XXIII.
And if he lived not all so, as one spoke,
The sin pass softly with the passing bell.
For he was shriven, I think, in cannon smoke,
And taking off his crown, made visible
A hero's forehead. Shaking Austria's yoke
He shattered his own hand and heart. "So best,"
His last words were upon his lonely bed,—
"I do not end like popes and dukes at least—
Thank God for it." And now that he is dead,
Admitting it is proved and manifest
That he was worthy, with a discrowned head,
To measure heights with patriots, let them stand
Beside the man in his Oporto shroud,
And each vouchsafe to take him by the hand,
And kiss him on the cheek, and say aloud,
"Thou, too, hast suffered for our native land!
"My brother, thou art one of us. Be proud."
XXIV.
Still, still, the patriot's tomb, the stranger's hate.
Still Niobe! still fainting in the sun
By whose most dazzling arrows violate
Her beauteous offspring perished! Has she won
Nothing but garlands for the graves, from Fate?
Nothing but death-songs?—Yet, be it understood,
Life throbs in noble Piedmont! while the feet
Of Rome's clay image, dabbled soft in blood,
Grow flat with dissolution, and, as meet,
Will soon be shovelled off, like other mud,
To leave the passage free in church and street.
