On Leaving Italy

A long blue stain upon a belt of gold, A rim of earth against the sinking sun, A shadow that doth fade, and fade, and fade Somewhere between white water and red sky Into a nothing-Italy! farewell! Ay! fare thee well-I never knew before How the cold comfort of that parting word Mocks the weak will. I never thought to leave Thy cities, sweet one, and thy citron hills With grief that shapes itself into a curse, And tears, unlike a woman's tears, that come Hot from the heart; but now I seem to love The billows for their hollow angry roar; The sea-birds, for their melancholy scream; The wind, in that he howleth nothing else Save 'miserere';-for these winds and waves That gird thy coral beach and craggy shore; These birds that from thy tallest Apennines Fetch food, and tell thine own unebbing sea What they have seen thee: I, and these, and all Sing well together in a parting song, And tell thee with our rugged melody We love thee all too well to love thee now. Once thou wert mother of as true a band As ever with strong arms and stronger hearts Led history along:-obedience From us to thee was but a thing of right, Since when thy soldier-son, the Lord of Earth, Wore kingdoms for the jewels of his crown, And ours the meanest sparkle; but we gave More than obedience, for we gave thee love, And made thy glories and thy great of old Our household words; so when our daughters asked What deed or thought, what life or death were best? We told of noble-hearted Portia, Of chaste Lucrece, and she whose only gems Were her bold Roman boys:-we taught our sons Tales of Horatius and the bridge he held One to a thousand; of young Scævola Who kept the steady colour of his cheek While the flames ate his hand; of Regulus, Fabius and Scipio, (names that even now Ring like a trumpet,) till the memory bred Men of our own as apt for memory In after times: and these, and more than these Lady of nations! led to love of thee, Such love, that once to tread thy battle-plains And once to wander where those sons of thine Were cradled into sovereignty, became The hope and end of life-the greenest palm Of all a pilgrimage. And so I came Tutored and schooled to love thee;-not alone But companied by two whose talk should make A pleasant music in the stranger-lands:- One whom I knew before I loved-and one I loved before I knew-true spirits both: Three were we, born beneath a northern sky, Three of us loving Italy alike, And thither journeying. We saw the vines Purple and green, carpeting all her fields Under the Lombard Alps:-we left the figs To ripen on the Apennine, and passed Through many a league of cork and citron-grove Onward by trellised trees, and olive-clumps, By Virgil's cradle and by Juliet's grave To Venice-to the Lady of the Sea. Yet found we never her we came to seek. In town or tower; 'twas very Italy, For fairer, lovelier land might never be; But, oh! not the great Italy we knew, The fair, free land of Livius-the Queen Who wore the diadem of Eastern gold Crusted with Western jewels: she whose sword Conquered the world, and swayed the conquered world -At once a sword and sceptre. So we passed Sadder and wiser southward; and we saw A locust-plague upon the land we loved, Blasting its beauty:-by the Mincius, And where the water of Catullus' lake Breaks into blue and silver: farther south, By Foesulæ and the Lucanian hills, Whose caves have echoed Horace: on the beach Of the Adrian waters, and the upper sea. From north to south we marked the gleam of spears, The flash of foreign swords; and heard a tongue Harsh and unfitted to the tender blue Of Tuscan skies, challenging at the gates, Th' Italian gates, each son of Italy: In Lombard homes and Tuscan towns we saw The sickly livery of the Austrian Specked with Italian blood-we saw the hate On many a noble forehead turn to smiles Even at a step-from many a courteous lip We caught the muffled thunder of the curse Hid in a lowly greeting:-last of all We trod the Eternal City: even there, There where to breathe is to be free and proud, The sabres of a great and noble land, The warriors of our own 'sweet enemy'- The spears of France, of France the fair and brave Gleamed on the Vatican, and guarded there, From the just vengeance of a cheated race, A foolish, fond old dreamer. Italy! We knew the brand that scarred thy beauty then, The brazen chain that bound thee. Italy! Beautiful Harlot! wilt thou sell thyself- Sell thy sweet body longer? rise and tear Thy tresses from the bloody hands that play Too boldly with their beauty: teach the slaves Thou wert an empress of the ancient Earth And they thine appanage: oh! take thy place- Thine own proud place-the place thy children won- Again among the nations! strike a stroke, One stroke, but one, for the dear memory Of what they made thee, and the hateful thought Of what thou art:-then in the Northern Land A thousand swords shall sparkle in the sun, And make thy quarrel theirs;-till then, farewell! Farewell, discrownëd Queen!-sad Italy!