Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Arthur Hugh Clough 1819–61

Peschiera

Clough-A

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;

The eagle with his black wing flouts

The breadth and beauty of your land.

Yet not in vain, although in vain,

O men of Brescia! on the day

Of loss past hope, I heard you say

Your welcome to the noble pain.

You said: “Since so it is, good-bye,

Sweet life, high hope; but whatsoe’er

May be, or must, no tongue shall dare

To tell, ‘The Lombard fear’d to die!’”

You said (there shall be answer fit):

“And if our children must obey,

They must; but, thinking on this day,

’T will less debase them to submit.”

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

For honor, fame, nor self-applause,

But for the glory of the cause,

You did what will not be forgot.

And though the stranger stand, ’t is true,

By force and fortune’s right he stands:

By fortune, which is in God’s hands,

And strength, which yet shall spring in you.

This 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.”