The Poems of Leopardi

Poems of Leopardi

TO ITALY.


O thou my country! I behold the walls,
The pillars and the arches of our sires,
Their towers and statues old:
But I do not behold
Their glory, or their weapons, or their bays,
Wherewith they were surcharged. Disarmed and fallen,
Thou dost thy brow and naked bosom show.
Oh! from thy deep wounds flow
What streams of blood! What pallor meets our gaze!
Where is thy beauty now? Of Heaven I ask,
And of the earth: “Oh say,
Who hath reduced her to this piteous plight?”
And what is worse, her arms strong fetters bind,
And without veil her hair floats to the wind,
And she, forlorn and sad, sits on the ground,
To anguish giving way.
Weep, O my Italy, for thou hast cause:
Born to surpass mankind
In every phase of Fortune, generous and unkind.
Even though thine eyes were torrents, nevermore
Could tears enough be shed
Thine injuries to weep and bitter shame,
O wretched slave, a glorious Queen of yore!
Who writes or thinks of thee,
And beareth in his mind thy vanished fame,
And sayeth not: “Why is her greatness dead?
What is the cause? Where is her ancient might?
Where is her valour in the glorious fight?
Who robbed thee of thy sword?
Who hath betrayed? What science, or what wiles.
Or what victorious lord
Despoiled thee of the garments of thy pride?
How didst thou fall, and when,
To this low state from regions glorified?
Doth no one fight for thee? No son of thine
Rise in thy cause? Bring weapons! I alone
Will fight, or perish in the fray divine.
Grant, Heaven, that even like fire
My blood may rise and all Italian souls inspire.”
Where are thy sons? I hear a sound of arms,
Of chariots and of voices and of drums:
In countries far away
Thy sons meet war’s affray.
Have patience, Italy, for comfort comes.
I see a storm of warriors and of steeds,
’Mid smoke, the sword, by which the foeman bleeds,
Like lightning flashing wide.
Is not some balm unto thy soul supplied?
Wilt thou not gaze upon the doubtful field?
For whom their life-blood yield
The sons of Italy? Ah, woeful sight!
For alien lord, their gore in streams doth flow!
Oh! wretched he who perisheth in fight,
Not for his native soil and loving wife,
Not for his children’s life,
But slain by others’ foe
For stranger race, and cannot say in death:
“I give thee now the breath,
My fatherland most dear, thou didst on me bestow.”
Oh fortunate and blessed and endeared
The olden times, when throngs
Unnumbered sought to perish for their land!
And ye, to whom revering praise belongs,
Passes of Thessaly,
Where Fate and Persia lost power to withstand
The brave, the generous, the immortal few!
Methinks your mountains with mysterious voice,
Your forests, and your rocks, and azure wave
Unto the stranger tell
How on that plain the bodies of the brave
In dauntless legions fell,
Their lives devoting glorious Greece to save.
Ferocious then and wild,
Did Xerxes o’er the Hellespont take flight,
Laden with scorn of every future day;
And on Antela’s memorable height,
Where the blest throng, in dying, ne’er found death,
Simonides did stand,
And gazed upon the sky, the ocean, and the land.
With tear-worn eyes, and with deep-sighing heart,
While strong emotion made his step infirm,
He seized the tuneful lyre:
“Oh ever blessed ye
Who gave your bosoms to the hostile spears
For love of her who led you to the sun!
Ye, whom Greece loves, and nations far admire!
To arms and dangers dire
What love did guide those in their early years?
What love the old whose days were nearly done?
Why unto ye so gay
Appeared the final hour, that bright with smites
You hurried on the hard and tearful way?
It seemed as though to dance or banquet proud,
And not to death, your numbers did proceed.
But Hades gazed with greed
Upon your valiant crowd;
Nor were your spouses or your children near
When in the fatal fray
Without a kiss you perished, and without a tear.
“But not without the Persian’s punishment
And anguish ne’er to die.
Even as into a field where bulls are pent
A famished lion rushes, and his fangs
And claws make havoc wild,
And give his bellowing victims fatal pangs:
Thus, ’mid the Persian multitudes doth fly
The wrathful valour of the sons of Greece.
Behold the horsemen and their steeds o’erturned!
See how the whirl of flight
Entangles cars in many a fallen tent!
And of the first to run,
The tyrant, pale, and with dishevelled hair!
See how with crimson stains
Of barbarous blood the Grecian brave besmeared,
Giving the Persians infinite despair,
Fall, by their wounds exhausted, one by one,
Covering each other on the gory plains!
O blessed ye! for aye
To live whilst earth preserves a chronicle or lay!
“Sooner destroyed and cast into the deep
From highest heaven the stars shall hissing fall,
Rather than your renown
Forego its glorious crown.
An altar is your tomb; and full of love,
The mothers to their infants shall display
The traces of your blood. Behold, I sink,
Ye blessed, on the earth,
And kiss the rocks and the most cherished soil
That shall be praised and glorious for aye
Throughout creation’s girth.
Would I were with you in your graves below!
Would that my gore with yours combined could flow!
But if our different doom forbids that I
For Greece should perish in heroic fray,
And close for her mine eye:
Yet may the fame, endeared
To future ages, of your poet shine;
And if the Gods benign
Consent, as long as yours be glorious and revered.”




