So terrible as this!" And Olger said:
"When you behold the harvests in the fields
Shaking with fear, the Po and the Ticino
Lashing the city walls with iron waves,
Then may you know that Charlemagne is come."
And even as he spake, in the northwest,
Lo! there uprose a black and threatening cloud,
Out of whose bosom flashed the light of arms
Upon the people pent up in the city;
A light more terrible than any darkness:
And Charlemagne appeared; -a Man of Iron!
His helmet was of iron, and his gloves
Of iron, and his breastplate and his greaves
And tassets were of iron, and his shield.
In his left hand he held an iron spear,
In his right hand his sword invincible.
The horse he rode on had the strength of iron,
Aud color of iron. All who went before him,
Beside him, and behind him, his whole host,
Were armed with iron, and their hearts within them
Were stronger than the armor that they wore.
The fields and all the roads were filled with iron,
And points of iron glistened in the sun
And shed a terror through the city streets.
This at a single glance Olger the Dane
Saw from the tower, and turning to the King
Exclaimed in haste, "Behold, this is the man
You looked for with such eagerness!" and then
Fell as one dead at Desiderio's feet.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
THE tall, sallow guardsmen their horse-tails have spread,
Flaming out in their violet, yellow, and red;
And behind go the lackeys in crimson and buff,
And the chamberlains gorgeous in velvet and ruff;
Next, in red-legged pomp, come the cardinals forth,
Each a lord of the church and a prince of the earth.
What's this squeak of the fife, and this batter of drum?
Lo! the Swiss of the Church from Perugia come,
The militant angels, whose sabres drive home
To the hearts of the malcontents, cursed and abhorred,
The good Father's missives, and "Thus saith the
Lord!"
And lend to his logic the point of the sword!
O maids of Etruria, gazing forlorn
O'er dark Thrasymenus, dishevelled and torn!
O fathers, who pluck at your gray beards for shame! O mothers, struck dumb by a woe without name! Well ye know how the Holy Church hireling behaves, And his tender compassion of prisons and graves!
There they stand, the hired stabbers, the blood-stains yet fresh,
That splashed like red wine from the vintage of flesh,—
Grim instruments, careless as pincers and rack
How the joints tear apart, and the strained sinews crack; But the hate that glares on them is sharp as their swords,
And the sneer and the scowl print the air with fierce words!
Off with hats, down with knces, shout your vivas like mad!
Here's the Pope in his holiday righteousness clad,
From shorn crown to toe-nail, kiss-worn to the quick,
Of sainthood in purple the pattern and pick,
Who the rôle of the priest and the soldier unites,
And, praying like Aaron, like Joshua fights!
Is this Pio Nono the gracious, for whom
We sang our hosannas and lighted all Rome;
With whose advent we dreamed the new era began
When the priest should be human, the monk be a man?
Ah, the wolf's with the sheep, and the fox with the
When freedom we trust to the crozier and cowl!
Stand aside, men of Rome! Here's a hangman-faced Swiss
(A blessing for him surely can't go amiss)
Would kneel down the sanctified slipper to kiss.
Short shrift will suffice him,
But there's blood on his hands which would scarcely
Though Peter himself held the baptismal spout!
Make way for the next! Here's another sweet son!
What's this mastiff-jawed rascal in epaulets done?
He did, whispers rumor, (its truth God forbid !)
At Perugia what Herod at Bethlehem did.
And the mothers? Don't name them!-these hu
They who keep him in service must pardon him for.
Hist! here's the arch-knave in a cardinal's hat,
With the heart of a wolf and the stealth of a cat
(As if Judas and Herod together were rolled),
Who keeps, all as one, the Pope's conscience and gold,
Mounts guard on the altar, and pilfers from thence,
And flatters St. Peter while stealing his pence!
Who doubts Antonelli? Have miracles ceased
When robbers say mass, and Barabbas is priest?
When the Church eats and drinks, at its mystical board,
The true flesh and blood carved and shed by its sword,
When its martyr, unsinged, claps the crown on his head,
And roasts, as his proxy, his neighbor instead!
There! the bells jow and jangle the same blessed way
That they did when they rang for Bartholomew's day.
Hark! the tallow-faced monsters, nor women nor boys,
Vex the air with a shrill, sexless horror of noise.
Te Deum laudamus! - All round without stint
The incense-pot swings with a taint of blood in 't!
And now for the blessing! Of little account,
You know, is the old one they heard on the Mount.
Its giver was landless, his raiment was poor,
No jewelled tiara his fishermen wore;
No incense, no lackeys, no riches, no home,
No Swiss guards! - We order things better at Rome.
So bless us the strong hand, and curse us the weak;
Let Austria's vulture have food for her beak;
Let the wolf-whelp of Naples play Bomba again,
With his death-cap of silence, and halter, and chain;
Put reason and justice and truth under ban;
For the sin unforgiven is freedom for man!
WHAT voice did on my spirit fall,
Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost? ""T is better to have fought and lost Than never to have fought at all."
The Tricolor, a trampled rag,
Lies, dirt and dust; the lines I track,
By sentries' boxes yellow black,
Lead up to no Italian flag.
I see the Croat soldier stand
Upon the grass of your redoubts;
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