Part 49 (1/2)

III.

Your Garibaldi missed the mark! You see The end of life's to cheat, and not to be Cheated: The knave is n.o.bler than the fool!

Get all you can and keep it! Life's a pool, The best luck wins; if Virtue starves in rags, I laugh at Virtue; here's my money-bags!

Here's righteous metal! We have kings, I say, To keep cash going, and the game at play; There's why a king wants money--he'd be missed Without a fertilizing civil list.

Do but try The question with a steady moral eye!

The colonel strives to be a brigadier, The marshal, constable. Call the game fair, And pay your winners! Show the trump, I say!

A renegade's a rascal--till the day They make him Pasha: is he rascal then?

What with these sequins? Bah! you speak to Men, And Men want money--power--luck--life's joy-- Those take who can: we could, and fobbed Savoy; For those who live content with honest state, They're public pests; knock we 'em on the pate!

They set a vile example! Quick--arrest That Fool, who ruled and failed to line his nest.

Just hit a bell, you'll see the clapper shake-- Meddle with Priests, you'll find the barrack wake-- Ah! Princes know the People's a tight boot, March 'em sometimes to be shot and to shoot, Then they'll wear easier. So let them preach The righteousness of howitzers; and teach At the f.a.g end of prayer: ”Now, slit their throats!

My holy Zouaves! my good yellow-coats!”

We like to see the Holy Father send Powder and steel and lead without an end, To feed Death fat; and broken battles mend.

So they!

IV.

But thou, our Hero, baffled, foiled, The Glorious Chief who vainly bled and toiled.

The trust of all the Peoples--Freedom's Knight!

The Paladin unstained--the Sword of Right!

What wilt thou do, whose land finds thee but jails!

The banished claim the banished! deign to cheer The refuge of the homeless--enter here, And light upon our households dark will fall Even as thou enterest. Oh, Brother, all, Each one of us--hurt with thy sorrows' proof, Will make a country for thee of his roof.

Come, sit with those who live as exiles learn: Come! Thou whom kings could conquer but not yet turn.

We'll talk of ”Palermo”[2]--”the Thousand” true, Will tell the tears of blood of France to you; Then by his own great Sea we'll read, together, Old Homer in the quiet summer weather, And after, thou shalt go to thy desire While that faint star of Justice grows to fire.[3]

V.

Oh, Italy! hail your Deliverer, Oh, Nations! almost he gave Rome to her!

Strong-arm and prophet-heart had all but come To win the city, and to make it ”Rome.”

Calm, of the antique grandeur, ripe to be Named with the n.o.blest of her history.

He would have Romanized your Rome--controlled Her glory, lords.h.i.+ps, G.o.ds, in a new mould.

Her spirits' fervor would have melted in The hundred cities with her; made a twin Vesuvius and the Capitol; and blended Strong Juvenal's with the soul, tender and splendid, Of Dante--smelted old with new alloy-- Stormed at the t.i.tans' road full of bold joy Whereby men storm Olympus. Italy, Weep!--This man could have made one Rome of thee!

VI.

But the crime's wrought! Who wrought it?

Honest Man-- Priest Pius? No! Each does but what he can.

Yonder's the criminal! The warlike wight Who hides behind the ranks of France to fight, Greek Sinon's blood crossed thick with Judas-Jew's, The Traitor who with smile which true men woos, Lip mouthing pledges--hand grasping the knife-- Waylaid French Liberty, and took her life.

Kings, he is of you! fit companion! one Whom day by day the lightning looks upon Keen; while the sentenced man triples his guard And trembles; for his hour approaches hard.

Ye ask me ”when?” I say _soon_! Hear ye not Yon muttering in the skies above the spot?

Mark ye no coming shadow, Kings? the shroud Of a great storm driving the thunder-cloud?

Hark! like the thief-catcher who pulls the pin, G.o.d's thunder asks to _speak to one within_!

VII.