For Italy's the whole earth's treasury, piled With reveries of gentle ladies, flung Aside, like ravelled silk, from life's worn stuff; With coins of scholars' fancy, which, being rung On work-day counter, still sound silver-proof; In short, with all the dreams of dreamers young, Before their heads have time for slipping off Hope's pillow to the ground. How oft, indeed, We've sent our souls out from the rigid north, On bare white feet which would not print nor bleed, To climb the Alpine passes and look forth, Where booming low the Lombard rivers lead To gardens, vineyards, all a dream is worth,-- Sights, thou and I, Love, have seen afterward From Tuscan Bellosguardo, wide awake,[11] When, standing on the actual blessed sward Where Galileo stood at nights to take The vision of the stars, we have found it hard, Gazing upon the earth and heaven, to make A choice of beauty. Therefore let us all Refreshed in England or in other land, By visions, with their fountain-rise and fall, Of this earth's darling,--we, who understand A little how the Tuscan musical Vowels do round themselves as if they planned Eternities of separate sweetness,--we, Who loved Sorrento vines in picture-book, Or ere in wine-cup we pledged faith or glee,-- Who loved Rome's wolf with demi-gods at suck, Or ere we loved truth's own divinity,-- Who loved, in brief, the classic hill and brook, And Ovid's dreaming tales and Petrarch's song, Or ere we loved Love's self even,--let us give The blessing of our souls (and wish them strong To bear it to the height where prayers arrive, When faithful spirits pray against a wrong,) To this great cause of southern men who strive In God's name for man's rights, and shall not fail. Behold, they shall not fail. The shouts ascend Above the shrieks, in Naples, and prevail. Rows of shot corpses, waiting for the end Of burial, seem to smile up straight and pale Into the azure air and apprehend That final gun-flash from Palermo's coast Which lightens their apocalypse of death. So let them die! The world shows nothing lost; Therefore, not blood. Above or underneath, What matter, brothers, if ye keep your post On duty's side? As sword returns to sheath, So dust to grave, but souls find place in Heaven. Heroic daring is the true success, The eucharistic bread requires no leaven; And though your ends were hopeless, we should bless Your cause as holy. Strive--and, having striven, Take, for God's recompense, that righteousness! FOOTNOTES: [2] They show at Verona, as the tomb of Juliet, an empty trough of stone.