viii DEDICATION.
Let there be light! and there was light: the womb
Of Earth resounded, and the empyréan
Roared: and the thunder of the seas averred
The presence of thy recreating word.
The stone rolls back: the charioted night,
Stricken, swings backwards on her broken pinions:
Faith sickens, drunken tyranny reels, the spite
Of monarchs, ruinous of their chained dominions:
The splendid forehead, crowned with Love and Light,
Flames in the starry air: the fallen minions
Drop like lost souls through horrid emptinesses
To their own black unfathomable abysses!
Now Freedom, flower and star and wind and wave
And spirit of the unimagined fire,
Begotten on the dishonourable grave
Of fallen tyranny, may seek her sire
In the pure soul of Man, her lips may lave
In the pure waters of her soul’s desire,
Truth: and deep eyes behold thine eyes as deep,
Fresh lips kiss thine that kissed her soul from sleep.
See Italy, the eagle of all time,
Triumphant, from her coffin’s leaden prison,
Soar into freedom, seek the heights sublime
Of self-reliance, from those depths new-risen,
Stirred by the passion of thy mighty rhyme:
Eagle, and phoenix: shrill, sharp flames bedizen
The burning citadel, where crested Man
Leaps sword in hand upon the Vatican.