5.  And reconciling factions wet their lips 20 With that dread wine, and swear to keep each spirit Undarkened by their country’s last eclipse...

...

6. 
Was Florence the liberticide? that band
Of free and glorious brothers who had planted,
Like a green isle mid Aethiopian sand, 25
A nation amid slaveries, disenchanted
Of many impious faiths—­wise, just—­do they,
Does Florence, gorge the sated tyrants’ prey?

7. 
O foster-nurse of man’s abandoned glory,
Since Athens, its great mother, sunk in splendour; 30
Thou shadowest forth that mighty shape in story,
As ocean its wrecked fanes, severe yet tender:—­
The light-invested angel Poesy
Was drawn from the dim world to welcome thee.

8. 
And thou in painting didst transcribe all taught 35
By loftiest meditations; marble knew
The sculptor’s fearless soul—­and as he wrought,
The grace of his own power and freedom grew. 
And more than all, heroic, just, sublime,
Thou wart among the false...was this thy crime? 40

9. 
Yes; and on Pisa’s marble walls the twine
Of direst weeds hangs garlanded—­the snake
Inhabits its wrecked palaces;—­in thine
A beast of subtler venom now doth make
Its lair, and sits amid their glories overthrown, 45
And thus thy victim’s fate is as thine own.

10. 
The sweetest flowers are ever frail and rare,
And love and freedom blossom but to wither;
And good and ill like vines entangled are,
So that their grapes may oft be plucked together;—­ 50
Divide the vintage ere thou drink, then make
Thy heart rejoice for dead Marenghi’s sake.

10a.
[Albert] Marenghi was a Florentine;
If he had wealth, or children, or a wife
Or friends, [or farm] or cherished thoughts which twine 55
The sights and sounds of home with life’s own life
Of these he was despoiled and Florence sent...

...

11. 
No record of his crime remains in story,
But if the morning bright as evening shone, 60
It was some high and holy deed, by glory
Pursued into forgetfulness, which won
From the blind crowd he made secure and free
The patriot’s meed, toil, death, and infamy.

12. 
For when by sound of trumpet was declared
A price upon his life, and there was set 65
A penalty of blood on all who shared
So much of water with him as might wet
His lips, which speech divided not—­he went
Alone, as you may guess, to banishment.

13. 
Amid the mountains, like a hunted beast,
He hid himself, and hunger, toil, and cold, 70
Month after month endured; it was a feast
Whene’er he found those globes of deep-red gold
Which in the woods the strawberry-tree doth bear,
Suspended in their emerald atmosphere. 75