I. PEACE, peace, peace, do you say? | |
| What!—with the enemy’s guns in our ears? | |
| With the country’s wrong not rendered back? | |
| What!—while Austria stands at bay | |
| In Mantua, and our Venice bears | 5 |
| The cursed flag of the yellow and black? | |
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II. Peace, peace, peace, do you say? | |
| And this is the Mincio? Where’s the fleet, | |
| And where’s the sea? Are we all blind | |
| Or mad with the blood shed yesterday, | 10 |
| Ignoring Italy under our feet, | |
| And seeing things before, behind? | |
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III. Peace, peace, peace, do you say? | |
| What!—uncontested, undenied? | |
| Because we triumph, we succumb? | 15 |
| A pair of Emperors stand in the way, | |
| (One of whom is a man, beside) | |
| To sign and seal our cannons dumb? | |
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IV. No, not Napoleon!—he who mused | |
| At Paris, and at Milan spake, | 20 |
| And at Solferino led the fight: | |
| Not he we trusted, honored, used | |
| Our hopes and hearts for … till they break— | |
| Even so, you tell us … in his sight. | |
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V. Peace, peace, is still your word? | 25 |
| We say you lie then!—that is plain. | |
| There is no peace, and shall be none. | |
| Our very dead would cry ‘Absurd!’ | |
| And clamor that they died in vain, | |
| And whine to come back to the sun. | 30 |
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VI. Hush! more reverence for the Dead! | |
| They’ve done the most for Italy | |
| Evermore since the earth was fair. | |
| Now would that we had died instead, | |
| Still dreaming peace meant liberty, | 35 |
| And did not, could not mean despair. | |
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VII. Peace, you say?—yes, peace, in truth! | |
| But such a peace as the ear can achieve | |
| ’Twixt the rifle’s click and the rush of the ball, | |
| ’Twixt the tiger’s spring and the crunch of the tooth, | 40 |
| ’Twixt the dying atheist’s negative | |
| And God’s Face—waiting, after all! | |
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