VI
Claude to Eustace
Rome is fallen, I hear, the gallant Medici taken,Noble Manara slain, and Garibaldi has lost il Moro;—Rome is fallen; and fallen, or falling, heroical Venice.I, meanwhile, for the loss of a single small chit of a girl, sitMoping and mourning here,—for her, and myself much smaller.Whither depart the souls of the brave that die in the battle,Die in the lost, lost fight, for the cause that perishes with them?Are they upborne from the field on the slumberous pinions of angelsUnto a far-off home, where the weary rest from their labour,And the deep wounds are healed, and the bitter and burning moistureWiped from the generous eyes? or do they linger, unhappy,Pining, and haunting the grave of their by-gone hope and endeavour?All declamation, alas! though I talk, I care not for Rome norItaly; feebly and faintly, and but with the lips, can lament theWreck of the Lombard youth, and the victory of the oppressor.Whither depart the brave?—God knows; I certainly do not.