Songs of Two Nations Part 1

Songs Of Two Nations.

by Algernon Charles Swinburne.

DIRAE

I saw the double-featured statue stand Of Memnon or of Ja.n.u.s, half with night Veiled, and fast bound with iron; half with light Crowned, holding all men's future in his hand.

And all the old westward face of time grown grey Was writ with cursing and inscribed for death; But on the face that met the mornings breath Fear died of hope as darkness dies of day.

A SONG OF ITALY

Inscribed

With All Devotion and Reverence

To:

JOSEPH MAZZINI

1867

Upon a windy night of stars that fell At the wind's spoken spell, Swept with sharp strokes of agonizing light From the clear gulf of night, Between the fixed and fallen glories one Against my vision shone, More fair and fearful and divine than they That measure night and day, And worthier wors.h.i.+p; and within mine eyes The formless folded skies Took shape and were unfolded like as flowers.

And I beheld the hours As maidens, and the days as labouring men, And the soft nights again As wearied women to their own souls wed, And ages as the dead.

And over these living, and them that died, From one to the other side A lordlier light than comes of earth or air Made the world's future fair.

A woman like to love in face, but not A thing of transient lot-- And like to hope, but having hold on truth-- And like to joy or youth, Save that upon the rock her feet were set-- And like what men forget, Faith, innocence, high thought, laborious peace-- And yet like none of these, Being not as these are mortal, but with eyes That sounded the deep skies And clove like wings or arrows their clear way Through night and dawn and day-- So fair a presence over star and sun Stood, making these as one.

For in the shadow of her shape were all Darkened and held in thrall, So mightier rose she past them; and I felt Whose form, whose likeness knelt With covered hair and face and clasped her knees; And knew the first of these Was Freedom, and the second Italy.

And what sad words said she For mine own grief I knew not, nor had heart Therewith to bear my part And set my songs to sorrow; nor to hear How tear by sacred tear Fell from her eyes as flowers or notes that fall In some slain feaster's hall Where in mid music and melodious breath Men singing have seen death.

So fair, so lost, so sweet she knelt; or so In our lost eyes below Seemed to us sorrowing; and her speech being said, Fell, as one who falls dead.

And for a little she too wept, who stood Above the dust and blood And thrones and troubles of the world; then spake, As who bids dead men wake.

"Because the years were heavy on thy head; Because dead things are dead; Because thy chosen on hill-side, city and plain Are shed as drops of rain; Because all earth was black, all heaven was blind, And we cast out of mind; Because men wept, saying _Freedom_, knowing of thee, Child, that thou wast not free; Because wherever blood was not shame was Where thy pure foot did pa.s.s; Because on Promethean rocks distent Thee fouler eagles rent; Because a serpent stains with slime and foam This that is not thy Rome; Child of my womb, whose limbs were made in me, Have I forgotten thee?

In all thy dreams through all these years on wing, Hast thou dreamed such a thing?

The mortal mother-bird outsoars her nest, The child outgrows the breast; But suns as stars shall fall from heaven and cease, Ere we twain be as these; Yea, utmost skies forget their utmost sun, Ere we twain be not one.

My lesser jewels sewn on skirt and hem, I have no heed of them Obscured and flawed by sloth or craft or power; But thou, that wast my flower, The blossom bound between my brows and worn In sight of even and morn From the last ember of the flameless west To the dawn's baring breast-- I were not Freedom if thou wert not free, Nor thou wert Italy.

O mystic rose ingrained with blood, impearled With tears of all the world!

The torpor of their blind brute-ridden trance Kills England and chills France; And Spain sobs hard through strangling blood; and snows Hide the huge eastern woes.

But thou, twin-born with morning, nursed of noon, And blessed of star and moon!

What shall avail to a.s.sail thee any more, From sacred sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e?

Have Time and Love not knelt down at thy feet, Thy sore, thy soiled, thy sweet, Fresh from the flints and mire of murderous ways And dust of travelling days?

Hath Time not kissed them, Love not washed them fair, And wiped with tears and hair?

