ODE TO MAZZINI
Respond with echoes of a louder love
Than Cromwell's England? let fresh praise renew
The wan brow's withered laurels with its dew,
And one triumphal peace the crownèd earth shall keep.
Than Cromwell's England? let fresh praise renew
The wan brow's withered laurels with its dew,
And one triumphal peace the crownèd earth shall keep.
XIV
As one who dreaming on some cloud-white peak
Hears the loud wind sail past him far and free,
And the faint music of the misty sea,
Listening till all his life reels blind and weak;
So discrownèd Italy
With the world's hope in her hands
Ever yearning to get free,
Silent between the past and future stands.
Dim grows the past, and dull,
All that was beautiful,
As scattered stars drawn down the moonless night:
And the blind eyes of Scorn
Are smitten by strange morn,
And many-thronèd treason wastes before its might:
And every sunless cave
And time-forgotten grave
Is pierced with one intolerable light.
Not one can Falsehood save
Of all the crowns she gave,
As one who dreaming on some cloud-white peak
Hears the loud wind sail past him far and free,
And the faint music of the misty sea,
Listening till all his life reels blind and weak;
So discrownèd Italy
With the world's hope in her hands
Ever yearning to get free,
Silent between the past and future stands.
Dim grows the past, and dull,
All that was beautiful,
As scattered stars drawn down the moonless night:
And the blind eyes of Scorn
Are smitten by strange morn,
And many-thronèd treason wastes before its might:
And every sunless cave
And time-forgotten grave
Is pierced with one intolerable light.
Not one can Falsehood save
Of all the crowns she gave,
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