mute mouth of melodies, Mantua, with louder keys, With mightier chords of music even than rolled From the large harps of old, When thy sweet singer of golden throat and tongue, Praising his tyrant, sung; Though now thou sing not as of other days, Learn late a better praise. Not with the sick sweet lips of slaves that sing, Praise thou no priest or king, No brow-bound laurel of discoloured leaf, But him, the crownless chief. Praise him, O star of sun-forgotten times, Among their creeds and crimes That wast a fire of witness in the night, Padua, the wise men's light:        Praise him, O sacred Venice, and the sea That now exults through thee, Full of the mighty morning and the sun, Free of things dead and done; Praise him from all the years of thy great grief, That shook thee like a leaf With winds and snows of torment, rain that fell Red as the rains of hell, Storms of black thunder and of yellow flame, And all ill things but shame; Praise him with all thy holy heart and strength; Through thy walls' breadth and length Praise him with all thy people, that their voice Bid the strong soul rejoice, The fair clear supreme spirit beyond stain, Pure as the depth of pain, High as the head of suffering, and secure As all things that endure. More than thy blind lord of an hundred years Whose name our memory hears, Home-bound from harbours of the Byzantine Made tributary of thine, Praise him who gave no gifts from oversea, But gave thyself to thee. O mother Genoa, through all years that run, More than that other son, Who first beyond the seals of sunset prest Even to the unfooted west, Whose back-blown flag scared from, their sheltering seas The unknown Atlantides, And as flame climbs through cloud and vapour clomb Through streams of storm and foam, Till half in sight they saw land heave and swim—      More than this man praise him. One found a world new-born from virgin sea; And one found Italy. O heavenliest Florence, from the mouths of flowers Fed by melodious hours, From each sweet mouth that kisses light and air, Thou whom thy fate made fair, As a bound vine or any flowering tree, Praise him who made thee free. For no grape-gatherers trampling out the wine Tread thee, the fairest vine; For no man binds thee, no man bruises, none Does with thee as these have done. From where spring hears loud through her long lit vales Triumphant nightingales, In many a fold of fiery foliage hidden,      

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