Though G.o.d forget thee, I will not forget; Though heaven and earth be set Against thee, O unconquerable child, Abused, abased, reviled, Lift thou not less from no funereal bed Thine undishonoured head; Love thou not less, by lips of thine once prest, This my now barren breast; Seek thou not less, being well a.s.sured thereof, O child, my latest love.

For now the barren bosom shall bear fruit, Songs leap from lips long mute, And with my milk the mouths of nations fed Again be glad and red That were worn white with hunger and sorrow and thirst; And thou, most fair and first, Thou whose warm hands and sweet live lips I feel Upon me for a seal, Thou whose least looks, whose smiles and little sighs, Whose pa.s.sionate pure eyes, Whose dear fair limbs that neither bonds could bruise Nor hate of men misuse, Whose flower-like breath and bosom, O my child, O mine and undefiled, Fill with such tears as burn like bitter wine These mother's eyes of mine, Thrill with huge pa.s.sions and primeval pains The fullness of my veins, O sweetest head seen higher than any stands, I touch thee with mine hands, I lay my lips upon thee, O thou most sweet, To lift thee on thy feet And with the fire of mine to fill thine eyes; I say unto thee, Arise."

-- She ceased, and heaven was full of flame and sound, And earth's old limbs unbound Shone and waxed warm with fiery dew and seed Shed through her at this her need: And highest in heaven, a mother and full of grace, With no more covered face, With no more lifted hands and bended knees, Rose, as from sacred seas Love, when old time was full of plenteous springs, That fairest-born of things, The land that holds the rest in tender thrall For love's sake in them all, That binds with words and holds with eyes and hands All hearts in all men's lands.

So died the dream whence rose the live desire That here takes form and fire, A spirit from the splendid grave of sleep Risen, that ye should not weep, Should not weep more nor ever, O ye that hear And ever have held her dear, Seeing now indeed she weeps not who wept sore, And sleeps not any more.

Hearken ye towards her, O people, exalt your eyes; Is this a thing that dies?

-- Italia! by the pa.s.sion of the pain That bent and rent thy chain; Italia! by the breaking of the bands, The shaking of the lands; Beloved, O men's mother, O men's queen, Arise, appear, be seen!

Arise, array thyself in manifold Queen's raiment of wrought gold; With girdles of green freedom, and with red Roses, and white snow shed Above the flush and frondage of the hills That all thy deep dawn fills And all thy clear night veils and warms with wings Spread till the morning sings; The rose of resurrection, and the bright Breast lavish of the light, The lady lily like the snowy sky Ere the stars wholly die; As red as blood, and whiter than a wave, Flowers grown as from thy grave, From the green fruitful gra.s.s in Maytime hot, Thy grave, where thou art not.

Gather the gra.s.s and weave, in sacred sign Of the ancient earth divine, The holy heart of things, the seed of birth, The mystical warm earth.

O thou her flower of flowers, with treble braid Be thy sweet head arrayed, In witness of her mighty motherhood Who bore thee and found thee good, Her fairest-born of children, on whose head Her green and white and red Are hope and light and life, inviolate Of any latter fate.

Fly, O our flag, through deep Italian air, Above the flags that were, The dusty shreds of shameful battle-flags Trampled and rent in rags, As withering woods in autumn's bitterest breath Yellow, and black as death; Black as crushed worms that sicken in the sense, And yellow as pestilence.

Fly, green as summer and red as dawn and white As the live heart of light, The blind bright womb of colour unborn, that brings Forth all fair forms of things, As freedom all fair forms of nations dyed In divers-coloured pride.

Fly fleet as wind on every wind that blows Between her seas and snows, From Alpine white, from Tuscan green, and where Vesuvius reddens air.

Fly! and let all men see it, and all kings wail, And priests wax faint and pale, And the cold hordes that moan in misty places And the funereal races And the sick serfs of lands that wait and wane See thee and hate thee in vain.

