But wherefore must I moan, remembering this?
My land, I saw thee throned, thou’rt now i’ the dust:
For thee, my land, these tears,—no tears for me!
And yet Hope comes dictating to my heart:
“From the new mourning shall new joy result;
That which was then achieved is but a seed,—
The goodly seed shall bear a goodly fruit.”
Yes, O ye nations, courage! and expect
From sterile winter lavish summertime.
July’s ninth day is blazing in the heaven,
And to the people’s will the King accedes.
How could I ever fully represent
The immense delight which I beheld around?
The Bourbon King, throned in his gilded seat,
Object of love in such a festival,
With rage in bosom and with joy in face,
Feigns to applaud the good he so detests:
Then on the gospel swears ... ah crime-stained King!
Thou stamp’st the kiss of Judas on the Christ!
O realm betrayed, to which I wailing speak,
Remember that Alfieri has pronounced—
“To make a blameless king, unmake him first”—
And, if a greedy foreigner, all the more.
The deed then wrought was done in righteousness,
’Twas reason’s revolution: all the same,
As if it were the greatest of all crimes
’Twas punished by the Bourbon’s perfidy.
No, such a sacred movement cost to none
A drop of blood, not even a drop of tears.
Ah I remember those nine hurrying months
As though they had been blessed years of fame!
August the Parliament was opened, where
Some Cato, Tully, or Hortensius, pealed.
Activity is witnessed in the fleet,—
Ancient Amalfi seems therein revived.
The manning of the army starts anew,
But with no mixture of a foreign stock;
And warlike squadrons are adjoined to it
Of civic legions and militia-bands.
The strenuous presses creak, and everywhere
The country’s intellect displays its fruits.
My own blood like a burning lava coursed:
Not I, not I, then sang, but Patriot Love!
And, to encourage that heroic race
Which from ancestral ashes came to birth,
Re-echoed did I hark to those his strains
Which he was pleased to utter through my lips:
From women and from children and from all,
Here, there, and up and down, on every hand.[37]
With dulcet and with martial harmony
By the Musician’s skill invested, these,
Sung in all houses and in every street,
Were even quoted in the Parliament;
To their Tyrtæus all the provinces,
As chorus to the coryphee, replied.
All, all was active: Usages and laws
Progressed in union with the newborn rights.
But many of the law-courts had to shut,
For rivalry in virtue lessened crime.
I must here make a little digression, to illustrate this matter of “Tyrtæus.” It need scarcely be said that Tyrtæus, who flourished about 650 B.C., was a Greek elegiac poet, born in Attica, lame and misshapen, and totally ignorant of military matters. In the second Messenian war the Lacedæmonians were directed by the oracle to apply to the Athenians for a general; and the Athenians (such at least is the legend, which may be largely discounted without undue scepticism) sent them Tyrtæus. This looked very like a mauvaise plaisanterie, and was so regarded by the Lacedæmonians; yet the result justified the oracle, and the Athenians as well. The poet poured forth his strains with such splendid impulse and vigour that he animated the troops; they abandoned the idea of raising the siege of Ithome, and thoroughly defeated the Messenians. “The popularity of these elegies in the Spartan army was such that it became the custom to sing them round the camp-fires at night, the polemarch rewarding the best singer with a piece of flesh.”
The term “Tyrtæus of Italy” (Tirteo d’Italia) has been constantly applied by his countrymen to Gabriele Rossetti. I am not clear when this practice began, whether before or only after 1846, when Rossetti, in his Veggente in Solitudine, applied the term to himself. At any rate, I had until recently assumed that the phrase had only a lax application, as indicating that Rossetti, by his declaimed and published patriotic lyrics, had incited, and would continue to incite, Italians to combat for liberty and independence. But of late I have come to the almost confident conclusion that he must have taken a personal part in the sole military expedition in which the Neapolitan army sought to maintain the constitution of 1820. This conclusion is founded upon a letter (in my possession) which a certain Dr Costanza—to me not otherwise known—addressed to my father on 10th November 1847. I first read the letter with attention towards 1896, and I here give a translation of it.
“Gibraltar.
“10th November 1847.
“Honoured Compatriot,