POSTHUMOUS POEMS
By the Past that follows thee,
By the Future that shall be
We curse thee by the freedom living still,
We curse thee by the hopes thou canst not kill,
We curse thee in the name of the wronged earth
That gave thy treasons birth.
By the Future that shall be
We curse thee by the freedom living still,
We curse thee by the hopes thou canst not kill,
We curse thee in the name of the wronged earth
That gave thy treasons birth.
VI
Out of a court alive with creeping things
A stench has risen to thicken and pollute
The inviolate air of heaven that clad of yore
Our Italy with light, because these Kings
Gather like wasps about the tainted fruit,
And eat their venomous way into its core,
And soil with hateful hands its golden hue;
Till on the dead branch clings
A festering horror blown with poison-dew;
Then laugh "So Freedom loses her last name
And Italy is shamèd with our shame!"
For blindness holds them still
And lust of craving will:
A mist is on their souls who cannot see
The ominous light, nor hear the fateful sounds;
Who know not of the glory that shall be,
And was, ere Austria loosed her winged hounds
These double-beak'd and bloody-plumaged things,
Whose shadow is the hiding-place of kings.
Out of a court alive with creeping things
A stench has risen to thicken and pollute
The inviolate air of heaven that clad of yore
Our Italy with light, because these Kings
Gather like wasps about the tainted fruit,
And eat their venomous way into its core,
And soil with hateful hands its golden hue;
Till on the dead branch clings
A festering horror blown with poison-dew;
Then laugh "So Freedom loses her last name
And Italy is shamèd with our shame!"
For blindness holds them still
And lust of craving will:
A mist is on their souls who cannot see
The ominous light, nor hear the fateful sounds;
Who know not of the glory that shall be,
And was, ere Austria loosed her winged hounds
These double-beak'd and bloody-plumaged things,
Whose shadow is the hiding-place of kings.
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