James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.
March 23Occupation of Naples by the Austrians
By Thomas Moore (17791852)
A
From this hour, let the blood in their dastardly veins,
That shrunk at the first touch of Liberty’s war,
Be sucked out by tyrants, or stagnate in chains!
Ye locusts of tyranny, blasting them o’er—
Fill, fill up their wide sunny waters, ye sails
From each slave-mart of Europe, and poison their shore!
Laugh out, with a scorn that shall ring to the poles,
When each sword that the cowards let fall from their hands
Shall be forged into fetters to enter their souls!
Base slaves! may the whet of their agony be,
To think—as the damned haply think of that heaven
They had once in their reach—that they might have been free!
Ever rose o’er the Zero of ——’s heart,
That did not, like echo, your war-hymn repeat,
And send all its prayers with your liberty’s start
The fresh air of the olden time, whispered about,
And the swords of all Italy half-way unsheathed,
But waited one conquering cry to flash out!
Filicajas and Petrarchs, seemed bursting to view,
And their words and their warnings—like tongues of bright flame
Over Freedom’s apostles—fell kindling on you!
Worth the history of ages—when, had you but hurled
One bolt at your bloody invader, that strife
Between freemen and tryants had spread through the world—
You should falter, should cling to your pitiful breath,
Cower down into beasts, when you might have stood men,
And prefer the slave’s life of damnation to death!
Through your dungeons and palaces, “Freedom is o’er!”—
If there lingers one spark of her light, tread it out,
And return to your empire of darkness once more.
Come, Despot of Russia, thy feet let me kiss—
Far nobler to live the brute bondman of thee,
Than to sully even chains by a struggle like this.