Not done, but near its ending,
Is the work that our eyes desired;
Not yet fulfilled, but near the goal,
Is the hope that our worn hearts fired.
And on the Alban Mountains,
Where the blushes of dawn increase,
We see the flash of the beautiful feet
Of Freedom and of Peace!
How long were our fond dreams baffled!—
Novara's sad mischance,
The Kaiser's sword and fetter-lock,
And the traitor stab of France;
Till at last came glorious Venice,
In storm and tempest home;
And now God maddens the greedy kings,
And gives to her people Rome.
Lame Lion of Caprera!
Red-shirts of the lost campaigns!
Not idly shed was the costly blood
You poured from generous veins.
For the shame of Aspromonte,
And the stain of Mentana's sod,
But forged the curse of kings that sprang
From your breaking hearts to God!
We lift our souls to Thee, O Lord
Of Liberty and of Light!
Let not earth's kings pollute the work
That was done in their despite;
Let not Thy light be darkened
In the shade of a sordid crown,
Nor pampered swine devour the fruit
Thou shook'st with an earthquake down!
Let the People come to their birthright,
And crosier and crown pass away
Like phantasms that flit o'er the marshes
At the glance of the clean, white day.
And then from the lava of AEtna
To the ice of the Alps let there be
One freedom, one faith without fetters,
One republic in Italy free!
THE CURSE OF HUNGARY.
King Saloman looked from his donjon bars,
Where the Danube clamours through sedge and sand,
And he cursed with a curse his revolting land,—
With a king's deep curse of treason and wars.
He said: "May this false land know no truth!
May the good hearts die and the bad ones flourish,
And a greed of glory but live to nourish
Envy and hate in its restless youth.
"In the barren soil may the ploughshare rust,
While the sword grows bright with its fatal labour,
And blackens between each man and neighbour
The perilous cloud of a vague distrust!
"Be the noble idle, the peasant in thrall,
And each to the other as unknown things,
That with links of hatred and pride the kings
May forge firm fetters through each for all!
"May a king wrong them as they wronged their king
May he wring their hearts as they wrung mine,
Till they pour their blood for his revels like wine,
And to women and monks their birthright fling!"
The mad king died; but the rushing river
Still brawls by the spot where his donjon stands,
And its swift waves sigh to the conscious sands
That the curse of King Saloman works for ever.
For flowing by Pressbourg they heard the cheers
Ring out from the leal and cheated hearts
That were caught and chained by Theresa's arts,—
A man's cool head and a girl's hot tears!
And a star, scarce risen, they saw decline,
Where Orsova's hills looked coldly down,
As Kossuth buried the Iron Crown
And fled in the dark to the Turkish line.
And latest they saw in the summer glare
The Magyar nobles in pomp arrayed,
To shout as they saw, with his unfleshed blade,
A Hapsburg beating the harmless air.
But ever the same sad play they saw,
The same weak worship of sword and crown,
The noble crushing the humble down,
And moulding Wrong to a monstrous Law.
The donjon stands by the turbid river,
But Time is crumbling its battered towers;
And the slow light withers a despot's powers,
And a mad king's curse is not for ever!
THE MONKS OF BASLE.
I tore this weed from the rank, dark soil
Where it grew in the monkish time,
I trimmed it close and set it again
In a border of modern rhyme.
I.
Long years ago, when the Devil was loose
And faith was sorely tried,
Three monks of Basle went out to walk
In the quiet eventide.
A breeze as pure as the breath of Heaven
Blew fresh through the cloister-shades,
A sky as glad as the smile of Heaven
Blushed rose o'er the minster-glades.
But scorning the lures of summer and sense,
The monks passed on in their walk;
Their eyes were abased, their senses slept,
Their souls were in their talk.
In the tough grim talk of the monkish days
They hammered and slashed about,—
Dry husks of logic,—old scraps of creed,—
And the cold gray dreams of doubt,—
And whether Just or Justified
Was the Church's mystic Head,—
And whether the Bread was changed to God,
Or God became the Bread.
But of human hearts outside their walls
They never paused to dream,
And they never thought of the love of God
That smiled in the twilight gleam.
II.
As these three monks went bickering on
By the foot of a spreading tree,
Out from its heart of verdurous gloom
A song burst wild and free,—
A wordless carol of life and love,
Of nature free and wild;
And the three monks paused in the evening shade,
Looked up at each other and smiled.
And tender and gay the bird sang on,
And cooed and whistled and trilled,
And the wasteful wealth of life and love
From his happy heart was spilled.
The song had power on the grim old monks
In the light of the rosy skies;
And as they listened the years rolled back,
And tears came into their eyes.
The years rolled back and they were young,
With the hearts and hopes of men,
They plucked the daisies and kissed the girls
Of dear dead summers again.
III.
But the eldest monk soon broke the spell;
"'Tis sin and shame," quoth he,
"To be turned from talk of holy things
By a bird's cry from a tree.
"Perchance the Enemy of Souls
Hath come to tempt us so.
Let us try by the power of the Awful Word
If it be he, or no!"
To Heaven the three monks raised their hands;
"We charge thee, speak!" they said,
"By His dread Name who shall one day come
To judge the quick and the dead,—
"Who art thou? Speak!" The bird laughed loud.
"I am the Devil," he said.
The monks on their faces fell, the bird
Away through the twilight sped.
A horror fell on those holy men
(The faithful legends say),
And one by one from the face of the earth
They pined and vanished away.
IV.
So goes the tale of the monkish books,
The moral who runs may read,—
He has no ears for Nature's voice
Whose soul is the slave of creed.
Not all in vain with beauty and love
Has God the world adorned;
And he who Nature scorns and mocks,
By Nature is mocked and scorned.
THE ENCHANTED SHIRT.
Fytte the First: wherein it shall be shown how the Truth
is too mighty a Drug for such as be of feeble temper.
The King was sick. His cheek was red
And his eye was clear and bright;
He ate and drank with a kingly zest,
And peacefully snored at night.
But he said he was sick, and a king should know,
And doctors came by the score.
They did not cure him. He cut off their heads
And sent to the schools for more.
At last two famous doctors came,
And one was as poor as a rat,—
He had passed his life in studious toil,
And never found time to grow fat.
The other had never looked in a book;
His patients gave him no trouble—
If they recovered they paid him well,
If they died their heirs paid double.
Together they looked at the royal tongue,
As the King on his couch reclined;
In succession they thumped his august chest,
But no trace of disease could find.
The old sage said, "You're as sound as a nut."
"Hang him up!" roared the King in a gale,—
In a ten-knot gale of royal rage;
The other leech grew a shade pale;
But he pensively rubbed his sagacious nose,
And thus his prescription ran,—
The King will be well, if he sleeps one night
In the Shirt of a Happy Man.