of books no more! My chamber, stifled with the heat of the July
sun,
and noisy with the endless rolling of carriages in the streets,
opened wide. I dreamed myself among my hills,—
the dear forest hills which an April-time youth was reflowering.
A stream gushed down the hillside, widening into a brook
with murmuring cool, and along the brook wandered my mother,
still in the flower of her youth, and leading a child by the hand.
On his bare white shoulder lay shining his golden curls.
He walked with a childish step, but stately, too,
proud of the mother's love, and thrilled to the heart
with the great gladness of that Festival
which everywhere sweet Nature was intoning.
For high up in yon tower the bells were telling
that on the morrow Christ would rise again!
And over the hills and vales, through air and boughs and streams,
flowed everywhere the great Hymn of the Spring.
The apple-trees and the peach-trees were blossoming white and red,
underneath laughed the meadow with yellow flowers and blue;
the red trefoil was clambering up to cover the sloping fields,
and beyond the hills lay veiled in the glow of the golden broom.
From the sea below came up an odorous breeze;
on its waters four white sails rocked slowly to and fro in the sun,
whose dazzling rays were quivering over sea and land and sky.
I watched the happy mother walking in the sunlight;
I watched the mother: thoughtful I watched my brother,
him who now lies at rest on the flowering banks of the Arno,
while she is sleeping alone in the solemn shade of Certosa.
Thoughtful I gazed, and wondered if still they live,
and, mindful of my grief, come back from where
their happy years glide on 'mid forms well known.
So passed the vision blessed; quick with my nap it went—
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
Lauretta's joyous song was ringing through all the chambers,
and Bice, bending over her frame, followed silent the work of the
needle.
ODI BARBARE.
XIX
ON A SAINT PETER'S EVE
I remember the sun across the red vapours descending,
and falling into the sea like a great shield of brass,
which shines wavering over the bloody field of war,
then drops and is seen no more.
Little Castiglioncello, high amid heaps of oaks,
blushing in her glazed windows, returned a coquettish smile.
I, meanwhile, languid and sad [with fever still lingering in me,
and my nerves all heavy and lifeless as if they were weighted with
lead],
looked from my window. Swiftly the swallows
wove and rewove their crooked flight around the eaves,
while in shadows malarious the brown sparrows were chattering.
Beyond the wood were the varied hills and the plain
partly razed by the scythe, partly still yellow and waving.
Away through the grey furrows rose the smoke of the smouldering
stubble,
and whether or no did there come through the humid air
the song of the reapers, long, distant, mournful, and wearied?
Everywhere brooded a heaviness, in the air, in the woods, on the
shore.
I gazed at the falling sun—“Proud light of the world,
Like a Cyclops heavy with wine thou lookest down on our life”—
Then screamed the peacocks, mocking me from among the pomegranates,
and a vagrant bat as it passed me grazed my head.
ODI BARBARE.
XX
THE MOTHER
[A GROUP BY ADRIAN CECIONI]
Surely admired her the rosy day-dawn when,
summoning the farmers to the still grey fields,
it saw her barefooted, with quick step passing
among the dewy odours of the hay.
Heard her at midday the elm-trees white with dust,
as, with broad shoulders bent o'er the yellow winrows,
she challenges in cheery song the grasshoppers
whose hoarse chirping rings from the hot hillsides.
And when from her toil she lifted her turgid bosom,
her sunbrowned face with glossy curls surrounded,
how, then, thy vesper fires, O Tuscany,
did richly tinge with colour her bold figure!
'T is then the strong mother plays at ball with her infant,
the lusty child whom her naked breasts have just sated:
tosses him on high and prattles sweetly with him,
while he, with eye fixed on the shining eyes of his mother,
his little body trembling all over with fear, holds out
his tiny fingers imploring; then loud laughs the mother,
and into the one great embrace of love
lets him fall clasped close to her bosom.
Around her smiles the scene of homely labor;
tremulous nod the oats on the green hillsides;
one hears the distant mooing of the ox,
and on the barn roof the gay plumed cock is crowing.
