Elizabeth Barrett Browning - Italy and the World lyrics

I. Florence, Bologna, Parma, Modena: When you named them a year ago, So many graves reserved by God, in a Day of Judgment, you seemed to know, To open and let out the resurrection. II. And meantime (you made your reflection If you were English), was nought to be done But sorting sables, in predilection For all those martyrs dead and gone, Till the new earth and heaven made ready. III. And if your politics were not heady, Violent, ... “Good,” you added, “good In all things! Mourn on sure and steady. Churchyard thistles are wholesome food For our European wandering a**es. IV. “The date of the resurrection pa**es Human foreknowledge: men unborn Will gain by it (even in the lower cla**es), But none of these. It is not the morn Because the co*k of France is crowing. V. “co*ks crow at midnight, seldom knowing Starlight from dawn-light! 't is a mad Poor creature.” Here you paused, and growing Scornful,—suddenly, let us add, The trumpet sounded, the graves were open. VI. Life and life and life! agrope in The dusk of d**h, warm hands, stretched out For swords, proved more life still to hope in, Beyond and behind. Arise with a shout, Nation of Italy, slain and buried! VII. Hill to hill and turret to turret Flashing the tricolor,—newly created Beautiful Italy, calm, unhurried, Rise heroic and renovated, Rise to the final restitution. VIII. Rise; prefigure the grand solution Of earth's municipal, insular schisms,— Statesmen draping self-love's conclusion In cheap vernacular patriotisms, Unable to give up Judæa for Jesus. IX. Bring us the higher example; release us Into the larger coming time: And into Christ's broad garment piece us Rags of virtue as poor as crime, National selfishness, civic vaunting. X. No more Jew nor Greek then,—taunting Nor taunted;—no more England nor France! But one confederate brotherhood planting One flag only, to mark the advance, Onward and upward, of all humanity. XI. For civilization perfected Is fully developed Christianity. “Measure the frontier,” shall it be said, “Count the ships,” in national vanity? —Count the nation's heart-beats sooner. XII. For, though behind by a cannon or schooner, That nation still is predominant Whose pulse beats quickest in zeal to oppugn or Succour another, in wrong or want, Pa**ing the frontier in love and abhorrence. XIII. Modena, Parma, Bologna, Florence, Open us out the wider way! Dwarf in that chapel of old Saint Lawrence Your Michel Angelo's giant Day, With the grandeur of this Day breaking o'er us! XIV. Ye who, restrained as an ancient chorus, Mute while the coryphæus spake, Hush your separate voices before us, Sink your separate lives for the sake Of one sole Italy's living for ever! XV. Givers of coat and cloak too,—never Grudging that purple of yours at the best, By your heroic will and endeavour Each sublimely dispossessed, That all may inherit what each surrenders! XVI. Earth shall bless you, O noble emenders On egotist nations! Ye shall lead The plough of the world, and sow new splendours Into the furrow of things for seed,— Ever the richer for what ye have given. XVII. Lead us and teach us, till earth and heaven Grow larger around us and higher above. Our sacrament-bread has a bitter leaven; We bait our traps with the name of love, Till hate itself has a kinder meaning. XVIII. Oh, this world: this cheating and screening Of cheats! this conscience for candle-wicks, Not beacon-fires! this overweening Of underhand diplomatical tricks, Dared for the country while scorned for the counter! XIX. Oh, this envy of those who mount here, And oh, this malice to make them trip! Rather quenching the fire there, drying the fount here, To frozen body and thirsty lip, Than leave to a neighbour their ministration. XX. I cry aloud in my poet-pa**ion, Viewing my England o'er Alp and sea. I loved her more in her ancient fashion: She carries her rifles too thick for me Who spares them so in the cause of a brother. XXI. Suspicion, panic? end this pother. The sword, kept sheathless at peace-time, rusts. None fears for himself while he feels for another: The brave man either fights or trusts, And wears no mail in his private chamber. XXII. Beautiful Italy! golden amber Warm with the kisses of lover and traitor! Thou who hast drawn us on to remember, Draw us to hope now: let us be greater By this new future than that old story. XXIII. Till truer glory replaces all glory, As the torch grows blind at the dawn of day; And the nations, rising up, their sorry And foolish sins shall put away, As children their toys when the teacher enters. XXIV. Till Love's one centre devour these centres Of many self-loves; and the patriot's trick To better his land by egotist ventures, Defamed from a virtue, shall make men sick, As the scalp at the belt of some red hero. XXV. For certain virtues have dropped to zero, Left by the sun on the mountain's dewy side; Churchman's charities, tender as Nero, Indian suttee, heathen suicide, Service to rights divine, proved hollow: XXVI. And Heptarchy patriotisms must follow. —National voices, distinct yet dependent, Ensphering each other, as swallow does swallow, With circles still widening and ever ascendant, In multiform life to united progression,— XXVII. These shall remain. And when, in the session Of nations, the separate language is heard, Each shall aspire, in sublime indiscretion, To help with a thought or exalt with a word Less her own than her rival's honour. XXVIII. Each Christian nation shall take upon her The law of the Christian man in vast: The crown of the getter shall fall to the donor, And last shall be first while first shall be last, And to love best shall still be, to reign unsurpa**e