I would have had my Florence great and free;[290] Oh Florence! Florence![291] unto me thou wast 60 Like that Jerusalem which the Almighty He Wept over, "but thou wouldst not;" as the bird Gathers its young, I would have gathered thee Beneath a parent pinion, hadst thou heard My voice; but as the adder, deaf and fierce, Against the breast that cherished thee was stirred Thy venom, and my state thou didst amerce, And doom this body forfeit to the fire.[292] Alas! how bitter is his country's curse To him who _for_ that country would expire, 70 But did not merit to expire _by_ her, And loves her, loves her even in her ire. The day may come when she will cease to err, The day may come she would be proud to have The dust she dooms to scatter, and transfer[bx] Of him, whom she denied a home, the grave. But this shall not be granted; let my dust Lie where it falls; nor shall the soil which gave Me breath, but in her sudden fury thrust Me forth to breathe elsewhere, so reassume 80 My indignant bones, because her angry gust Forsooth is over, and repealed her doom; No,--she denied me what was mine--my roof, And shall not have what is not hers--my tomb. Too long her arméd wrath hath kept aloof The breast which would have bled for her, the heart That beat, the mind that was temptation proof, The man who fought, toiled, travelled, and each part Of a true citizen fulfilled, and saw For his reward the Guelf's ascendant art 90 Pass his destruction even into a law. These things are not made for forgetfulness, Florence shall be forgotten first; too raw The wound, too deep the wrong, and the distress Of such endurance too prolonged to make My pardon greater, her injustice less, Though late repented; yet--yet for her sake I feel some fonder yearnings, and for thine, My own Beatricē, I would hardly take Vengeance upon the land which once was mine, 100 And still is hallowed by thy dust's return, Which would protect the murderess like a shrine, And save ten thousand foes by thy sole urn. Though, like old Marius from Minturnæ's marsh And Carthage ruins, my lone breast may burn At times with evil feelings hot and harsh,[293] And sometimes the last pangs of a vile foe Writhe in a dream before me, and o'erarch My brow with hopes of triumph,--let them go! Such are the last infirmities of those 110 Who long have suffered more than mortal woe, And yet being mortal still, have no repose But on the pillow of Revenge--Revenge, Who sleeps to dream of blood, and waking glows With the oft-baffled, slakeless thirst of change,