Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/224

 From Casa Guidi windows, gazing, then, I saw and witness how the Duke came back. The regular tramp of horse and tread of men Did smite the silence like an anvil black And sparkless. With her wide eyes at full strain, Our Tuscan nurse exclaimed, "Alack, alack, Signora! these shall be the Austrians." "Nay, Hush, hush," I answered, "do not wake the child!" For so, my two-months' baby sleeping lay In milky dreams upon the bed and smiled; And I thought "he shall sleep on, while he may, Through the world's baseness. Not being yet defiled, Why should he be disturbed by what is done?" Then, gazing, I beheld the long-drawn street Live out, from end to end, full in the sun, With Austria's thousands. Sword and bayonet, Horse, foot, artillery,—cannons rolling on, Like blind, slow storm-clouds gestant with the heat Of undeveloped lightnings, each bestrode By a single man, dust-white from head to heel, Indifferent as the dreadful thing he rode, Calm as a sculptured Fate, and terrible! As some smooth river which hath overflowed, Doth slow and silent down its current wheel A loosened forest, all the pines erect,— So, swept, in mute significance of storm, The marshalled thousands,—not an eye deflect To left or right, to catch a novel form Of the famed city adorned by architect And carver, nor of Beauties live and warm Scared at the casements,—all, straightforward eyes