kings? When priests took counsel to devise despair, And princes to forswear, She clasped thee, O her sword and flag-bearer And staff and shield to her, O Garibaldi; need was hers and grief, Of thee and of the chief, And of another girt in arms to stand As good of hope and hand, As high of soul and happy, albeit indeed The heart should burn and bleed, So but the spirit shake not nor the breast Swerve, but abide its rest. As theirs did and as thine, though ruin clomb The highest wall of Rome, Though treason stained and spilt her lustral water, And slaves led slaves to slaughter, And priests, praying and slaying, watched them pass From a strange France, alas, That was not freedom; yet when these were past Thy sword and thou stood fast, Till new men seeing thee where Sicilian waves Hear now no sound of slaves, And where thy sacred blood is fragrant still Upon the Bitter Hill, Seeing by that blood one country saved and stained, Less loved thee crowned than chained, And less now only than the chief: for he, Father of Italy, Upbore in holy hands the babe new-born Through loss and sorrow and scorn, Of no man led, of many men reviled; Till lo, the new-born child Gone from between his hands, and in its place, Lo, the fair mother's face. Blessed is he of all men, being in one As father to her and son, Blessed of all men living, that he found Her weak limbs bared and bound, And in his arms and in his bosom bore, And as a garment wore Her weight of want, and as a royal dress Put on her weariness. As in faith's hoariest histories men read, The strong man bore at need Through roaring rapids when all heaven was wild The likeness of a child That still waxed greater and heavier as he trod, And altered, and was God. Praise him, O winds that move the molten air, O light of days that were,      And light of days that shall be; land and sea, And heaven and Italy:      Praise him, O storm and summer, shore and wave, O skies and every grave; O weeping hopes, O memories beyond tears, O many and murmuring years, O sounds far off in time and visions far, O sorrow with thy star, And joy with all thy beacons; ye that mourn, And ye whose light is born; O fallen faces, and O souls arisen, Praise him from tomb and prison, Praise him from heaven and sunlight; and ye floods, And windy waves of woods; Ye valleys and wild vineyards, ye lit lakes And happier hillside brakes, Untrampled by the accursed 

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