My little son, my Florentine,
Sit down beside my knee,
And I will tell you why the sign
Of joy which flushed our Italy
Has faded since but yesternight;
And why your Florence of delight
Is mourning as you see.
Sit down beside my knee,
And I will tell you why the sign
Of joy which flushed our Italy
Has faded since but yesternight;
And why your Florence of delight
Is mourning as you see.
Elizabeth Browning
X.
Then the sons of France, bareheaded, lowly bowing,
Led the ladies back where kinsmen of the south
Stood, received them; till, with burst of overflowing
Feeling--husbands, brothers, Florence's male youth,
Turned, and kissed the martial strangers mouth to mouth.
XI.
And a cry went up, a cry from all that people!
--You have heard a people cheering, you suppose,
For the Member, mayor . . . with chorus from the steeple?
This was different: scarce as loud, perhaps (who knows? ),
For we saw wet eyes around us ere the close.
XII.
And we felt as if a nation, too long borne in
By hard wrongers,--comprehending in such attitude
That God had spoken somewhere since the morning,
That men were somehow brothers, by no platitude,--
Cried exultant in great wonder and free gratitude.
A TALE OF VILLAFRANCA.
TOLD IN TUSCANY.
I.
My little son, my Florentine,
Sit down beside my knee,
And I will tell you why the sign
Of joy which flushed our Italy
Has faded since but yesternight;
And why your Florence of delight
Is mourning as you see.
II.
A great man (who was crowned one day)
Imagined a great Deed:
He shaped it out of cloud and clay,
He touched it finely till the seed
Possessed the flower: from heart and brain
He fed it with large thoughts humane,
To help a people's need.
III.
He brought it out into the sun--
They blessed it to his face:
"O great pure Deed, that hast undone
So many bad and base!
O generous Deed, heroic Deed,
Come forth, be perfected, succeed,
Deliver by God's grace. "
IV.
Then sovereigns, statesmen, north and south,
Rose up in wrath and fear,
And cried, protesting by one mouth,
"What monster have we here?
A great Deed at this hour of day?
A great just Deed--and not for pay?
Absurd,--or insincere. "
V.
"And if sincere, the heavier blow
In that case we shall bear,
For where's our blessed 'status quo,'
Our holy treaties, where,--
Our rights to sell a race, or buy,
Protect and pillage, occupy,
And civilize despair? "
VI.
Some muttered that the great Deed meant
A great pretext to sin;
And others, the pretext, so lent,
Was heinous (to begin).
Volcanic terms of "great" and "just"?
