One brief perturbed and glorious day!
How couldst thou learn
The quiet of the forest sun,
Where the dark, whispering rivers run
The journey that hath no delay
And no return?
And yet within thee flamed and sang
The dauntless heart,
Knowing all passion and the pain
On man’s imperious disdain,
Since God’s great part in thee gave pang
To earth’s frail part.
It held the voices of the hills
Deep in its core;
The wandering shadows of the sea
Called to it,--would not let it be;
The harvest of those barren rills
Was in its store.
Thine was a love that strives and calls
Outcast from home,
Burning to free the soul of man
With some new life. How strange, a ban
Should set thy sleep beneath the walls
Of changeless Rome!