Page:Carducci - Poems of Italy.djvu/40



To Giuseppe Garibaldi
LONE rides the Dictator at the head Of the advancing mournful band, withdrawn Into his thoughts and silent; round him earth And sky alike are leaden, squalid, chill.

The heavy plashing of his horse's hoofs In the deep mire was audible; behind, The cadenced fall of footsteps and the sighs Breathed from heroic breasts into the night.

But from each clod livid with slaughter's stain, From every blood-dewed bush, wherever lay The poorest fragment or the smallest, torn, O you Italian mothers, from your hearts—

There, like a star a flame sprang up, and rose A sound of many voices chanting hymns; Far in the background shone Olympic Rome, And through the air a mighty pæan ran. 34