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You think he came back instantly, with thanks
And tears in his faint eyes, and hands extended
To stretch the franchise through their utmost ranks?
That having, like a father, apprehended,
He came to pardon fatherly those pranks
Played out and now in filial service ended?–
That some love-token, like a prince, he threw
To meet the people’s love-call, in return?
Well, how he came I will relate to you;
And if your hearts should burn, why, hearts must burn,
To make the ashes which things old and new
Shall be washed clean in–as this Duke will learn.

From Casa Guidi windows gazing, then,
I saw and witness how the Duke came back.
The regular tramp of horse and tread of men
Did smite the silence like an anvil black
And sparkless. With her wide eyes at full strain,
Our Tuscan nurse exclaimed “Alack, alack,
Signora! these shall be the Austrians.” “Nay,
Be still,” I answered, “do not wake the child!”
–For so, my two-months’ baby sleeping lay
In milky dreams upon the bed and smiled,
And I thought “He shall sleep on, while he may,
Through the world’s baseness: not being yet defiled,
Why should he be disturbed by what is done?”
Then, gazing, I beheld the long-drawn street
Live out, from end to end, full in the sun,
With Austria’s thousand; sword and bayonet,
Horse, foot, artillery,–cannons rolling on
Like blind slow storm-clouds gestant with the heat
Of undeveloped lightnings, each bestrode
By a single man, dust-white from head to heel,
Indifferent as the dreadful thing he rode,
Like a sculptured Fate serene and terrible.
As some smooth river which has overflowed
Will slow and silent down its current wheel
A loosened forest, all the pines erect,
So swept, in mute significance of storm,
The marshalled thousands; not an eye deflect
To left or right, to catch a novel form
Of Florence city adorned by architect
And carver, or of Beauties live and warm
Scared at the casements,–all, straightforward eyes
And faces, held as steadfast as their swords,
And cognizant of acts, not imageries.
The key, O Tuscans, too well fits the wards!
Ye asked for mimes,–these bring you tragedies:
For purple,–these shall wear it as your lords.
Ye played like children,–die like innocents.
Ye mimicked lightnings with a torch,–the crack
Of the actual bolt, your pastime circumvents.
Ye called up ghosts, believing they were slack
To follow any voice from Gilboa’s tents, …
Here’s Samuel!–and, so, Grand-dukes come back!

And yet, they are no prophets though they come:
That awful mantle, they are drawing close,
Shall be searched, one day, by the shafts of Doom
Through double folds now hoodwinking the brows.
Resuscitated monarchs disentomb
Grave-reptiles with them, in their new life-throes.
Let such beware. Behold, the people waits,
Like God: as He, in His serene of might,
So they, in their endurance of long straits.
Ye stamp no nation out, though day and night
Ye tread them with that absolute heel which grates
And grinds them flat from all attempted height.
You kill worms sooner with a garden-spade
Than you kill peoples: peoples will not die;
The tail curls stronger when you lop the head:
They writhe at every wound and multiply
And shudder into a heap of life that’s made
Thus vital from God’s own vitality.
‘T is hard to shrivel back a day of God’s
Once fixed for judgment: ‘t is as hard to change
The peoples, when they rise beneath their loads
And heave them from their backs with violent wrench
To crush the oppressor; for that judgment-rod’s
The measure of this popular revenge.