No More Learning

Rows of shot corpses, waiting for the end
Of burial, seem to smile up straight and pale
Into the azure air and apprehend
That final gun-flash from Palermo's coast
Which lightens their apocalypse of death.
So let them die! The world shows nothing lost;
Therefore, not blood. Above or underneath,
What matter, brothers, if ye keep your post
On duty's side? As sword returns to sheath,
So dust to grave, but souls find place in Heaven.
Heroic daring is the true success,
The eucharistic bread requires no leaven;
And though your ends were hopeless, we should bless
Your cause as holy. Strive--and, having striven,
Take, for God's recompense, that righteousness!


FOOTNOTES:

[2] They show at Verona, as the tomb of Juliet, an empty trough of
stone.

[3] These famous statues recline in the Sagrestia Nuova, on the tombs
of Giuliano de' Medici, third son of Lorenzo the Magnificent,
and Lorenzo of Urbino, his grandson. Strozzi's epigram on the
Night, with Michel Angelo's rejoinder, is well known.

[4] This mocking task was set by Pietro, the unworthy successor of
Lorenzo the Magnificent.

[5] Savonarola was burnt for his testimony against papal corruptions
as early as March, 1498: and, as late as our own day, it has
been a custom in Florence to strew with violets the pavement
where he suffered, in grateful recognition of the anniversary.

[6] See his description of the plague in Florence.

[7] Charles of Anjou, in his passage through Florence, was permitted
to see this picture while yet in Cimabue's "bottega. " The
populace followed the royal visitor, and, from the universal
delight and admiration, the quarter of the city in which the
artist lived was called "Borgo Allegri.
" The picture was
carried in triumph to the church, and deposited there.

[8] How Cimabue found Giotto, the shepherd-boy, sketching a ram of
his flock upon a stone, is prettily told by Vasari,--who also
relates that the elder artist Margheritone died "infastidito"
of the successes of the new school.

[9] The Florentines, to whom the Ravennese refused the body of Dante
(demanded of them "in a late remorse of love"), have given a
cenotaph in this church to their divine poet. Something less
than a grave!

[10] In allusion to Mr. Kirkup's discovery of Giotto's fresco portrait
of Dante.

[11] Galileo's villa, close to Florence, is built on an eminence
called Bellosguardo.


PART II.

I wrote a meditation and a dream,
Hearing a little child sing in the street:
I leant upon his music as a theme,
Till it gave way beneath my heart's full beat
Which tried at an exultant prophecy
But dropped before the measure was complete--
Alas, for songs and hearts! O Tuscany,
O Dante's Florence, is the type too plain?
Didst thou, too, only sing of liberty
As little children take up a high strain
With unintentioned voices, and break off
To sleep upon their mothers' knees again?
Couldst thou not watch one hour? then, sleep enough--
That sleep may hasten manhood and sustain
The faint pale spirit with some muscular stuff.

But we, who cannot slumber as thou dost,
We thinkers, who have thought for thee and failed,
We hopers, who have hoped for thee and lost,
We poets, wandered round by dreams,[12] who hailed
From this Atrides' roof (with lintel-post
Which still drips blood,--the worse part hath prevailed)
The fire-voice of the beacons to declare
Troy taken, sorrow ended,--cozened through
A crimson sunset in a misty air,
What now remains for such as we, to do?
God's judgments, peradventure, will He bare
To the roots of thunder, if we kneel and sue?

From Casa Guidi windows I looked forth,
And saw ten thousand eyes of Florentines
Flash back the triumph of the Lombard north,--
Saw fifty banners, freighted with the signs
And exultations of the awakened earth,
Float on above the multitude in lines,
Straight to the Pitti.