Part 7
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.
Before thee shining In all the splendour of the holy Kingdom Flashed in its crimson light the mortal field Of Montaperto, and along the wastes Deserted and malignant came the sound, Dreary and dull, of dying warriors' sighs: To which far off responded With a great cry of mingled human woe The cursed battle-field of Campaldino. And thou, Rea Meloria, Didst rise from the Tuscan sea To tell the glory of this horrid slaughter, And of the Thyrrenian shores made desolate With this our madness, and the sea's great bosom All stained with blood, and far Liguria's strand Filled with the moan of lonely Pisan exiles And children born for fratricidal war. · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
JUVENILIA.
XXXIV
ON THE SIXTH CENTENARY OF DANTE
I saw him, from the uncovered tomb uplifting His mighty form, the imperial prophet stand. Then shook the Adrian shore, and all the land Italia trembled as at an earthquake drifting.
Like morning mist from purest ether sifting, It marched along the Apenninian strand, Glancing adown the vales on either hand, Then vanished like the dawn to daylight shifting.
Meanwhile in earthly hearts a fear did rise, The awful presence of a god discerning, To which no mortal dared to lift the eyes. But where, beyond the gates, the sun is burning, The races dead of warlike men and wise With joy saluted the great soul's returning.
LEVIA GRAVIA.
XXXV
BEATRICE
The shining face Smiled straight into the skies; A rosy glow was on her archéd neck;
Her radiant brow, Lofty, serene, and fair, And her glance like a rose new-blown,
And the fresh smile Of pure youth, Awakened in the heart new ecstasies:
But awe-inspiring And with fear entrancing Was her presence.
Floating on the wind In the morning air Was her sky-blue mantle, her white veil.
Like Our Lady from heaven She passed before me, An angel in seeming and yet all so ardent.
My mind stopped thinking But to look at her, And the soul was at rest—but for sighing.
Then said I: O how or when Did earth deserve That such a mark of love be given her?
What reckless ancestors Gave thee to the world? What age ever bore so fair a thing as thou?
What serener star Produced thy form? What love divine evolved thee from its light?
Easily the ways of man Following the blessed guidance Of thee, Beatrice, were all made new!
—“Not a woman, but the Idea Am I, which heaven did offer For man to study when seeking things on high.
“When hearts, not wholly cooled Of their potential fires, Fought hard with life severe, and with the truth,
“And to the valiant thinking And courageous hope Faith and true love lent arms of constancy,—
“Then, from my airy seat descending, Among these gallant souls I came, Kindled and kept alive their ardent zeal;
“And, faithful to my champions, Clasped in their mighty embrace, I made them worship Death—yea, and Defeat,
“While, traced by dreamy souls In verse and colours, I wandered through the laurels on Arno's banks.
“In vain you look for me 'Mong your poor household gods— No Bice Portinari—I am the Idea!”
JUVENILIA.
XXXVI
“A questi dí prima io la vidi. Uscia”
These were the days when first I saw her growing Like bud to flower in the time of spring, Her figure such a sweet and lovely thing As if one heard love's richest music flowing.
The bashful blushes on her cheeks were showing What native grace her gentle speech could bring; As on smooth seas the stars their radiance fling, So in her laughing eyes the soul was glowing.
'T was such I saw her. Now with mad desire As in a world of stifling air alone I wander, weak and worn with my inquiring,
Till strength remains only her name to moan As with each breath I feel my life expiring: O Light of all my years, where art thou flown? · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
JUVENILIA.
XXXVII
“Non son quell'io che già d'amiche cene”
I am not he who amid wine cups flowing Rouses to joy the festive board of friends: Heavy with bitter weariness is going The time that to my mind no banquet sends.
Anger alone is that fierce life bestowing Over whose board my heart all ravenous bends. O fair green years when brightest hopes were growing That now lie withered as when summer ends!
Even the charm of sweet imagination No more its soul-beguiling power retains, But in its place stands life, mute, dread, appalling, And over all a shade whose intonation As if of grief that it alone remains To some still shore afar is ever calling. · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
JUVENILIA.
XXXVIII
THE ANCIENT TUSCAN POETRY
A child in gardens, fields, and city squares I grew 'mid war's alarms and love's alluring; But manhood's school of mysteries and cares Enticed me to the temple's dark immuring.
