Browning does not deride. She bows before the inevitable, but
is firm in her belief of a future living Italy.
"In the name of Italy
Meantime her patriot dead have benison;
They only have done well;--and what they did
Being perfect, it shall triumph. Let them slumber!"
Her short-lived credence in the good faith of Popes was buried with much
bitterness of heart:--
"And peradventure other eyes may see,
From Casa Guidi windows, what is done
Or undone. Whatsoever deeds they be,
Pope Pius will be glorified in none."
It is a matter of great thankfulness that God permitted Mrs. Browning to
witness the second Italian revolution before claiming her for heaven. No
patriot Italian, of whatever high degree, gave greater sympathy to the
aspirations of 1859 than Mrs. Browning, an echo of which the world has
read in her "Poems before Congress" and still later contributions to the
New York "Independent." Great was the moral courage of this frail woman
to publish the "Poems before Congress" at a time when England was most
suspicious of Napoleon. Greater were her convictions, when she abased
England and exalted France for the cold neutrality of the one and the
generous aid of the other in this war of Italian independence.
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