THE Perugia. FROM PERUGIA. HE tall, sallow guardsmen their horse-tails have spread, Flaming out in their violet, yellow, and red; 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 knees, shout your vivas like mad! Here's the Pope in his holiday righteousness clad, Is this Pio Nono the gracious, for whom 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. wash out, 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 humors of war They who keep him in service must pardon him for. Hist! here's the arch-knave in a cardinal's hat, Who doubts Antonelli ? Have miracles ceased There! the bells jow and jangle the same blessed way And now for the blessing! Of little account, Its giver was landless, his raiment was poor, 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 the wolf-whelp of Naples play Bomba again, John Greenleaf Whittier. Peschiera. PESCHIERA. HAT voice did on my spirit fall, WHAT Peschiera, when thy bridge I crost? ""Tis 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, I see the Croat soldier stand The eagle with his black wing flouts Yet not in vain, although in vain, You said: "Since so it is, good by, You said (there shall be answer fit): You said (O, not in vain you said): Haste, brothers, haste, while yet we may; The hours ebb fast of this one day, While blood may yet be nobly shed." Ah! not for idle hatred, not And though the stranger stand, 't is true, |