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28

LD hero, we send thee a greeting!
 * Thou art banished, they tell us: then come!

For wherever free pulses are beating,
 * That land thou wilt know as thy home.

What matters the timid decision
 * Of the fellow who pilfered a throne;

Or thy king's, whom his people's derision
 * Leaves abject, unloved and alone?

We honor thee more, though defeated,
 * As a prisoner, an exile perchance,

Than the libertine coward who cheated
 * Thy hopes for the tyrant of France.

Of us thou art worthy—we know it—
 * And proclaim thee a citizen free;

But, what's better—how proudly we show it!—
 * We feel ourselves worthy of thee.

Forget what the monarchs call treason
 * To the privilege of title and crown,—

Merest insults to manhood and reason,
 * Which brieﬂy the world will disown.

Grand creature, unselﬁsh, pure-hearted,
 * In an age that is meaner than mire,

'Twas no wonder the gold-mongers started,
 * Red shirt, from thy pathway of ﬁre!

No wonder they shrank to the bowels,
 * And inquired what the mystery meant,

While the ring of thy rusty spur-rowels
 * Was shaking their triple per cent.!

No wonder they bound thee, gray lion,
 * Or will banish thee, fearing to kill;

But they made each Italian a scion
 * To grow in the way of thy will.

Remember Rotondo! 'tis planted
 * With a seed that shall rise unto good,

When the reapers stride forward undaunted,
 * And garner the harvest in blood!

Rest with us! and tell us the story
 * Of a city that ﬂoats on the sea,—

Of the Medici's birth-place and glory,
 * More glorious in this—they were free—