( AFTER CAPORETTO )

I T was a black and baneful day
In Chivalry's decline
When Austria found her devil's-way
To break Savoia's line.
" Five nights from now, " the braggarts say,
" In Venice we shall dine. "

The true world's hope again burned low,
And doubt grew pale to see
The havoc of the wily blow,
And warned of worse to be;
But my Italian heart cried " No, "
And dreamed of victory.

And while our very breath was hushed,
And few were tearless-eyed
To think of all the beauty crushed
And all that might betide
Across two seas my fancy rushed
As lover to his bride.

A VISION OF BEAUTY

From Asolo's uplifted land
I watched with pensive pain
The Evening's soft and shadowy hand
Caress Venetia's plain,
To where Piave's rushing sand
Defined the Teuton stain.

Above the wide-horizoned heath
Nine-towered Treviso loomed,
And Padua's seven domes, whereneath
Her gentle saint is tombed;
While, like a lily from its sheath,
San Marco's tower bloomed.

Sweet-syllabled, the vesper bells
A maze of music wound,
From towns whose very naming tells
A rosary of sound,
While grapes and lingering asphodels
Still perfumed all the ground.

And, last, I heard Bassano's toll
(That drowns the Brenta's roar);
And there was something in its roll
Was never there before:
A tocsin to the patriot soul
The Western breezes bore.

It was as though the bell were sent
To wake the sleeping land
And cry " O Italy, sore-spent!
Now let thy legions stand:
No farther inch of fair content
Yield to the spoiler's hand.

" Look on thy beauty and be proud
As partner of God's plan, —
Half by His mighty thought endowed
And half by Him through Man:
The Alps, whose incense is the cloud,
The temples Love began.

" Long shall outlinger human shame
The snow-clad eminence;
But these, that breathe His holy name —
The spirit's monuments —
Shall He who wrought with thee their fame
Not share in their defense? "