SONGS OF TWO NATIONS


By Algernon Charles Swinburne






CONTENTS


DIRAE

A SONG OF ITALY

ODE ON THE PROCLAMATION OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC

DIRAE








DIRAE

     I saw the double-featured statue stand       Of Memnon or of Janus, half with night     Veiled, and fast bound with iron; half with light       Crowned, holding all men's future in his hand.     And all the old westward face of time grown grey       Was writ with cursing and inscribed for death;     But on the face that met the mornings breath       Fear died of hope as darkness dies of day.








A SONG OF ITALY

     Inscribed     With All Devotion and Reverence     To:     JOSEPH MAZZINI     1867
     Upon a windy night of stars that fell       At the wind's spoken spell,     Swept with sharp strokes of agonizing light       From the clear gulf of night,     Between the fixed and fallen glories one       Against my vision shone,     More fair and fearful and divine than they       That measure night and day,     And worthier worship; and within mine eyes       The formless folded skies     Took shape and were unfolded like as flowers.       And I beheld the hours     As maidens, and the days as labouring men,       And the soft nights again     As wearied women to their own souls wed,       And ages as the dead.     And over these living, and them that died,       From one to the other side     A lordlier light than comes of earth or air       Made the world's future fair.     A woman like to love in face, but not       A thing of transient lot—     And like to hope, but having hold on truth—       And like to joy or youth,     Save that upon the rock her feet were set—       And like what men forget,     Faith, innocence, high thought, laborious peace—       And yet like none of these,     Being not as these are mortal, but with eyes       That sounded the deep skies     And clove like wings or arrows their clear way       Through night and dawn and day—     So fair a presence over star and sun       Stood, making these as one.     For in the shadow of her shape were all       Darkened and held in thrall,     So mightier rose she past them; and I felt       Whose form, whose likeness knelt     With covered hair and face and clasped her knees;       And knew the first of these     Was Freedom, and the second Italy.       And what sad words said she     For mine own grief I knew not, nor had heart       Therewith to bear my part     And set my songs to sorrow; nor to hear       How tear by sacred tear     Fell from her eyes as flowers or notes that fall       In some slain feaster's hall     Where in mid music and melodious breath       Men singing have seen death.     So fair, so lost, so sweet she knelt; or so       In our lost eyes below     Seemed to us sorrowing; and her speech being said,       Fell, as one who falls dead.     And for a little she too wept, who stood       Above the dust and blood     And thrones and troubles of the world; then spake,       As who bids dead men wake.     "B                        
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