In the clear laughter of all winds and waves, In the blown gra.s.s of graves, In the long sound of fluctuant boughs of trees, In the broad breath of seas, Bid the sound of thy flying folds be heard; And as a spoken word Full of that fair G.o.d and that merciless Who rends the Pythoness, So be the sound and so the fire that saith She feels her ancient breath And the old blood move in her immortal veins.

-- Strange travail and strong pains, Our mother, hast thou borne these many years While thy pure blood and tears Mixed with the Tyrrhene and the Adrian sea; Light things were said of thee, As of one buried deep among the dead; Yea, she hath been, they said, She was when time was younger, and is not; The very cerecloths rot That flutter in the dusty wind of death, Not moving with her breath; Far seasons and forgotten years enfold Her dead corpse old and cold With many windy winters and pale springs: She is none of this world's things.

Though her dead head like a live garland wear The golden-growing hair That flows over her breast down to her feet, Dead queens, whose life was sweet In sight of all men living, have been found So cold, so clad, so crowned, With all things faded and with one thing fair, Their old immortal hair, When flesh and bone turned dust at touch of day: And she is dead as they.

So men said sadly, mocking; so the slave, Whose life was his soul's grave; So, pale or red with change of fast and feast, The sanguine-sandalled priest; So the Austrian, when his fortune came to flood, And the warm wave was blood; With wings that widened and with beak that smote, So shrieked through either throat From the hot horror of its northern nest That double-headed pest; So, triple-crowned with fear and fraud and shame, He of whom treason came, The herdsman of the Gadarean swine; So all his ravening kine, Made fat with poisonous pasture; so not we, Mother, beholding thee.

Make answer, O the crown of all our slain, Ye that were one, being twain, Twain brethren, twin-born to the second birth, Chosen out of all our earth To be the prophesying stars that say How hard is night on day, Stars in serene and sudden heaven rerisen Before the sun break prison And ere the moon be wasted; fair first flowers In that red wreath of ours Woven with the lives of all whose lives were shed To crown their mother's head With leaves of civic cypress and thick yew, Till the olive bind it too, Olive and laurel and all loftier leaves That victory wears or weaves At her fair feet for her beloved brow; Hear, for she too hears now, O Pisacane, from Calabrian sands; O all heroic hands Close on the sword-hilt, hands of all her dead; O many a holy head, Bowed for her sake even to her reddening dust; O chosen, O pure and just, Who counted for a small thing life's estate, And died, and made it great; Ye whose names mix with all her memories; ye Who rather chose to see Death, than our more intolerable things; Thou whose name withers kings, Agesilao; thou too, O chiefliest thou, The slayer of splendid brow, Laid where the lying lips of fear deride The foiled tyrannicide, Foiled, fallen, slain, scorned, and happy; being in fame, Felice, like thy name, Not like thy fortune; father of the fight, Having in hand our light.

Ah, happy! for that sudden-swerving hand Flung light on all thy land, Yea, lit blind France with compulsory ray, Driven down a righteous way; Ah, happiest! for from thee the wars began, From thee the fresh springs ran; From thee the lady land that queens the earth Gat as she gave new birth.

O sweet mute mouths, O all fair dead of ours, Fair in her eyes as flowers, Fair without feature, vocal without voice, Strong without strength, rejoice!

Hear it with ears that hear not, and on eyes That see not let it rise, Rise as a sundawn; be it as dew that drips On dumb and dusty lips; Eyes have ye not, and see it; neither ears, And there is none but hears.

This is the same for whom ye bled and wept; She was not dead, but slept.

This is that very Italy which was And is and shall not pa.s.s.

-- But thou, though all were not well done, O chief, Must thou take shame or grief?

Because one man is not as thou or ten, Must thou take shame for men?

Because the supreme sunrise is not yet, Is the young dew not wet?

Wilt thou not yet abide a little while, Soul without fear or guile, Mazzini,--O our prophet, O our priest, A little while at least?

A little hour of doubt and of control, Sustain thy sacred soul; Withhold thine heart, our father, but an hour; Is it not here, the flower, Is it not blown and fragrant from the root, And shall not be the fruit?

