Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/189

To guard their civic homes. So, one and all,
The Tuscan cities streamed up to the source
Of this new good, at Florence; taking it
As good so far, presageful of more good,—
The first torch of Italian freedom, lit
To toss in the next tiger's face who should
Approach too near them in a cruel fit,—
The first pulse of an even flow of blood,
To prove the level of Italian veins
Toward rights perceived and granted. How we gazed
From Casa Guidi windows, while, in trains
Of orderly procession—banners raised,
And intermittent bursts of martial strains
Which died upon the shout, as if amazed
By gladness beyond music—they passed on!
The magistrates, with their insignia, passed;
And all the people shouted in the sun,
And all the thousand windows which had cast
A ripple of silks, in blue and scarlet, down,
As if the houses overflowed at last,
Seemed to grow larger with fair heads and eyes.
The lawyers passed; and still arose the shout,
And hands broke from the windows, to surprise
Those grave calm brows with bay-tree leaves thrown out.
The priesthood passed: the friars, with worldly-wise
Keen, sidelong glances from their beards, about
The street, to see who shouted! many a monk
Who takes a long rope in the waist, was there!
Whereat the popular exultation drunk
With indrawn "vivas," the whole sunny air,