Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/236

230 No outlet, Austria, for the scourged and bound, No entrance for the exiled? No repose, Russia, for knouted Poles worked underground, And gentle ladies bleached among the snows?— No mercy for the slave, America?— No hope for Rome, free France, chivalric France?— Alas, great nations have great shames, I say. No pity, O world, no tender utterance Of benediction, and prayers stretched this way To poor Italia baffled by mischance?— O gracious nations, give some ear to me! You all go to your Fair, and I am one Who at the roadside of humanity Beseech your alms,—a justice to be done. So, prosper!

In the name of Italy, Meantime, her patriot dead have benizon! They only have done well; and what they did Being perfect, it shall triumph. Let them slumber. No king of Egypt in a pyramid Is safer from oblivion, though he number Full seventy cerements for a coverlid. These Dead be seeds of life, and shall encumber The sad heart of the land until it loose The clammy clods and let out the spring-growth In beatific green through every bruise. The tyrant should take heed to what he doth. Since every victim-carrion turns to use. And drives a chariot, like a god made wroth, Against each piled injustice. Ay, the least Dead for Italia, not in vain has died, However vainly, ere life's struggle ceased,