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
Nature has her brave ones who for her despise
the masks of glory dear to the vulgar throng.
'T is thus, O Adrian, with holy visions
thou comfortest the souls of fellow-men.
'T is thus, O artist, with thy blow severe
thou putt'st in stone the ages' ancient hope,
the lofty hope that cries, “O when shall labor
be happy? and faithful love secure from harm?”
When shall a mighty nation of freemen
say in the face of the sun: “Shine no more
on the idle ease and the selfish wars of tyrants;
but on the pious justice of labour”—?
ODI BARBARE.
XXI
“Passa la nave mia, sola, tra il pianto”
My lonely bark beneath the seagull's screaming
Pursues her way across the stormy sea;
Around her mingle, in tumultuous glee,
The roar of waters and the lightning's gleaming.
And memory, down whose face the tears are streaming,
Looks for the shore it can no longer see;
While hope, that struggled long and wearily
With broken oar, at last gives up its dreaming.
Still at the helm erect my spirit stands,
Gazing at sea and sky, and bravely crying
Amid the howling winds and groaning strands:
Sail on, sail on, O crew, all fates defying,
Till at the gate of dark oblivion's lands
We see afar the white shores of the dying.
JUVENILIA.
XXII
CARNIVAL
VOICE FROM THE PALACE
Couldst thou, O north wind, coming
From the deep bosom of the moaning valley,
Or, wandering in the aisles of songful pines,
Or through a lonely cloister's corridors,
Chant to me in a thousand sounds—
The piping of reeds, the roaring of wild beasts,
And cries of human woe!
That would be my delight, the while I know
On yon cold height there lies the winter's snow.
A shower of white darkness
Fills all the sleepy air; the snowy plain
Fades into the horizon far away.
Meanwhile, the sun's great disk grows faintly red
As wearily it sinks behind the clouds,
Staring as 'twere a lidless human eye.
No breeze, no breath among the hills is stirred,
Nor traveller's voice, nor song of children heard,
But the loud crash of branches
Too heavily bent by burden of the snow,
And sharp explosions of the cracking ice,
Arcadia sing and Zephyrus invite
To your sweet company in meadows fair.
Now nature's mute and haughty horror doth
Add zest to pleasure! Come, Eurilla, make
The drowsy coals a livelier sparkle take!
On me let them be casting
A light serenely flashing, such as spring
Doth carry with her wheresoever she goeth.
The mouthing actor
No more the boxes heed, when 'mid the sight
Of all that crowded brilliancy and beauty,
And perfumed tresses, and enwreathéd flowers,
There comes the scent of April's fruitful showers.
VOICE FROM THE HOVEL
O if, with living blood
From my heart streaming, I could thee restore,
Poor, frozen body of my little son!
But my heart dies within me,
And feeble is the hold of my embraces,
And man is deaf and God above too high.
Lay, my poor little one, thy tear-wet cheek
Close to thy mother's whilst I with thee speak.
Not so thy brother lay;
Hardly he drew amid the stifling snow
His failing breath, as on his way he crept.
After the toilsome day,
Beneath a heavy load, his little steps
Failed to keep even pace with th' hurrying men,
While the rough path and the night's stormy frown
Conspired with man to drag his courage down.
The gusts of whirling snow
Beat through his ragged clothes, his wearied limbs.
He falls, and, bleeding, tries to lift himself,
But 'tis in vain; and hunger
Now drains his little strength, and at the end
Of the dolorous way he gives the struggle over;
Then pious Death comes down and looks upon
The bruiséd form; and from its grave of snow
Home to the mother's roof they bring it so.
Alas! with better reason
The eagle flies for refuge from the blast
Unto her eyrie on the jagged cliff,
And the aged beast to his cave.
A kennel warm protects the mastiff's sleep,
Full fed, within the palace there, near by
To where, O child, born of love's mightier breath,
An icy hand leads thee away to death.
