CCXV To the Memory of Pietro D’Alessandro
Secretary to the Provincial Government of Sicily in 1848, Who Died an Exile at Malta in January 1855
Beside the covered grave
Linger the exiles, though their task is done.
Yes, brethren; from your band one more is gone,
A good man and a brave.
Scanty the rites, and train; 5
How many’ of all the storied marbles, set
In all thy churches, City of La Valette,
Hide nobler heart and brain?
Ah! had his soul been cold,
Tempered to make a sycophant or spy, 10
To love hard truth less than an easy lie,
His country less than gold,—
Then, not the spirit’s strife,
Nor sickening pangs at sight of conquering crime,
Nor anxious watching of an evil time, 15
Had worn his chords of life:
Nor here, nor thus with tears
Untimely shed, but there whence o’er the sea
The great Volcano looks, his rest might be,
The close of prosperous years. 20
No! Different hearts are bribed;
And therefore, in his cause’s sad eclipse,
Here died he, with ‘Palermo’ on his lips,
A poor man, and proscribed.
Wrecked all thy hopes, O friend,— 25
Hopes for thyself, thine Italy, thine own,—
High gifts defeated of their due renown,—
Long toil—and this the end!
The end? not ours to scan:
Yet grieve not, children, for your father’s worth; 30
Oh! never wish that in his native earth
He lay, a baser man.
What to the dead avail
The chance success, the blundering praise of fame?
Oh! rather trust, somewhere the noble aim 35
Is crowned, though here it fail.
Kind, generous, true wert thou:
This meed at least to goodness must belong,
That such it was. Farewell; the world’s great wrong
Is righted for thee now. 40
Rest in thy foreign grave,
Sicilian! whom our English hearts have loved,—
Italian! such as Dante had approved,—
An exile—not a slave!
Henry Lushington.