The poetical works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning .. by Browning Elizabeth Barrett 1806-1861

Author:Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 1806-1861
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: New York, J. Miller
Published: 1870-03-25T05:00:00+00:00

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS.

For Dante sits in heaven, and ye stand here, And more remains for doing, all must feel. Than trysting on his stone from year to year To shift processions, civic toe to heel. The town's thanks to the Pitti. Are ye freer For what was felt that day? A chariot wheel May spin fast, yet the chariot never roll. But if that day suggested somethmg good, And bettered, with one purpose, soul by soul,— Better means freer. A land's brotherhood Is most puissant 1 Men, upon the whole. Are what they can be,—nations what they would.

Will, therefore, to be strong, thou Italy ! Will to be noble ! Austrian Metter-nich Can fi.x no yoke unless the neck agree ; And thine is like the lion's when the thick Dews shudder from it, and no man would be The stroker of his mane, much less would prick His nostril with a reed. When nations roar Like lion';, who shall tame them, and defraud Of the due pasture by the river-shore ? Roar, therefore ! shake your dew-laps dry abroad— The amphitheatre with open door

Leads back upon the benchers who applaud The last spear-thruster!

XVIII.

Yet the Heavens forbid That we should call on pasJion to confront The brutal with the brutal, and, amid

This ripening world, suggest a lion-hunt And lion-vengeance for the wrongs men did And do now, though the spears are getting blunt. We only call, because the sight and proof Of lion-strength hurts nothing ; and to show A lion-heart, and measure paw with hoof. Helps something, even, and will instruct a foe Well as the onslaught, how to .stand aloof! Or else the world gets past the mere brute blow Given or taken. Children use the fist

Until they are of age to use the bram: And so we needed Caesars to assist Man's justice, and Napoleons to explain God's counsel, when a point was nearly missed. Until our generations should attain Christ's stature nearer. Not that we, alas ! Attain already ; but a single in< h Will raise to look down on the x,\ or Js-man's pass. As knighdy Roland on the coward's flinch; And, after chloroform and ether-gas. We find out slowly what the bee and finch Have ready found, through Nature's lamp in each. How to our races we may justify Our individual claims, and, as we reach Our own grapes, bend the top vines to supply The children's uses: how to fill a breach With olive branches ; how to quench a lie With truth, and smite a foe upon the cheek With Christ's most conquering kiss! why, these are things Worth a great nation's finding, to prove weak The ' glorious arms' of military kings J

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