Where now the lofty dames, with glance securing What free-born knight or brave civilian dares? Bright April days the roses bloom assuring? The oak that through the castle rampart stares?
Poor and alone, again to that dear dwelling I come where pious love did once deny That I should heed the Enchantress' sweet impelling. Open! O Child: though be the times awry, Thy vision, Beatrice, wakes my heart's rebelling,— Open! The Tuscan poesy am I!
LEVIA GRAVIA.
XXXIX
OLD FIGURINES
Like as an infant, beaten by its mother or but half conquered in a wayward quarrel, tired, falls asleep, with its little fists tight clenched and with tear-wet eyelids,—
So does my passion, O fair Lalage, sleep in my bosom; nor thinking, nor caring, whether in rosy May-time wander playing the other happy infants in the sun.
O wake 't not, Lalage! or thou shalt hear my passion, like a very God of battles, putting an end to sports so innocent, to flay the very heavens with its raging!
ODI BARBARE.
XL
MADRIGAL
Breaking his way through the white clouds in the azure, The sun laughs out and cries: “O Springtime, come!”
Across the greening hills with placid murmurs The streams sing back to the breeze: “O Springtime, come!”
“O Springtime, come!” to his heart the poet is saying, While gazing, O pure Lalage, in thine eyes!
ODI BARBARE.
XLI
SNOWED UNDER
Slowly the snow-flakes fall through the ashen heavens: no clamour nor sound whatever comes up from the street.
No cry of the vender of fruits, no rumbling of cart-wheels, no ballad of love wailing forth from the lips of youth.
Hoarse from the towers of the square the hours groan out,— Sighs that come from a world far remote from our daylight.
Birds, that homeless wander, peck at the darkened window: Souls of the lost ones returning! they watch me and call me to them.
Shortly, O dear Ones, shortly—Heart! tame thy restless rebelling— down to your silence, down to your peaceful shades will I come!
ODI BARBARE.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “Rome itself had never gathered the Italian cities into what we call a nation; and when Rome, the world's head, fell, the municipalities of Italy remained, and the Italian people sprang to life again by contact with their irrecoverable past. Then, though the church swayed Europe from Italian soil, she had nowhere less devoted subjects than in Italy. Proud as the Italians had been of the empire, proud as they now were of the church, still neither the Roman Empire nor the Roman Church imposed on the Italian character.”—_Symonds's_ “Renaissance in Italy.” _Literature._ II., p. 524.
[2] See _La Poesia e l'Italia nella Quarta Crociata_. Discourses in the presence of her Majesty the Queen. _Nuova Antologia_, Rome, February, 1889.
The poems of Carducci have been published for the most part in the following collections: _Poesie_ (Florence, G. Barbera, 1871) comprises the poems previously published under the pseudonym Enotrio Romano in three successive issues—1, _Juvenilia_, the author's early productions in the years 1850-1857, 2, _Levia Gravia_, written between the years 1857 and 1870, and 3, _Decennali_, produced in the decade 1860-1870; _Nuove Poesie_, 1879; _Odi Barbare_, Bologna, 1877; _Nuove Odi Barbare_, 1886; _Nuove Rime_, Bologna, 1887. Besides the last named the publisher Zanichelli, in Bologna, has also issued editions of the author's _Discorsi Letterari e Storici_ and _Primi Saggi_; and a complete edition of the author's writings, in twenty vols. 16mo, is promised by the same publisher.
[3] Is there an allusion here to Michael Angelo's Christ in the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva at Rome?
[4] “Doubtless the great painters saw, first and before all things, the human being; but in this being they saw the race, and they could not discern the race without disengaging the vague ideal which struggles in it, which exists even in inferior creatures, unknown to themselves and yet consubstantial with their blood. The languor and, at the same time, the strength of this land of mountains, whose feet are bathed by the waters of fever-breeding marshes, the mysticism and the wildness of the compatriots of St. Francis of Assisi, the dreamy melancholy inspired by the contemplation of sleeping lakes—all those traits, elaborated by the working of heredity through centuries, Perugino saw more clearly than any one else, but he had only to detect them. He divined them instinctively in the outline of the cheek, the colour of the eye, the turn of the head. It is in this interpretation, at once humble and sympathetic, that the veritable imitation of nature consists, in which all is soul, even, and above all the form—a soul which seeks itself, disguises itself at times and even debases itself, but a soul nevertheless and one that reveals itself only to the soul.”