The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning Volume IV Part 18

XIII.

Modena, Parma, Bologna, Florence, Open us out the wider way!

Dwarf in that chapel of old Saint Lawrence Your Michel Angelo's giant Day, With the grandeur of this Day breaking o'er us!

XIV.

Ye who, restrained as an ancient chorus, Mute while the coryphaeus spake, Hush your separate voices before us, Sink your separate lives for the sake Of one sole Italy's living for ever!

XV.

Givers of coat and cloak too,--never Grudging that purple of yours at the best, By your heroic will and endeavour Each sublimely dispossessed, That all may inherit what each surrenders!

XVI.

Earth shall bless you, O n.o.ble emenders On egotist nations! Ye shall lead The plough of the world, and sow new splendours Into the furrow of things for seed,-- Ever the richer for what ye have given.

XVII.

Lead us and teach us, till earth and heaven Grow larger around us and higher above.

Our sacrament-bread has a bitter leaven; We bait our traps with the name of love, Till hate itself has a kinder meaning.

XVIII.

Oh, this world: this cheating and screening Of cheats! this conscience for candle-wicks, Not beacon-fires! this overweening Of underhand diplomatical tricks, Dared for the country while scorned for the counter!

XIX.

Oh, this envy of those who mount here, And oh, this malice to make them trip!

Rather quenching the fire there, drying the fount here, To frozen body and thirsty lip, Than leave to a neighbour their ministration.

XX.

I cry aloud in my poet-pa.s.sion, Viewing my England o'er Alp and sea.

I loved her more in her ancient fas.h.i.+on: She carries her rifles too thick for me Who spares them so in the cause of a brother.

XXI.

Suspicion, panic? end this pother.

The sword, kept sheathless at peace-time, rusts.

None fears for himself while he feels for another: The brave man either fights or trusts, And wears no mail in his private chamber.

XXII.

Beautiful Italy! golden amber Warm with the kisses of lover and traitor!

Thou who hast drawn us on to remember, Draw us to hope now: let us be greater By this new future than that old story.

XXIII.

Till truer glory replaces all glory, As the torch grows blind at the dawn of day; And the nations, rising up, their sorry And foolish sins shall put away, As children their toys when the teacher enters.

XXIV.

Till Love's one centre devour these centres Of many self-loves; and the patriot's trick To better his land by egotist ventures, Defamed from a virtue, shall make men sick, As the scalp at the belt of some red hero.

XXV.

For certain virtues have dropped to zero, Left by the sun on the mountain's dewy side; Churchman's charities, tender as Nero, Indian suttee, heathen suicide, Service to rights divine, proved hollow:

XXVI.

And Heptarchy patriotisms must follow.

--National voices, distinct yet dependent, Ensphering each other, as swallow does swallow, With circles still widening and ever ascendant, In multiform life to united progression,--

XXVII.

These shall remain. And when, in the session Of nations, the separate language is heard, Each shall aspire, in sublime indiscretion, To help with a thought or exalt with a word Less her own than her rival's honour.

XXVIII.

Each Christian nation shall take upon her The law of the Christian man in vast: The crown of the getter shall fall to the donor, And last shall be first while first shall be last, And to love best shall still be, to reign unsurpa.s.sed.

A CURSE FOR A NATION.

PROLOGUE.

I heard an angel speak last night, And he said "Write!

Write a Nation's curse for me, And send it over the Western Sea."

I faltered, taking up the word: "Not so, my lord!

If curses must be, choose another To send thy curse against my brother.

"For I am bound by grat.i.tude, By love and blood, To brothers of mine across the sea, Who stretch out kindly hands to me."

"Therefore," the voice said, "shalt thou write My curse to-night.

From the summits of love a curse is driven, As lightning is from the tops of heaven."

"Not so," I answered. "Evermore My heart is sore For my own land's sins: for little feet Of children bleeding along the street:

"For parked-up honours that gainsay The right of way: For almsgiving through a door that is Not open enough for two friends to kiss:

"For love of freedom which abates Beyond the Straits: For patriot virtue starved to vice on Self-praise, self-interest, and suspicion:

"For an oligarchic parliament, And bribes well-meant.

What curse to another land a.s.sign, When heavy-souled for the sins of mine?"