Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.
Lastra a Signa
By Sarah D. ClarkeS
Old with thousands of years;
Yet her bold, brave gates stand up to-day
As in years agone, when her Tuscan spears
From the sunny hill-top drove at bay
Foe after foe, in reddening lines,
Over the crest of the Apennines.
Her noble walls are rent;
Yet they stand to-day on the great highway,
With the ruined battlement,
And the beacon tower, dark and gray:
She sees, like a dream, the Arno flow
By beautiful Florence, far below.
Yet Ferruchio held her dear;
He gave her his heart, his sword, his life,
Yet she wasted never a tear,
With head unbowed in the bitter strife,
As on, through her gateway, the hosts of France
Passed at the traitor Baldini’s glance.
They pierced her with fire and steel;
Orange came down from the hills of Spain,—
He trampled her turf with his iron heel,
Pillaged, and slew to her hurt and pain,
Till she fought no more; her banners were rent,
And the warder gone from her battlement.
And the green of her olive-fields;
The blessed cross and the holy shrine,
And her marvellous carven shields,
Painted in colors rare and fine,
On the beautiful gateway, her crown and pride,
Dear to the hearts, where Amalfi died.
Women spin in the sun;
Pilgrims tread on her broad highway;
Her days of battle are done.
Soft breezes blow o’er the scented hay,
And scarlet poppies bloom large and sweet,
By the blowing barley and fields of wheat.
Than the tombs of Etruscan kings;
She is wise with the wisdom of sages,—
For her living she smiles and sings,
As she looks to the coming ages;
And her dead, they whisper, “Waste no tear,
We only sleep,—we are waiting here!”