VOICE FROM THE BANQUET
Pour! and keep on pouring,
The vintage which the ancient Rhine doth yield,
Crowned with her hundred castles!
Let it foam and bubble
Forth to our sight, and then deep in the breast
Tell what rare treasure hath the sun matured
Within the hills which well may England crave,
And France, land of good wines and heroes brave!
Then let the maddening dance
Whirl thee away! O what a waving sea
Of tresses blond and dark all proudly blending!
O the hot breath that mingles
Itself with thine! O roses quickly faded!
O eyes that know to exchange the hasty flash
The while, of a thousand mingled notes the strain
Pours forth the sigh of pleasure acute to pain!
O sweet deflowering
Of burning cheeks, and pressure of hand in hand,
The hurried beating of the breast near breast,
The cunning strategy,
Now in the ear to lodge the precious secret,
The little parleys carried on by smiles,
The sweet imagining of joys that hide
'Neath her shy glance one presses at his side.
See how from these our feasts
The common people get the benefit,
And civil charity finds large increase!
Thanks to the heavenly power
That ill and good allots, a judgment stern
Has easement in a graceful piety;
And we the happy progeny of mirth,
Shed like the sun a radiance o'er the earth!
VOICE FROM THE GARRET.
The bread gave out, the work
Fell off on which did hang our life,
And trembling sat before the fireless hearth
My mother, and watched me.
Pale was the face and mute with some great fear
The while she watched: until, as if pursued
By that mute stare, after the long, long day
I could endure no more, and stole away.
Down through the winter's mist
Poured the high moon a livid radiance
Above the muddy alley, then disappeared
Behind the clouds. So did
The light of youth but shine to disappear
Upon the sorrow-mingled pathway of my life.
A hand touched me. I felt a foul glance fall
Upon me, and words that did my heart appal.
Appal! but more appalling
The hunger, O ye proud ones, that did drive me,
And the old mother's mute and maddening stare!
And so it came that I took bread to her!
But all desire for me her fast had stilled.
Hardly on me she raised her heavy eyes,
While I on my poor mother's breast would claim
A place where I might hide my face and shame.
Adieu, O tearful visions
Of a once holy love and you, the fond
Companions of a maiden most unhappy!
For you may shine the whiteness
Of that pure veil the mother, weeping, binds!
For you the thought that to the cradle turns;—
I, to my sin abandoned, keep me near
The track of darkness and, so, disappear.
VOICE FROM BENEATH.
Be still, thou maiden sad,
Be still, O grieving mother, and thou, child,
Found starving, when shut down the night's great gloom!
Behold! what festive lights
Gleam in the palace windows, where unite
The ruling orders of our favoured land,
And magistrates and soldiers of renown,
And doctors, mix with merchants of the town.
The bloom of thy best years
Thou spoilest, girl, while thou dost pine in vain
For that sweet love and life that all desire.
Laugh rather, and be gay,
In dazzling robes of silk and gold held up
By hand fair as a countess's, while you haste
To join the dance! Then weep and wait—what for?
The garb of shame that's waiting at thy door!
As if the tears had frozen
Between the eyelids of the dying boy
Whom thou couldst not revive, O wretched mother,
And turned to precious gems,
So shines the fillet in the dame's black hair,
With whom the economist, gallant and suave,
Holds speech! His lips a smile do wear,
As if a kiss each honied word did bear.
Seize and enjoy your triumph,
O Masks! so happy and so powerful.
And when the coming dawn drives folk to work,
Go out and show yourselves,
Belching your ill-digested orgies forth;
Flaunting your pomp before their humble fast;
Nor dream the day when, at your gilded gate,
Grim Hunger and his brother Death shall wait.
LEVIA GRAVIA.
XXIII
F. PETRARCA
If far from turbid thoughts and gloomy mood
Some smiling day should see my wish fulfilled
Where breathe the vales with gentle brooks enrilled
The soft air of my Tuscan neighbourhood,
There, where is heard no more the garrulous brood
Of thoughtless minds, in deep oblivion stilled,
Would I to thee my heart's pure altar build
In the green blackness of the tangled wood.
