Bloody the band on his brow, and livid the droop of his head. "Art thou a Lombard, my brother? Happy art thou!" she cried, And smiled like Italy on him: he dreamed in her face and died. Pale with his passing soul, she went on still to a second: He was a grave, hard man, whose years by dungeons were reckoned. Wounds in his body were sore, wounds in his life were sorer. "Art thou a Romagnole?" Her eyes drove lightnings before her. "Austrian and priest had joined to double and tighten "Now be grave for the rest of us, using the life over cast To ripen our wine of the present (too new) in glooms of the past." Down she stepped to a pallet where lay a face like a girl's, Young, and pathetic with dying,- a deep black hole in the curls. "Art thou from Tuscany, brother? and seest thou, dreaming in pain, Thy mother stand in the piazza, searching the list of the slain?" Kind as a mother herself, she touched his cheeks with her hands: "Blessed is she who has borne thee, although she should weep as she stands." On she passed to a Frenchman, his arm carried off by a ball: Kneeling, "O more than my brother! how shall I thank thee for all? "Each of the heroes around us has fought for his land and line, But thou hast fought for a stranger, in hate of a wrong not thine. "Happy are all free peoples, too strong to be dispossessed; But blessed are those among nations who dare to be strong for the rest!" Ever she passed on her way, and came to a couch where pined One with a face from Venetia, white with a hope out of mind. Long she stood and gazed, and twice she tried at the name, And stooped to his forehead and kissed it, as if she were kissing the cross. Faint with that strain of heart, she moved on then to another, Stern and strong in his death. "And dost thou suffer, my brother?" Holding his hands in hers: Out of the Piedmont lion Cometh the sweetness of freedom! sweetest to live or to die on." Holding his cold, rough hands, have ye done "Well, O, well In noble, noble Piedmont, who would not be noble alone." Back he fell while she spoke. She rose to her feet with a spring, "That was a Piedmontese! and this is the Court of the King." A WOMAN'S ANSWER BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing Ever made by the Hand above A woman's heart and a woman's life, And a woman's most wonderful love? Do you know you have asked for this priceless thing, Demanding what others have died to win, You have written my lesson of duty out, Now stand at the bar of my woman's soul You require your mutton shall always be hot, You require a cook for your mutton and beef; A seamstress you ask for stockings and shirt, A king for a beautiful realm called home, Shall look upon as he did the first, I am fair and young, but the rose will fade Is your heart an ocean so strong and deep I require all things that are grand and true, If you give this all I would stake my life If you cannot do this a laundress and cook But a woman's heart and a woman's life EVELYN HOPE BY ROBERT BROWNING Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead! Sit and watch by her side an hour. Little has yet been changed, I think; The shutters are shut, no light may pass Save two long rays through the hinge's chink. |