On the Monument erected to Mazzini at Genoa

Italia, mother of the souls of men,             Mother divine, Of all that served thee best with sword or pen,             All sons of thine, Thou knowest that here the likeness of the best             Before thee stands: The head most high, the heart found faithfulest,             The purest hands. Above the fume and foam of time that flits,             The soul, we know, Now sits on high where Alighieri sits             With Angelo. Nor his own heavenly tongue hath heavenly speech             Enough to say What this man was, whose praise no thought may reach,             No words can weigh. Since man’s first mother brought to mortal birth             Her first-born son, Such grace befell not ever man on earth             As crowns this One. Of God nor man was ever this thing said:             That he could give Life back to her who gave him, that his dead             Mother might live. But this man found his mother dead and slain,             With fast-sealed eyes, And bade the dead rise up and live again,             And she did rise: And all the world was bright with her through him:             But dark with strife, Like heaven’s own sun that storming clouds bedim,             Was all his life. Life and the clouds are vanished; hate and fear             Have had their span Of time to hurt and are not: He is here             The sunlike man. City superb, that hadst Columbus first             For sovereign son, Be prouder that thy breast hath later nurst             This mightier One. Glory be his forever, while this land             Lives and is free, As with controlling breath and sovereign hand             He bade her be. Earth shows to heaven the names by thousands told             That crown her fame: But highest of all that heaven and earth behold             Mazzini’s name.