C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Fifth of May
By Alessandro Manzoni (1785–1873)
H
As, with the last sigh given,
Lay his own clay, oblivious,
From that great spirit riven,
So the world stricken and wondering
Stands at the tidings dread;
Mutely pondering the ultimate
Hour of that fateful being,
And in the vast futurity
No peer of his foreseeing
Among the countless myriads
Her blood-stained dust that tread.
Silent saw I, that never—
When with awful vicissitude
He sank, rose, fell forever—
Mixed my voice with the numberless
Voices that pealed on high;
Guiltless of servile flattery
And of the scorn of coward,
Come I when darkness suddenly
On so great light hath lowered,
And offer a song at his sepulchre
That haply shall not die.
From Rhine to Manzanares,
Unfailingly the thunderstroke
His lightning purpose carries;
Bursts from Scylla to Tanais,—
From one to the other sea.
Was it true glory?—Posterity,
Thine be the hard decision;
Bow we before the mightiest,
Who willed in him the vision
Of his creative majesty
Most grandly traced should be.
Joy of the great plan’s hour,
The throe of the heart that controllessly
Burns with a dream of power,
And wins it, and seizes victory
It had seemed folly to hope,
All he hath known: the infinite
Rapture after the danger,
The flight, the throne of sovereignty,
The salt bread of the stranger;
Twice ’neath the feet of the worshipers,
Twice ’neath the altar’s cope.
Armèd and threatening either,
Turned unto him submissively,
As waiting fate together;
He made a silence, and arbiter
He sat between the two.
He vanished; his days in the idleness
Of his island prison spending,
Mark of immense malignity,
And of a pity unending,
Of hatred inappeasable,
Of deathless love and true.
Its weight some billow heaping,
Falls, even while the castaway,
With strainèd sight far sweeping,
Scanneth the empty distances
For some dim sail in vain:
So over his soul the memories
Billowed and gathered ever;
How oft to tell posterity
Himself he did endeavor,
And on the pages helplessly
Fell his weary hand again.
In the long dull day’s declining—
Downcast those glances fulminant,
His arms on his breast entwining—
He stood assailed by the memories
Of days that were passed away;
He thought of the camps, the arduous
Assaults, the shock of forces,
The lightning-flash of the infantry,
The billowy rush of horses,
The thrill in his supremacy,
The eagerness to obey.
His panting soul had ended
Despairing, but that potently
A hand, from heaven extended,
Into a clearer atmosphere
In mercy lifted him.
And led him on by blossoming
Pathways of hope ascending
To deathless fields, to happiness
All earthly dreams transcending,
Where in the glory celestial
Earth’s fame is dumb and dim.
Faith! used to triumphs, even
This also write exultantly:
No loftier pride ’neath Heaven
Unto the shame of Calvary
Stooped ever yet its crest.
Thou from his weary mortality
Disperse all bitter passions:
The God that humbleth and hearteneth,
That comforts and that chastens,
Upon the pillow else desolate
To his pale lips lay pressed!