Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/180

174 A queen of old, and plucked a leafy branch; And licensing the world too long, indeed, To use her brood phylacteries to staunch And stop her bloody lips, which took no heed How one quick breath would draw an avalanche Of living sons around her, to succeed The vanished generations. Could she count Those oil-eaters, with large, live, mobile mouths Agape for maccaroni, in the amount Of consecrated heroes of her south's Bright rosary? The pitcher at the fount, The gift of gods, being broken,—why, one loathes To let the ground-leaves of the place confer A natural bowl. And thus, she chose to seem No nation, but the poet's pensioner, With alms from every land of song and dream; While her own pipers sweetly piped of her, Until their proper breaths, in that extreme Of sighing, split the reed on which they played! Of which, no more: but never say "no more" To Italy! Her memories undismayed Say rather "evermore"—her graves implore Her future to be strong and not afraid— Her very statues send their looks before!

We do not serve the dead—the past is past! God lives, and lifts his glorious mornings up Before the eyes of men, who wake at last, And put away the meats they used to sup, And on the dry dust of the ground outcast The dregs remaining of the ancient cup, And turn to wakeful prayer and worthy act. The dead, upon their awful 'vantage ground,—