Ah why deceive ourselves! by no mere fit Of sudden passion roused shall men attain True freedom where for ages they have lain Bound in a dark abominable pit, With life’s best sinews more and more unknit. 5 Here, there, a banded few who loathe the chain May rise to break it: effort worse than vain For thee, O great Italian nation, split Into those jarring fractions.--Let thy scope Be one fixed mind for all; thy rights approve 10 To thy own conscience gradually renewed; Learn to make Time the father of wise Hope; Then trust thy cause to the arm of Fortitude, The light of Knowledge, and the warmth of Love. II CONTINUED Composed 1837.--Published 1842 Hard task! exclaim the undisciplined, to lean On Patience coupled with such slow endeavour, That long-lived servitude must last for ever. Perish the grovelling few, who, prest between Wrongs and the terror of redress, would wean 5 Millions from glorious aims. Our chains to sever Let us break forth in tempest now or never!-- What, is there then no space for golden mean And gradual progress?--Twilight leads to day, And, even within the burning zones of earth, 10 The hastiest sunrise yields a temperate ray; The softest breeze to fairest flowers gives birth: Think not that Prudence dwells in dark abodes, She scans the future with the eye of gods. III CONCLUDED Composed 1837.--Published 1842 As leaves are to the tree whereon they grow And wither, every human generation Is to the Being of a mighty nation, Locked in our world’s embrace through weal and woe; Thought that should teach the zealot to forego 5 Rash schemes, to abjure all selfish agitation, And seek through noiseless pains and moderation The unblemished good they only can bestow. Alas! with most, who weigh futurity Against time present, passion holds the scales: 10 Hence equal ignorance of both prevails, And nations sink; or, struggling to be free, Are doomed to flounder on, like wounded whales Tossed on the bosom of a stormy sea. [161] This date was omitted in the edition of 1842. [162] The three sonnets, _At Bologna, in remembrance of the late Insurrections_, 1837, are printed as a sequel to the Italian Tour of that year.--ED. “WHAT IF OUR NUMBERS BARELY COULD DEFY” Composed 1837.--Published 1837 One of the “Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty.”--ED.