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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

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"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,

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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?"

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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,
As a child might ask for a toy?

Demanding what others have died to win,
With a reckless dash of a boy?

You have written my lesson of duty out,
Manlike you have questioned me

Now stand at the bar of my woman's soul
Until I question thee.

You require your mutton shall always be hot,
Your socks and your shirts shall be whole;
I require your heart to be true as God's stars,
And pure as heaven your soul.

You require a cook for your mutton and beef;
I require a far better thing:

A seamstress you ask for stockings and shirt,
I look for a man and a king.

A king for a beautiful realm called home,
And a man that the Maker, God,

Shall look upon as he did the first,
And say, "It is very good."

I am fair and young, but the rose will fade
From my soft young cheek one day;
Will you love me then 'mid the falling leaves,
As you did 'mid the bloom of May?

Is your heart an ocean so strong and deep
I may launch my all on its tide?
A loving woman finds heaven or hell
On the day she is made a bride.

I require all things that are grand and true,
All things that man should be;

If you give this all I would stake my life
To be all you demand of me.

If you cannot do this a laundress and cook
You can hire, with little to pay;

But a woman's heart and a woman's life
Are not to be won that way.

EVELYN HOPE

BY ROBERT BROWNING

Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead!

Sit and watch by her side an hour.
That is her book-shelf, this her bed;
She plucked that piece of geranium-flower,
Beginning to die too, in the glass.

Little has yet been changed, I think;

The shutters are shut, no light may pass

Save two long rays through the hinge's chink.

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