Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. IV. The Nineteenth Century: Wordsworth to Rossetti
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (18061861)The Forced Recruit. Solferino, 1859
I
He died with his face to you all;
Yet bury him here where around him
You honour your bravest that fall.
He lies shot to death in his youth,
With a smile on his lips, over-tender
For any mere soldier’s dead mouth.
Though alien the cloth on his breast,
Underneath it how seldom a greater
Young heart, has a shot sent to rest!
To march with them, stand in their file,
His musket (see) never was loaded,
He facing your guns with that smile!
He yearned to your patriot bands;—
‘Let me die for our Italy, brothers,
If not in your ranks, by your hands!
A ball in the body which may
Deliver my heart here, and tear me
This badge of the Austrian away!’
What then? many others have died.
Ay, but easy for men to die scorning
The death-stroke, who fought side by side:—
Struck down ’mid triumphant acclaims
Of an Italy rescued to love them
And blazon the brass with their names.
There, shamed in his country’s regard,
With the tyrants who march in upon her,
Died faithful and passive: ’t was hard.
Cut off from the guerdon of sons,
With most filial obedience, conviction,
His soul kissed the lips of her guns.
While digging a grave for him here:
The others who died, says your poet,
Have glory,—let him have a tear.