There with the dying splendours of the sun
Thy song should glow amid the flowers springing
On breezy banks where whispering streams do run;
As if, still sweeter sounds and odours flinging
Upward to heaven when the day is done,
A nightingale from bough to bough were singing.
LEVIA GRAVIA.
XXIV
CARLO GOLDONI
O Terence of the Adria, to whose pen
Italia's land did give such vengeful power
That, as from rebel soil a noble flower,
So rose alive the Latin soul again.
See! where should rule a race of noble men,
Sharing in righteous deal their bounteous dower,
There art, beshadowed with base passion's glower,
Goes reeling to the jeering harlot's den!
Laugh! and drive out these Goths, and of their shame
Tear down the altars, and to the muse impart
The laurel crown the ancients loved to view.
But no! To-day thou hast no dower but blame;
And the base crowd proclaims in vileness new
How low has fallen our Italian art!
JUVENILIA.
XXV
VITTORIO ALFIERI
“O de l'italo agon supremo atleta”
O supreme wrestler on Italia's plains!
See how a race grown feeble and despairing,
Even from thee the sacred laurel tearing,
The rising of thy holy wrath restrains!
To what high prize thou hold'st the guiding reins,
Whither aloft the stars with thee are faring,
The while the age, to its vile feasts repairing,
Each day tastes viands new and still complains.
“Ungrateful world, O son; and made still worse
By listless souls who on their way proceed
With neither word of chiding nor of praising.
And where to evil thought is linked the curse
Of instincts vile, what heart or mind can read
Those distant heights on which my soul is gazing!”
JUVENILIA.
XXVI
VINCENZO MONTI
When burst thy rapid songs from out a brain
A god had struck, his ready kindred knowing,
In mighty flood like that which from the plain
Of Eridanus to the sea is going,
Then rose the immortal siren whose domain
Holds Virgil's ashes, and her breath bestowing
As from an ancient urn disturbed again,
Sweet harmonies as of lyres and reeds were flowing.
Along the circling shores its measures flinging
Came as of bees hid in Ravenna's gloom
The Tuscan verse of Dante softly ringing;
The Po sent back its trumpet note of doom.
Thou ceased. No more was heard the holy singing,
Virgil was still, and Allighieri's tomb.
JUVENILIA.
XXVII
GIOVAN BATTISTA NICCOLINI
The time will come when the ancient mother, raising
Her eyes upon the examples of the past,
Shall see our land its lot with virtue cast,
And virtuous souls virtue as friend appraising.
But now, from where the Alpine herds are grazing
To far Sicilian shore, in slumber fast
Like jealous nurse she lulls them to the last,
Lest they should wake and on those forms be gazing.
What worth to thee our feeble note of praise,
Only the people's lullaby to mar?
To thee but shame, to us but harm befalling!
O happy those who 'mid the din of war,
On thee, a prophet worthy of better days,
With Dante and Vittorio shall be calling!
JUVENILIA.
XXVIII
IN SANTA CROCE
O great Ones born in that our Nation's hour
To which the world did long look back admiring
As to a springtime when the heavens' inspiring
Poured equal gifts of anger, love, and power,
For slavery has Italia sold her dower,
And feasts with those against her weal conspiring;
At your high shrines in vain were my requiring
Of what may soothe the griefs that on me lower.
The present race such ancestry belying
Seeks but the ease of death, as in its tomb.
Here lives, and only here, the ancient Nation!
And here I stay shivering amid the gloom,
Breathing upon the world my imprecation,
Doomed to live ever by my scorn undying.
JUVENILIA.
XXIX
VOICE OF THE PRIESTS
O school of vileness, treachery and lying,
“Asylum of the oppressed,” in evil days
Sounding to heaven the cruel oppressor's praise,
While God and King and Fatherland denying!
O wicked was your heartless justifying,
Your benediction on the torturer's blaze,
Your curses on the doomed who dared to raise
A voice against thy tyranny outcrying.
