11 My Nanni would add, 'he was safe, and aware Of a presence that turned off the balls,0?was imprest cannonballs
It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear,
And how 'twas impossible, quite dispossessed
55 To live on for the rest.'3
12 On which, without pause, up the telegraph line
Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta:?Shot.
2. A laurel crown is the conventional mark of a 3. I.e., that she could survive if both sons died. poet's fame.
.
110 8 / ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
Tell his mother. Ah, ah, 'his,' 'their' mother,?not 'mine,'
No voice says 'My mother' again to me. What!
60 You think Guido forgot? !3
Are souls straight0 so happy that, dizzy with Heaven, immediately
They drop earth's affections, conceive not of woe?
I think not. Themselves were too lately forgiven
Through THAT Love and Sorrow which reconciled so
65 The Above and Below. 14
O Christ of the five wounds, who look'dst through the dark
To the face of thy mother! consider, I pray,
How we common mothers stand desolate, mark,
Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away
70 And no last word to say! 15
Both boys dead? but that's out of nature. We all
Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one.
'Twere imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall;
And, when Italy's made, for what end is it done
75 If we have not a son?
16
Ah, ah, ah! when Gaeta's taken, what then?
When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport
Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men?
When the guns of Cavalli'1 with final retort
so Have cut the game short? 17
When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee,5
When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green, and red,
When you have your country from mountain to sea,
When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head,
85 (And I have my Dead)?
18
What then? Do not mock me. Ah, ring your bells low,
And burn your lights faintly! My country is there,
Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow:
My Italy's THERE, with my brave civic Pair,
90 To disfranchise despair! 19
Forgive me. Some women bear children in strength,
And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn;
But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length
4. The general commanding the siege of Gaeta. united with the rest of Italy under King Victor 'The fair wicked queen': Maria of Bavaria, wife of Emmanuel II (1820-1878; reigned, 1861-78). In Francis II, the last ruler of the Neapolitan govern-1861, when the poem was written, they were the ment, who retreated to Gaeta. two cities that
