However this
may be, I find it very touching when, after coming back from his long
exile, Procida says to Imelda, who is trembling for the secret of her
marriage amidst her joy in his return:
Daughter, art thou still
So sad? I have not heard yet from thy lips
A word of the old love....
... Ah, thou knowest not
What sweetness hath the natal spot, how many
The longings exile hath; how heavy't is
To arrive at doors of homes where no one waits thee!
Imelda, thou may'st abandon thine own land,
But not forget her; I, a pilgrim, saw
Many a city; but none among them had
A memory that spoke unto my heart;
And fairer still than any other seemed
The country whither still my spirit turned.
In a vein as fierce and passionate as this is tender, Procida relates
how, returning to Sicily when he was believed dead by the French, he
passed in secret over the island and inflamed Italian hatred of the
foreigners:
I sought the pathless woods,
And drew the cowards thence and made them blush,
And then made fury follow on their shame.
I hailed the peasant in his fertile fields,
Where, 'neath the burden of the cruel tribute,
He dropped from famine 'midst the harvest sheaves,
With his starved brood: "Open thou with thy scythe
The breasts of Frenchmen; let the earth no more
Be fertile to our tyrants.
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