Ready the Empire's brutal force to crave,
Thou smil'st upon its prize unjustly won;
God's prophet is become a lying knave.
O saddest day the sun e'er shone upon
When cowers the Cross, the standard of the slave,
And Christ is made the tyrant's champion!
JUVENILIA.
XXX
VOICE OF GOD
Hark! In the temple the voice of God is sounding.
“O people of one speech and one endeavour
Yours is the land with my best gifts abounding
Whereon the smile of heaven is resting ever!
“Away the armed hosts your gates surrounding!
The barbarous hordes that come your speech to sever,
To raze the fortunes of your fathers' founding,
And call you slaves! That will I pardon never!
“Rather within your tombs the flame be stirred
As from an awful flash in heaven burning,
Such as gave forth the Maccabean's word.”
Hail Voice divine! be ours the quick discerning
Of what thy message means: in thee be heard
Savonarola's spirit to us returning!
JUVENILIA.
XXXI
ON MY DAUGHTER'S MARRIAGE
O born when over my poor roof did pass
hope like a homeless, wandering nightingale,
and I, disdainful of the present world,
knocked fretful at the portals of the morrow;
now that I stand as at my journey's end,
and see around my threshold flocking come,
in turn, the jackdaws' noisy company,
screaming their flattering plaudits at my door;
't is thou, my dove, dost steal thyself away,
willing a new nest for thyself to weave
beyond the Apennines, where thou may'st feel
the native sweet air of the Tuscan hills.
Go then with love; go then with joy: O go
with all thy pure white faith! The eye
grows dim in gazing at the flying sail.
Meanwhile my Camena is still and thinks,—
thinks of the days when thou, my little one,
went gathering flowers beneath the acacia-trees,
and she who led thee gently by the hand
was reading visions fanciful in heaven,—
thinks of the days when over thy soft tresses
were breathed in the wild ecstasy of freedom
my strophes aimed against the oligarchs
and the base cringing slaves of Italy.
Meanwhile didst thou grow on, a thoughtful virgin,
and she our country with intrepid step
began to climb the lofty heights of art,
to plant thereon the flag of liberty.
Looks back and thinks!—Across the path of years
With thee shall it be sweet one day to dream
the old sweet dreams again, while gazing fondly
upon the smiling faces of thy sons?
Or shall it be my better destiny
to fight on till the sacred summons comes?
Then, O my daughter, let no Beatrice
my soul upon its heavenward flight attend,—
then, on that way where Homer of the Greeks
and Christian Dante long ago did pass,
there be thy gentle look my only guide,
thy voice familiar all my company.
XXXII
AT THE TABLE OF A FRIEND
Not since when on me a child
Heaven's gracious radiance smiled
Hast thou, O Sun, such splendour poured
As on my friend's Livornian board.
Never, O God of Feasts, was sent
A solace so benevolent
As wisely glowed within the wines
We drank beneath the Apennines.
O Sun, O Bromius, grant that whole
In loving heart and virtuous soul
We to the quiet shades descend
(Where Horace is)—I and my friend.
Thy fortune smile upon the young
Like flowers around our banquet flung;
Peace to the mothers give, and fame
To valiant youth and love's sweet flame!
ODI BARBARE.
XXXIII
DANTE
Strong forms were those of the New Life, that stood
Around thy cradle,
O Master of the song that looks above!
A brave young giantess,
Unknown before to Greek or Latin shores,
Daring in love and hate, and fair withal,
Came Tuscan Libertade, and the child
Already with bounteous breast did comfort thee.
And all a-glowing with her spheral rays,
Mild and austere in one,
Came Faith: and she, across a shore
Obscure with crowds of visions and of shades,
Opened for thee the Gate of the Infinite.
Sighing and pensive, yet with locks aglow
With rosy splendour from another air,
Love made long stay.
And such the gentle things
He talked to thee with bashful lips, so sweetly
He entered all the chambers of thy heart,
That no one ever knew to love like thee.
