XXVIII IN SANTA CROCE
O great Ones born in that our Nation's hour
To which the world did long look back admiring
As to a springtime when the heavens' inspiring
Poured equal gifts of anger, love, and power,
For slavery has Italia sold her dower,
And feasts with those against her weal conspiring;
At your high shrines in vain were my requiring
Of what may soothe the griefs that on me lower.
The present race such ancestry belying
Seeks but the ease of death, as in its tomb.
Here lives, and only here, the ancient Nation!
And here I stay shivering amid the gloom,
Breathing upon the world my imprecation,
Doomed to live ever by my scorn undying.
Juvenilia.