The moon is at her full, and, riding high, Floods the calm fields with light; The airs that hover in the summer-sky Are all asleep to-night. There comes no voice from the great woodlands round That murmured all the day; Beneath the shadow of their boughs the ground Is not more still than they. But ever heaves and moans the restless Deep; His rising tides I hear, Afar I see the glimmering billows leap; I see them breaking near. Each wave springs upward, climbing toward the fair Pure light that sits on high-- Springs eagerly, and faintly sinks, to where The mother-waters lie. Upward again it swells; the moonbeams show Again its glimmering crest; Again it feels the fatal weight below, And sinks, but not to rest. Again and yet again; until the Deep Recalls his brood of waves; And, with a sullen moan, abashed, they creep Back to his inner caves. Brief respite! they shall rush from that recess With noise and tumult soon, And fling themselves, with unavailing stress, Up toward the placid moon. O restless Sea, that, in thy prison here, Dost struggle and complain; Through the slow centuries yearning to be near To that fair orb in vain; The glorious source of light and heat must warm Thy billows from on high, And change them to the cloudy trains that form The curtain of the sky. Then only may they leave the waste of brine In which they welter here, And rise above the hills of earth, and shine In a serener sphere. ITALY. Voices from the mountains speak, Apennines to Alps reply; Vale to vale and peak to peak Toss an old-remembered cry: "Italy Shall be free!" Such the mighty shout that fills All the passes of her hills. All the old Italian lakes Quiver at that quickening word; Como with a thrill awakes; Garda to her depths is stirred; Mid the steeps Where he sleeps, Dreaming of the elder years, Startled Thrasymenus hears. Sweeping Arno, swelling Po, Murmur freedom to their meads. Tiber swift and Liris slow Send strange whispers from their reeds. "Italy Shall be free!" Sing the glittering brooks that slide, Toward the sea, from Etna's side. Long ago was Gracchus slain; Brutus perished long ago; Yet the living roots remain Whence the shoots of greatness grow; Yet again, Godlike men, Sprung from that heroic stem, Call the land to rise with them. They who haunt the swarming street, They who chase the mountain-boar, Or, where cliff and billow meet, Prune the vine or pull the oar, With a stroke Break their yoke; Slaves but yestereve were they-- Freemen with the dawning day.