Excerpt from Italy Revealed
Hail, Italy, kindled
Out of the ash of death!
Italy, bruised and crowned
In glory of thy gashes!
Through seven seals unloosed, into thy book
Of revelation let our wonder look.
War's caustic scours imaginary sight,
And we no longer dream we see
The ghost of Rome in risen Italy -
Time's restless apparition walking
The Mediterranean mid-way in a mirage
Whose glitter in the blue mirrors of the air
Seemed but an echo of thy ancient light.
Earth's suffering flesh and blood
Now battle-griefs attest thee,
Even as pangs of war
Revived thee when the Corsican swept by,
And we beheld thee stir,
Disquieted out of silence.
A blind dismembered thing, we watched thee waking
Thy ten disjointed segments; watched their squirm
Within as many tyrannies,
Writhing to knit up seams long ripped and frayed.
Then rose thy orb of empire, lit
Like a new pole-star in the purple north,
Reared on a throne above the Piedmont hills,
Sheer over Savoy's House, whose cry empowered
Cavour's and Garibaldi's, gathering up
Maazini's dream unbroken out of night
Into substantial day.
We watched thy blowing garments
Wing over sapphire seas,
And climb the dreaming airs
Into the golden sun.
We saw thee print upon the Red Sea shore
Thy Abyssinian sandals;
Snatch from the shoulder of the smitten Turk
Tawny-colored Libya
To gird the loins of thy strength;
Out of his turban tear
Tripoli's black diamond for thy diadem;
And stride from isle to isle before
Adalia's slumbering door
To bid thy antique ward, old Asia,
Quit the grey tomb of her antiquity.
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