Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79. | | | | Rome, Streets of | | Vicolo della Fontana | | John Edmund Reade (1800–1870) |
| | (From Italy)
WE stand before the dwelling of a man | |
| Who proved, ere meteor-like his spirit fled, | |
| Through Rome’s live heart the blood of freedom ran; | |
| That, with the dust of ages o’er her spread, | |
| Prostrate and chained, the Helot was not dead; | 5 |
| A resurrection of futurity | |
| Awaiting yet: to raise her buried head, | |
| Cola Rienzi! was reserved for thee: | |
| To breathe into her veins the life of liberty. | |
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| Here like a fallen angel mid the wreck | 10 |
| Of a crushed world thou stood’st, evoking forth | |
| Passionate words that waited at thy beck | |
| To raise the fiends hate, vengeance, into birth, | |
| And the old memories of heroic worth: | |
| The skeleton fragments of Rome’s giant power | 15 |
| Recalled the minds that once o’erruled the earth; | |
| The freemen heard, the spirit that made cower | |
| Tyrants, awoke again the Nemesis of the hour. | |
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| Patriot, sage, poet, orator, each part | |
| Was subtly played, all save the unattained, | 20 |
| The greatest, the unfelt, the hero heart: | |
| Dazzled wert thou thy giddy eminence gained, | |
| While flattery whispered that the Tribune reigned. | |
| Foes mocked thee: patriots saw their liberty | |
| By crime and vanity and folly stained; | 25 |
| Failure, flight, cowardice, apostasy, | |
| Proved what thou wert too late, vain martyr of the free! | | | | |
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