| |
| 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, | 5 |
| 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; | 10 |
| 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 | 15 |
| Your welcome to the noble pain. | |
| |
| You said: “Since so it is, good by, | |
| Sweet life, high hope; but whatsoe’er | |
| May be or must, no tongue shall dare | |
| To tell, ‘The Lombard feared to die.’” | 20 |
| |
| 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): | 25 |
| “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, | 30 |
| 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, | 35 |
| 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.” | 40 |
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