And letters still came; shorter, sadder, more strong,
Writ now but in one hand:—­“I was not to faint,—­
One loved me for two; would be with me ere long: 
And Viva l’Italia he died for, our saint,
Who forbids our complaint.”

My Nanni would add, “he was safe, and aware
Of a presence that turned off the balls,—­was imprest
It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear,
And how ’twas impossible, quite dispossest,
To live on for the rest.”

On which, without pause, up the telegraph-line
Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta,—­“Shot. 
Tell his mother.”  Ah, ah! “his,” “their” mother, not “mine”: 
No voice says, “My mother,” again to me.  What! 
You think Guido forgot?

Are souls straight so happy, that, dizzy with heaven,
They drop earth’s affections, conceive not of woe? 
I think not!  Themselves were too lately forgiven
Through that Love and that Sorrow which reconciled so
The Above and Below.

O Christ of the seven wounds, who look’dst through the dark
To the face of thy mother!  Consider, I pray,
How we common mothers stand desolate, mark,—­
Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away,
And no last word to say!

Both boys dead? but that’s out of nature.  We all
Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one. 
’Twere imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall;
And when Italy’s made, for what end is it done,
If we have not a son?

Ah, ah, ah! when Gaeta’s taken, what then? 
When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport
Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men;
When the guns of Cavalli with final retort
Have cut the game short;

When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee;
When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green, and red: 
When you have your country from mountain to sea,
When King Victor has Italy’s crown on his head,
(And I have my dead)—­

What then?  Do not mock me.  Ah, ring your bells low
And burn your lights faintly! My country is there. 
Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow: 
My Italy’s THERE, with my brave civic pair,
To disfranchise despair!

Forgive me.  Some women bear children in strength,
And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn;
But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length
Into wail such as this, and we sit on forlorn
When the man-child is born.

Dead!  One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea. 
Both! both my boys!  If in keeping the feast
You want a great song for your Italy free,
Let none look at me!

A COURT LADY

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.