Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.
Mentana
By Francis Turner Palgrave (1824–1897)L
Field where none died in vain!
Beardless boys and famine-gaunt
Corpses along the plain,—
Did not enough of ye die
On the field where none died in vain,
Lion-hearts of young Italy!
Blood that gushed not in vain
When the deadly rifle of France
Crashed with its iron rain;
’Neath the pine-dotted slopes of Tivoli
The triumph is with the slain,
Lion-hearts of young Italy!
To make their fatherland one!—
Through her five-and-twenty centuries
Rome counts no worthier son
Than he who led them to die
Where death and triumph were one,—
Lion-hearts of young Italy!
To the blood of Thermopylæ calls,
And the blood of Marathon answers,
Not in vain, not in vain he falls
Who stakes his life on the die
When the voice of freedom calls,
Lion-hearts of young Italy!
Children and heroes in one,
Reason higher than reason,
Light from beyond the sun;—
Did not enough of ye die
To knit your country in one,
Lion-hearts of young Italy?
Crowned with the fortunate dead,—
Pity not them, but the foe,
For the precious drops that they shed
Sow but the seed of victory!
Pity the foe, not the dead,
Lion-hearts of young Italy!
Yours for your country to die,
Yours to be men of Mentana,
Highly esteemed ’mong the high:
Theirs to look on at your victory!
For did not enough of ye die,
Lion-hearts of young Italy?
Long to the remnant that fought;
Boys too young for the battle
Naked and hunger-distraught;
No, not too young to die,
Falling where each one fought,
Lion-hearts of young Italy!