And when their eyes flashed ...  O my beautiful eyes! ... 
   I exulted! nay, let them go forth at the wheels
Of the guns, and denied not.—­But then the surprise,
   When one sits quite alone!—­Then one weeps, then one kneels! 
      —­God! how the house feels!

At first happy news came, in gay letters moiled
   With my kisses, of camp-life and glory, and how
They both loved me, and soon, coming home to be spoiled,
   In return would fan off every fly from my brow
      With their green laurel-bough.

Then was triumph at Turin.  “Ancona was free!”
   And some one came out of the cheers in the street
With a face pale as stone, to say something to me. 
—­My Guido was dead!—­I fell down at his feet,
    While they cheered in the street.

I bore it;—­friends soothed me:  my grief looked sublime
  As the ransom of Italy.  One boy remained
To be leant on and walked with, recalling the time
  When the first grew immortal, while both of us strained
    To the height he had gained.

And letters still came,—­shorter, sadder, more strong,
  Writ now but in one hand.  “I was not to faint. 
One loved me for two ... would be with me ere-long: 
  And ‘Viva Italia’ he died for, our saint,
    Who forbids our complaint.”

My Nanni would add “he was safe, and aware
  Of a presence that turned off the balls ... was imprest
It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear,
  And how ’t was impossible, quite dispossessed,
    To live on for the rest.”

On which without pause up the telegraph line
  Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta:—­“Shot. 
Tell his mother.”  Ah, ah, “his,” “their” mother; not “mine.” 
  No voice says “my mother” again to me.  What! 
    You think Guido forgot?

Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with heaven,
  They drop earth’s affections, conceive not of woe? 
I think not.  Themselves were too lately forgiven
  Through that love and sorrow which reconciled so
    The above and below.

O Christ of the seven wounds, who look’dst through the dark
  To the face of thy mother! consider, I pray. 
How we common mothers stand desolate, mark,
  Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away,
    And no last word to say!

Both boys dead! but that’s out of nature.  We all
  Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one. 
’T were imbecile hewing out roads to a wall. 
  And when Italy’s made, for what end is it done
    If we have not a son?

Ah, ah, ah! when Gaeta’s taken, what then? 
  When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport
Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men? 
   When your guns at Cavalli with final retort
      Have cut the game short,—­

When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee,
   When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green, and red,
When you have your country from mountain to sea,
   When King Victor has Italy’s crown on his head,
      (And I have my dead,)