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!
XXII.
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,
