Once fixed for judgment: 'tis as hard to change
The people's, when they rise beneath their loads
And heave them from their backs with violent wrench,
To crush the oppressor. For that judgment rod's
The measure of this popular revenge.
XIV.
Beheld the armament of Austria flow
Into the drowning heart of Tuscany.
And yet none wept, none cursed; or, if 'twas so,
They wept and cursed in silence. Silently
Our noisy Tuscans watched the invading foe;
They had learnt silence. Pressed against the wall
And grouped upon the church-steps opposite,
A few pale men and women stared at all.
God knows what they were feeling, with their white
Constrained faces!—they, so prodigal
Of cry and gesture when the world goes right,
Or wrong indeed. But here, was depth of wrong,
And here, still water: they were silent here:
And through that sentient silence, struck along
That measured tramp from which it stood out clear,
Distinct the sound and silence, like a gong
Tolled upon midnight,-each made awfuller;
While every soldier in his cap displayed
A leaf of olive. Dusty, bitter thing!
Was such plucked at Novara, is it said?
XV.
The hollow world through, that for ends of trade
And virtue, and God's better worshipping,
