Florence! beneath the sun,
Of cities fairest one,
Blushes within her bower for Freedom’s expectation: 
From eyes of quenchless hope
Rome tears the priestly cope, 120
As ruling once by power, so now by admiration,—­
An athlete stripped to run
From a remoter station
For the high prize lost on Philippi’s shore:—­
As then Hope, Truth, and Justice did avail, 125
So now may Fraud and Wrong!  O hail!

EPODE 1b.

Hear ye the march as of the Earth-born Forms
Arrayed against the ever-living Gods? 
The crash and darkness of a thousand storms
Bursting their inaccessible abodes 130
Of crags and thunder-clouds? 
See ye the banners blazoned to the day,
Inwrought with emblems of barbaric pride? 
Dissonant threats kill Silence far away,
The serene Heaven which wraps our Eden wide 135
With iron light is dyed;
The Anarchs of the North lead forth their legions
Like Chaos o’er creation, uncreating;
An hundred tribes nourished on strange religions
And lawless slaveries,—­down the aereal regions 140
Of the white Alps, desolating,
Famished wolves that bide no waiting,
Blotting the glowing footsteps of old glory,
Trampling our columned cities into dust,
Their dull and savage lust 145
On Beauty’s corse to sickness satiating—­
They come!  The fields they tread look black and hoary
With fire—­from their red feet the streams run gory!

EPODE 2b.

Great Spirit, deepest Love! 
Which rulest and dost move 150
All things which live and are, within the Italian shore;
Who spreadest Heaven around it,
Whose woods, rocks, waves, surround it;
Who sittest in thy star, o’er Ocean’s western floor;
Spirit of beauty! at whose soft command 155
The sunbeams and the showers distil its foison
From the Earth’s bosom chill;
Oh, bid those beams be each a blinding brand
Of lightning! bid those showers be dews of poison! 
Bid the Earth’s plenty kill! 160
Bid thy bright Heaven above,
Whilst light and darkness bound it,
Be their tomb who planned
To make it ours and thine! 
Or, with thine harmonizing ardours fill 165
And raise thy sons, as o’er the prone horizon
Thy lamp feeds every twilight wave with fire—­
Be man’s high hope and unextinct desire
The instrument to work thy will divine! 
Then clouds from sunbeams, antelopes from leopards, 170
And frowns and fears from thee,
Would not more swiftly flee
Than Celtic wolves from the Ausonian shepherds.—­
Whatever, Spirit, from thy starry shrine
Thou yieldest or withholdest, oh, let be 175
This city of thy worship ever free!