Pio Nono is a name, and not the man
Who saws the air from yonder Bishop's seat;
Pio Nono is the offspring of our brain,
The idol of our hearts, a vision sweet;
Pio Nono is a banner, a refrain,
A name that sounds well sung upon the street.
Who calls, “Long live Pio Nono!” means to call,
Long live our country, and good-will to all!
And country and good-will, these signify
That it is well for Italy to die;
But not to die for a vain dream or hope,
Not to die for a throne and for a Pope!
During these years at Trieste, however, Dall' Ongaro seems to have
been also much occupied with pure literature, and to have given
a great deal of study to the sources of national poetry, as he
discovered them in the popular life and legends. He had been touched
with the prevailing romanticism; he had written hymns like
Manzoni, and, like Carrer, he sought to poetize the traditions and
superstitions of his countrymen. He found a richer and deeper vein
than the Venetian poet among his native hills and the neighboring
mountains of Slavonia, but I cannot say that he wrought it to much
better effect. The two volumes which he published in 1840 contain many
ballads which are very graceful and musical, but which lack the fresh
spirit of songs springing from the popular heart, while they also want
the airy and delicate beauty of the modern German ballads. Among the
best of them are two which Dall' Ongaro built up from mere lines and
fragments of lines current among the people, as in later years he more
successfully restored us two plays of Menander from the plots and
a dozen verses of each. “One may imitate,” he says, “more or less
fortunately, Manzoni, Byron, or any other poet, but not the simple
inspirations of the people. And 'The Pilgrim who comes from Rome,' and
the 'Rosettina,' if one could have them complete as they once were,
would probably make me blush for my elaborate variations.” But study
which was so well directed, and yet so conscious of its limitations,
could not but be of great value; and Dall' Ongaro, no doubt, owed to
it his gift of speaking so authentically for the popular heart. That
which he did later showed that he studied the people's thought and
expression _con amore_, and in no vain sentiment of dilettanteism, or
antiquarian research, or literary patronage.
It is not to be supposed that Dall' Ongaro's literary life had at this
period an altogether objective tendency. In the volumes mentioned,
there is abundant evidence that he was of the same humor as all men
of poetic feeling must be at a certain time of life. Here are pretty
verses of occasion, upon weddings and betrothals, such as people write
in Italy; here are stanzas from albums, such as people used to write
everywhere; here are didactic lines; here are bursts of mere sentiment
and emotion. In the volume of Fantasie, published at Florence in 1866,
Dall' Ongaro collected some of the ballads from his early works, but
left out the more subjective effusions.
I give one of these in which, under a fantastic name and in a
fantastic form, the poet expresses the tragic and pathetic interest of
the life to which he was himself vowed.