Thy children, even thy people thou hast made, Thine, with thy words arrayed, Clothed with thy thoughts and girt with thy desires, Yearn up toward thee as fires.

Art thou not father, O father, of all these?

From thine own Genoese To where of nights the lower extreme lagune Feels its Venetian moon, Nor suckling's mouth nor mother's breast set free But hath that grace through thee.

The milk of life on death's unnatural brink Thou gavest them to drink, The natural milk of freedom; and again They drank, and they were men.

The wine and honey of freedom and of faith They drank, and cast off death.

Bear with them now; thou art holier: yet endure, Till they as thou be pure.

Their swords at least that stemmed half Austria's tide Bade all its bulk divide; Else, though fate bade them for a breath's s.p.a.ce fall, She had not fallen at all.

Not by their hands they made time's promise true; Not by their hands, but through.

Nor on Custoza ran their blood to waste, Nor fell their fame defaced Whom stormiest Adria with tumultuous tides Whirls undersea and hides.

Not his, who from the sudden-settling deck Looked over death and wreck To where the mother's bosom shone, who smiled As he, so dying, her child; For he smiled surely, dying, to mix his death With her memorial breath; Smiled, being most sure of her, that in no wise, Die whoso will, she dies: And she smiled surely, fair and far above, Wept not, but smiled for love.

Thou too, O splendour of the sudden sword That drove the crews abhorred From Naples and the siren-footed strand, Flash from thy master's hand, s.h.i.+ne from the middle summer of the seas To the old Aeolides, Outs.h.i.+ne their fiery fumes of burning night, Sword, with thy midday light; Flame as a beacon from the Tyrrhene foam To the rent heart of Rome, From the island of her lover and thy lord, Her saviour and her sword.

In the fierce year of failure and of fame, Art thou not yet the same That wast as lightning swifter than all wings In the blind face of kings?

When priests took counsel to devise despair, And princes to forswear, She clasped thee, O her sword and flag-bearer And staff and s.h.i.+eld to her, O Garibaldi; need was hers and grief, Of thee and of the chief, And of another girt in arms to stand As good of hope and hand, As high of soul and happy, albeit indeed The heart should burn and bleed, So but the spirit shake not nor the breast Swerve, but abide its rest.

As theirs did and as thine, though ruin clomb The highest wall of Rome, Though treason stained and spilt her l.u.s.tral water, And slaves led slaves to slaughter, And priests, praying and slaying, watched them pa.s.s From a strange France, alas, That was not freedom; yet when these were past Thy sword and thou stood fast, Till new men seeing thee where Sicilian waves Hear now no sound of slaves, And where thy sacred blood is fragrant still Upon the Bitter Hill, Seeing by that blood one country saved and stained, Less loved thee crowned than chained, And less now only than the chief: for he, Father of Italy, Upbore in holy hands the babe new-born Through loss and sorrow and scorn, Of no man led, of many men reviled; Till lo, the new-born child Gone from between his hands, and in its place, Lo, the fair mother's face.

Blessed is he of all men, being in one As father to her and son, Blessed of all men living, that he found Her weak limbs bared and bound, And in his arms and in his bosom bore, And as a garment wore Her weight of want, and as a royal dress Put on her weariness.

As in faith's h.o.a.riest histories men read, The strong man bore at need Through roaring rapids when all heaven was wild The likeness of a child That still waxed greater and heavier as he trod, And altered, and was G.o.d.