But soon away from lonely meditating,
O youthful recluse,
Wild clamour and fierce tumult tore thee, and
The fury of brothers seeking brothers' blood.
Thou heard'st the hissing flames of civil war
On neighbour's walls; thou heardest women shriek
To heaven that altars and the marriage bed,
The dear hearth-stone and the infant's cradle,—
All that made fair the marital abode,
Were swept away in one great gulf of flame.
Their men had rushed from their embrace to arms;
The youth breathed only anger and destruction.
Thou sawest the raging of swords
Seeking the breast-plunge;
Thou heardest the dying warrior
Blaspheme and curse:
Before thee, streaming with gore,
Gold locks and grey;
And the Furies offering
To Liberty the execrated host
Of human victims;
And Death, the cruel arbiter of fates,
Crumbling the mighty towers and opening
The long-barred gates.
Amid wild scenes
So grew thy Italian soul,
And prayed that the long civil hate might end.
Meanwhile he saw
Of love such pure revealings and so strange,
The which depicted in the shade
Of a young myrtle-tree,
Each one who saw must bow the head in reverence.
But o'er this gentle dream
There came the voice of weeping,
Bitterly sounding from the maternal source.
Alas! broken by the whirlwind,
Lies the fair myrtle,
And with wide-spread wings
The dove of sweet affection is flown forth
To seek a purer aura for its flight.
He, driven here and there
In the thick darkness of the turbulent age,
Sought refuge with the famous shades of old;
So learned to hate himself and present things.
And in the twilight came he forth a giant,
Seeming a shade himself—an angry shade
Who through the desert went from tomb to tomb,
Now questioning and now embracing them:
Until before him rose across the ruin
And dust of these barbaric ages gone,
Like a cloudy pillar, the ancient Latin valour.
Then all that such a ruin tells did burst
Upon the silent air in one great cry.
In the exalted vision
Arose the poet divine; and now, disdaining
His stricken land and time that only wasted
In petty aimless strife the ancient strength,
He, in the seeing of his heart's desire,
Saluted thee, O modern Italy,—
One, in thy valiant arms, thy laws, thy speech.
And then, to truly tell
What such a vision meant, he sought to know
The life that rolls through all the sea of being.
From beneath the dust of buried centuries
He made things good and ill to tell their tale
Through him the fatal prophet: till his voice
Resounded through the world, and made the ages
Turn and behold themselves. Judge and lord,
He placed them where they could themselves behold,
Admired and wept, disdained and laughed at them;
Then shut them up in his eternal song,
Well pleased that he had power to do this much.
And meanwhile this poor tangle
Where the weeping and the wailing still goes on,
This endless fraud and shadow
Which has the name of life and is so base,—
All this didst thou despise! Thy sacred muse
Explored the depths of all the universe.
Following the good gentile Philosopher
Who placed thee in the midst of secret things,
Thou didst desire to see as angels see
There where there is no intervening veil;
And thou wouldst love as they do love in heaven.
Up through the ways of love
The humble creature
Pushing his way to the Creator's presence,
Wished to find rest in that eternal Truth
Which taught thee the great love and the great thought.
Here Virgil failed thee,
And thou, deserted,
A lonely human spirit as if drowned
Within the abyss of thy immense desire,
Didst vanish overwhelmed in doubt,—
When as on wings
Angelical there came unto thy grief
She who is love and light and vision
Between the understanding and the True.
No mortal tongue like mine may give her name,
But thou who lovedst didst call her Beatrice.
And so from sphere to sphere
'T was naught but melody that thou didst hear,
'T was naught but one great light that thou didst see,
And every single sense thou hadst was love,
And verse and spirit made one harmony
Like unto her who there revealed herself.
Alas! what caredst thou then
For thy poor country and the endless strife
That rent its cities like, alas! even those
That make forever dark the vales of hell!
From heaven descending thou didst thrice bring down
The Hymn Supreme, and all the while there shone
Upon thy brow a radiance divine
Like his who spake with God in Sinai.