Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/191

185 With passionate looks, the gesture's whirling off A hurricane of leaves! Three hours did end While all these passed; and ever in the crowd, Rude men, unconscious of the tears that kept Their beards moist, shouted; and some laughed aloud, And none asked any why they laughed and wept: Friends kissed each other's cheeks, and foes long vowed Did it more warmly; two-months' babies leapt Right upward in their mother's arms, whose black Wide, glittering eyes looked elsewhere; lovers pressed Each before either, neither glancing back; And peasant maidens, smoothly 'tired and tressed, Forgot to finger on their throats the slack Great pearl-strings; while old blind men would not rest, But pattered with their staves and with their shoes Still on the stones, and smiled as if they saw. O Heaven! I think that day had noble use Among God's days. So near stood Right and Law, Both mutually forborne! Law would not bruise, Nor Right deny; and each in reverent awe Honoured the other. What if, ne'ertheless, The sun did, that day, leave upon the vines No charta, and the liberal Duke's excess Did scarce exceed a Guelf's or Ghibelline's In the specific actual righteousness Of what that day he granted; still the signs