberal nations, for the poor Who sit in darkness when it is not night?
No cure for wicked children? Christ,--no cure!
No help for women sobbing out of sight Because men made the laws? no brothel-lure Burnt out by popular lightnings? Hast thou four No remedy, my England, for such woes?
No outlet, Austria, for the scourged and bound, No entrance for the exiled? no repose, Russia, for knouted Poles worked underground, And gentle ladies bleached among the snows?
No mercy for the slave, America?
No hope for Rome, free France, chivalric France?
Alas, great nations have great shames, I say.
No pity, O world, no tender utterance Of benediction, and prayers stretched this way For poor Italia, baffled by mischance?