| |
| SHE is old! she is old, our Lastra! | |
| 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 | 5 |
| Foe after foe, in reddening lines, | |
| Over the crest of the Apennines. | |
| |
| She is old! she is old, our Lastra! | |
| Her noble walls are rent; | |
| Yet they stand to-day on the great highway, | 10 |
| With the ruined battlement, | |
| And the beacon tower, dark and gray: | |
| She sees, like a dream, the Arno flow | |
| By beautiful Florence, far below. | |
| |
| She is old! she is old, our Lastra! | 15 |
| 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 | 20 |
| Passed at the traitor Baldini’s glance. | |
| |
| They stormed at her walls, our Lastra! | |
| They pierced her with fire and steel; | |
| Orange came down from the hills of Spain,— | |
| He trampled her turf with his iron heel, | 25 |
| Pillaged, and slew to her hurt and pain, | |
| Till she fought no more; her banners were rent, | |
| And the warder gone from her battlement. | |
| |
| But they left her the gray old mountains, | |
| And the green of her olive-fields; | 30 |
| 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. | 35 |
| |
| On the stones of her mighty watch-tower | |
| 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, | 40 |
| And scarlet poppies bloom large and sweet, | |
| By the blowing barley and fields of wheat. | |
| |
| She is older, our pride, our Lastra, | |
| Than the tombs of Etruscan kings; | |
| She is wise with the wisdom of sages,— | 45 |
| 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!” | |
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