| |
| HER hair was tawny with gold, her eyes with purple were dark, | |
| Her cheeks’ pale opal burnt with a red and restless spark. | |
| |
| Never was lady of Milan nobler in name and in race; | |
| Never was lady of Italy fairer to see in the face. | |
| |
| Never was lady on earth more true as woman and wife, | 5 |
| Larger in judgment and instinct, prouder in manners and life. | |
| |
| She stood in the early morning, and said to her maidens, “Bring | |
| That silken robe made ready to wear at the court of the king. | |
| |
| “Bring me the claps of diamond, lucid, clear of the mote, | |
| Clasp me the large at the waist, and clasp me the small at the throat. | 10 |
| |
| “Diamonds to fasten the hair, and diamonds to fasten the sleeves, | |
| Laces to drop from their rays, like a powder of snow from the eaves.” | |
| |
| Gorgeous she enter’d the sunlight which gather’d her up in a flame, | |
| While, straight in her open carriage, she to the hospital came. | |
| |
| In she went at the door, and gazing from end to end, | 15 |
| “Many and low are the pallets, but each is the place of a friend.” | |
| |
| Up she pass’d through the wards, and stood at a young man’s bed: | |
| Bloody the band on his brow, and livid the droop of his head. | |
| |
| “Art thou a Lombard, my brother? Happy art thou,” she cried, | |
| And smiled like Italy on him: he dream’d in her face and died. | 20 |
| |
| Pale with his passing soul, she went on still to a second: | |
| He was a grave hard man, whose years by dungeons were reckon’d. | |
| |
| Wounds in his body were sore, wounds in his life were sorer. | |
| “Art thou a Romagnole?” Her eyes drove lightnings before her. | |
| |
| “Austrian and priest had join’d to double and tighten the cord | 25 |
| Able to bind thee, O strong one,—free by the stroke of a sword. | |
| |
| “Now be grave for the rest of us, using the life overcast | |
| To ripen our wine of the present,(too new,) in glooms of the past.” | |
| |
| Down she stepp’d to a pallet where lay a face like a girl’s, | |
| Young, and pathetic with dying,—a deep black hole in the curls. | 30 |
| |
| “Art thou from Tuscany, brother? and seest thou, dreaming in pain, | |
| Thy mother stand in the piazza, searching the List of the slain?” | |
| |
| Kind as a mother herself, she touch’d his cheeks with her hands: | |
| “Blessed is she who has borne thee, although she should weep as she stands.” | |
| |
| On she pass’d to a Frenchman, his arm carried off by a ball: | 35 |
| Kneeling, … “O more than my brother! how shall I thank thee for all? | |
| |
| “Each of the heroes around us has fought for his land and line, | |
| But thou hast fought for a stranger, in hate of a wrong not thine. | |
| |
| “Happy are all free peoples, too strong to be dispossess’d: | |
| But blessed are those among nations, who dare to be strong for the rest!” | 40 |
| |
| Ever she pass’d on her way, and came to a couch where pin’d | |
| One with a face from Venetia, white with a hope out of mind. | |
| |
| Long she stood and gaz’d, and twice she tried at the name, | |
| But two great crystal tears were all that falter’d and came. | |
| |
| Only a tear for Venice?—she turn’d as in passion and loss, | 45 |
| And stoop’d to his forehead and kiss’d it, as if she were kissing the cross. | |
| |
| Faint with that strain of heart she mov’d on then to another, | |
| Stern and strong in his death. “And dost thou suffer, my brother?” | |
| |
| Holding his hands in hers:—“Out of the Piedmont lion | |
| Cometh the sweetness of freedom! sweetest to live or to die on.” | 50 |
| |
| Holding his cold rough hands,—“Well, oh, well have ye done | |
| In noble, noble Piedmont, who would not be noble alone.” | |
| |
| Back he fell while she spoke. She rose to her feet with a spring,— | |
| “That was a Piedmontese! and this is the Court of the King.” | |
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