Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/238

232 Yea, verily, Charles Albert has died well: And if he lived not all so, as one spoke, The sin pass softly with the passing bell. For he was shriven, I think, in cannon smoke, And taking off his crown, made visible A hero's forehead. Shaking Austria's yoke He shattered his own hand and heart. "So best," His last words were upon his lonely bed,— "I do not end like popes and dukes at least— Thank God for it." And now that he is dead, Admitting it is proved and manifest That he was worthy, with a discrowned head, To measure heights with patriots, let them stand Beside the man in his Oporto shroud, And each vouchsafe to take him by the hand, And kiss him on the cheek, and say aloud, "Thou, too, hast suffered for our native land! "My brother, thou art one of us. Be proud."

Still, graves, when Italy, is talked upon! Still, still, the patriot's tomb, the stranger's hate. Still Niobe! still fainting in the sun By whose most dazzling arrows violate Her beauteous offspring perished! Has she won Nothing but garlands for the graves, from Fate? Nothing but death-songs?—Yet, be it understood, Life throbs in noble Piedmont! while the feet Of Rome's clay image, dabbled soft in blood, Grow flat with dissolution, and, as meet, Will soon be shovelled off, like other mud, To leave the passage free in church and street.