 | The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere |  |
X. THE INVASION OF THE PAPAL STATES.
Sept. 1860.
O Italy! the guilt but half is thine!
Thy sons they are not; foes they are, not friends,
These ill-crown'd kings that brim for ill-mask'd ends
Freedom's pure cup with blasphemy's false wine.
Thou of the hermit's cell, the martyr's shrine!
Thou, dew'd with beauty and the Aonian dream
Like Greece, but higher placed in God's great scheme,
His second Salem's second Palestine!—
The malison of Freedom evermore
Cleave to his name who burst the eternal band
That with Religion links her, hand in hand,
And hurl'd the child against the sire in war.
Religion spurn'd, there freedom hath no place:—
Freedom the pillar is: Virtue its base!
| The Poetical Works of Aubrey De Vere | |