ODE TO MAZZINI
V
Austria! The voice is deepening in thine ears
And art thou still asleep,
Drunken with blood and tears!
A murderer's rest should hardly be so deep
Till comes the calm unbroken by the years,
And those, whose life crawls on thro' dying shame,
A thing made up of lies and fears, more vile
Than aught that lives and bears a hateful name
For the crowned serpent, skilled in many a wile,
Charmed with the venomous honey of its guile
The guards until they slept,
And only fawned and crept
Till Fortune gave it leave to sting and smile!
Have not the winds of Heaven and the free waves
A voice to bear the curses of thy slaves
And the loud hatred of the world! O thou
Upon whose shameless brow
The crown is as a brand,
The sceptre trembles in thy trothless hand,
Shrinks not thy soul before the shame it braves,
The gathered anger of a patient land,
The loathing scorn that hardly bears to name thee?
By all the lies that cannot shame thee,
By all the memories thou must bear
In hushed unspeakable despair;
Austria! The voice is deepening in thine ears
And art thou still asleep,
Drunken with blood and tears!
A murderer's rest should hardly be so deep
Till comes the calm unbroken by the years,
And those, whose life crawls on thro' dying shame,
A thing made up of lies and fears, more vile
Than aught that lives and bears a hateful name
For the crowned serpent, skilled in many a wile,
Charmed with the venomous honey of its guile
The guards until they slept,
And only fawned and crept
Till Fortune gave it leave to sting and smile!
Have not the winds of Heaven and the free waves
A voice to bear the curses of thy slaves
And the loud hatred of the world! O thou
Upon whose shameless brow
The crown is as a brand,
The sceptre trembles in thy trothless hand,
Shrinks not thy soul before the shame it braves,
The gathered anger of a patient land,
The loathing scorn that hardly bears to name thee?
By all the lies that cannot shame thee,
By all the memories thou must bear
In hushed unspeakable despair;
171