Praise him, O winds that move the molten air, O light of days that were, And light of days that shall be; land and sea, And heaven and Italy: Praise him, O storm and summer, sh.o.r.e and wave, O skies and every grave; O weeping hopes, O memories beyond tears, O many and murmuring years, O sounds far off in time and visions far, O sorrow with thy star, And joy with all thy beacons; ye that mourn, And ye whose light is born; O fallen faces, and O souls arisen, Praise him from tomb and prison, Praise him from heaven and sunlight; and ye floods, And windy waves of woods; Ye valleys and wild vineyards, ye lit lakes And happier hillside brakes, Untrampled by the accursed feet that trod Fields golden from their G.o.d, Fields of their G.o.d forsaken, whereof none Sees his face in the sun, Hears his voice from the floweriest wildernesses; And, barren of his tresses, Ye bays unplucked and laurels unentwined, That no men break or bind, And myrtles long forgetful of the sword, And olives unadored, Wisdom and love, white hands that save and slay, Praise him; and ye as they, Praise him, O gracious might of dews and rains That feed the purple plains, O sacred sunbeams bright as bare steel drawn, O cloud and fire and dawn; Red hills of flame, white Alps, green Apennines, Banners of blowing pines, Standards of stormy snows, flags of light leaves, Three wherewith Freedom weaves One ensign that once woven and once unfurled Makes day of all a world, Makes blind their eyes who knew not, and outbraves The waste of iron waves; Ye fields of yellow fullness, ye fresh fountains, And mists of many mountains; Ye moons and seasons, and ye days and nights; Ye starry-headed heights, And gorges melting sunward from the snow, And all strong streams that flow, Tender as tears, and fair as faith, and pure As hearts made sad and sure At once by many sufferings and one love; O mystic deathless dove Held to the heart of earth and in her hands Cherished, O lily of lands, White rose of time, dear dream of praises past-- For such as these thou wast, That art as eagles setting to the sun, As fawns that leap and run, As a sword carven with keen floral gold, Sword for an armed G.o.d's hold, Flower for a crowned G.o.d's forehead--O our land, Reach forth thine holiest hand, O mother of many sons and memories, Stretch out thine hand to his That raised and gave thee life to run and leap When thou wast full of sleep, That touched and stung thee with young blood and breath When thou wast hard on death.

Praise him, O all her cities and her crowns, Her towers and thrones of towns; O n.o.blest Brescia, scarred from foot to head And breast-deep in thy dead, Praise him from all the glories of thy graves That yellow Mela laves With gentle and golden water, whose fair flood Ran wider with thy blood: Praise him, O born of that heroic breast, O nursed thereat and blest, Verona, fairer than thy mother fair, But not more brave to bear: Praise him, O Milan, whose imperial tread Bruised once the German head; Whose might, by northern swords left desolate, Set foot on fear and fate: Praise him, O long mute mouth of melodies, Mantua, with louder keys, With mightier chords of music even than rolled From the large harps of old, When thy sweet singer of golden throat and tongue, Praising his tyrant, sung; Though now thou sing not as of other days, Learn late a better praise.

Not with the sick sweet lips of slaves that sing, Praise thou no priest or king, No brow-bound laurel of discoloured leaf, But him, the crownless chief.

Praise him, O star of sun-forgotten times, Among their creeds and crimes That wast a fire of witness in the night, Padua, the wise men's light: Praise him, O sacred Venice, and the sea That now exults through thee, Full of the mighty morning and the sun, Free of things dead and done; Praise him from all the years of thy great grief, That shook thee like a leaf With winds and snows of torment, rain that fell Red as the rains of h.e.l.l, Storms of black thunder and of yellow flame, And all ill things but shame; Praise him with all thy holy heart and strength; Through thy walls' breadth and length Praise him with all thy people, that their voice Bid the strong soul rejoice, The fair clear supreme spirit beyond stain, Pure as the depth of pain, High as the head of suffering, and secure As all things that endure.

More than thy blind lord of an hundred years Whose name our memory hears, Home-bound from harbours of the Byzantine Made tributary of thine, Praise him who gave no gifts from oversea, But gave thyself to thee.

O mother Genoa, through all years that run, More than that other son, Who first beyond the seals of sunset prest Even to the unfooted west, Whose back-blown flag scared from, their sheltering seas The unknown Atlantides, And as flame climbs through cloud and vapour clomb Through streams of storm and foam, Till half in sight they saw land heave and swim-- More than this man praise him.