Page:A History of Italian Literature - Garnett (1898).djvu/418

400 Thy pinions folded, thy stern foot haughtily Pressing the casque of foeman unhelmeted;— Whose fair renown for feat triumphant Art on the orb of thy shield inscribing?

An archon's name, who boldly in face of Wrong The freeman's law upheld and immunity? A consul's, far and wide the Latin Limit and glory and awe enlarging?

Thee throned on Alpine pinnacle loftily, Radiant 'mid tempest, heralding might I hear, Kings and peoples, here stands Italy, Weaponed to strike for her soil and honour.

Lydia, the while, a garland of flowerets, By sad October strewn o'er the wreck of Rome, To deck thee braids, and gently bending, Questioneth, as at thy foot she lays it:

'' 'What thoughts, what visions. Victory, came to thee,'' Years on years in the humid imprisonment ''Of earth immured? the German horses'' Heardest thou stamp o'er thy brow Hellenic?' 

 'I heard,' she answers, flashing and fulminant,  'Heard and endured, for glory of Greece am I, And strength of Rome, in bronze immortal Sped without flaw through the fleeting ages,

 'The ages passed like the twelve birds ominous, Descried by gaze of Romulus anciently: They passed, I rose: thy Gods, proclaimings ''Italy, see! and thy buried heroes,''

 'Proud of her fortune, Brescia enshrined me, Brescia the stalwart, Brescia the iron-girt, Italia's lioness, her vesture Dyed in the blood of her land's invaders.' "

A large proportion of Carducci's lyrics flow with more of liquid ease in more familiar metres, better adapted for