Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/192

186 Are good, and full of promise, we must say, When multitudes thank kings for granting prayers, And kings concede their people's right to pray, Both in the sunshine! Griefs are not despairs, So uttered; nor can royal claims dismay, When men, from humble homes and ducal chairs, Hate wrong together. It was well to view Those banners ruffled in a Grand-duke's face, Inscribed, "Live freedom, union, and all true Brave patriots who are aided by God's grace!" Nor was it ill, when Leopoldo drew His little children to the window-place He stood in at the Pitti, to suggest They, too, should govern as the people willed. What a cry rose then! some, who saw the best, Sware that his eyes filled up, and overfilled With good warm human tears, which unrepressed Ran down. I like his face: the forehead's build Has no capacious genius, yet perhaps Sufficient comprehension,—mild and sad, And careful nobly,—not with care that wraps Self-loving hearts, to stifle and make mad, But careful with the care that shuns a lapse Of faith and duty,—studious not to add A burden in the gathering of a gain. And so, God save the Duke, I say with those Who that day shouted it, and while dukes reign, May all wear, in the visible overflows Of spirit, such a look of careful pain! Methinks God loves it better than repose.

And all the people who went up to let Their hearts out to that Duke, as has been told—