Chapter I: Genoa

Where Genoa spreads white arms crescent-wise,
Her feet o’er well-packed bale and polished spar
Step on the quay with men of every star.
Her heart stays with her people; but her eyes
From those high garden-terraces devise
New realms of peaceful conquest, where afar
Ocean’s white horses at the harbour-bar
Wait ever for their rider to arise.

Here boy Columbus stood, and o’er the blue
Immeasurable fields imagined new.
Here young Mazzini, while for men he yearned,
Another world within their eyes discerned--
The one Republic without place or date.
So both for men lived,--and died execrate.

_January_, 1873.