’TIS true that when the dust of death has choked | |
| A great man’s voice, the common words he said | |
| Turn oracles,—the meanings which he yoked | |
| Like horses, draw like griffins!—this is true | |
| And acceptable. Also I desire, | 5 |
| When men make record, with the flowers they strew, | |
| “Savonarola’s soul went out in fire | |
| Upon our Grand-duke’s piazza, and burned through | |
| A moment first, or ere he did expire, | |
| The veil betwixt the right and wrong, and showed | 10 |
| How near God sate and judged the judges there,— | |
| Desire, upon the pavement overstrewed, | |
| To cast my violets with as reverent care, | |
| And prove that all the winters which have snowed | |
| Cannot snow out the scent, from stones and air, | 15 |
| Of a sincere man’s virtues. This was he, | |
| Savonarola, who, while Peter sank | |
| With his whole boat-load, called courageously | |
| “Wake Christ, wake Christ!”—who, having tried the tank | |
| Of the church-waters used for baptistry | 20 |
| Ere Luther lived to spill them, said they stank! | |
| Who also, by a princely deathbed, cried | |
| “Loose Florence, or God will not loose thy soul,” | |
| While the Magnificent fell back and died | |
| Beneath the star-looks, shooting from the cowl, | 25 |
| Which turned to wormwood bitterness the wide | |
| Deep sea of his ambitions. It were foul | |
| To grudge Savonarola and the rest | |
| Their violets! rather pay them quick and fresh! | |
| The emphasis of death makes manifest | 30 |
| The eloquence of action in our flesh; | |
| And men who, living, were but dimly guessed, | |
| When once free from their life’s entangled mesh, | |
| Show their full length in graves, or even indeed | |
| Exaggerate their stature, in the flat, | 35 |
| To noble admirations which exceed | |
| Nobly, nor sin in such excess. For that | |
| Is wise and righteous. We, who are the seed | |
| Of buried creatures, if we turned and spate | |
| Upon our antecedents, we were vile. | 40 |
| Bring violets rather! If these had not walked | |
| Their furlong, could we hope to walk our mile? | |
| |
| Therefore bring violets! Yet if we, self-baulked, | |
| Stand still a-strewing violets all the while, | |
| These had as well not moved, ourselves not talked | 45 |
| Of these. So rise up with a cheerful smile, | |
| And, having strewn the violets, reap the corn, | |
| And, having reaped and garnered, bring the plough | |
| And draw new furrows ’neath the healthy morn, | |
| And plant the great Hereafter in this Now. | 50 |
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