ON THE MONUMENT OF DANTE ABOUT TO
BE ERECTED IN FLORENCE.


Although our race at last
By Peace is sheltered ’neath her snowy wings,
Italian spirits ne’er
Shall rive the chains by ancient languor cast,
Unless our hapless country to the fame
Of her proud sires her meditation brings.
Italia! bear in mind
To honour the departed, for of such
Thy provinces are empty; none can claim
Like praise of those who now are drawing breath.
Turn and behold the numbers unconfined,
My land, of heroes whom no time can touch,
And full of shame bewail thine honour’s death,
For without indignation grief is vain:
Turn to the past, and by thy shame revive,
And mindful be again
Of those who are no more, of those who still do strive.
Different in face, in language, and in mind,
On Tuscan soil the stranger takes his way,
Desirous much to learn
Where he the ashes of the bard can find
Who equalled Ilion’s poet in his song.
And, oh inglorious day!
He hears not only that the body cold,
The naked bones afar
Are lying in a weary exile long,
But that not even within thy walls a stone,
O Florence! stands for him, whose glory old
Shines on thee like a star.
O ye, thrice bounteous, by whose deed alone
Shall this reproach be banished from our land!
A noble work is thine, whence love shall flow,
Renowned and courteous band,
From hearts that with deep love for Italy yet glow.
Yes, love for the ill-starred
Italian land, ye generous, be your guide!
She, to whom pity is dead
In every heart, for wretched and most hard
Are now the days that follow her past joy.
May you, by mercy, be with fire supplied
To crown the works you wrought!
May grief and wrath inspire you for the woe
Whence Italy is weeping her annoy!
But with what praise, or what immortal song
Shall we extol you, who not merely in thought,
But with the genius whence your bosoms glow,
Sublimest palms shall find in ages long,
Your land adorning with so high a deed?
Unto your souls what lay shall I address,
That in your hearts may feed
The never dying fire, and your high thoughts express?
Like torches, verily, the noble theme
Shall in your spirit throw the kindling blaze.
Who can the wave describe
Of your proud ire and patriotic dream?
say, who can paint the rapture of your brow?
The lightning of your gaze?
What mortal utterance of celestial thing
A faint reflection give?
Hence, ye profane! what tears of joyaunce now
The marble proud form Italy shall claim?
Shall it e’er fall? Shall time a shadow fling
On your renown? Ye live,
Wherewith the anguish of our grief we tame,
Ye live for aye, O cherished arts divine!
The only comfort of our hapless race.
Ye round our ruins twine
Your loveliness, preserving our old honour’s trace.
Lo! I as well with zeal
Inspired to honour our grieved and sublime
Mother, bring what I can,
And with my song join in your chisel’s peal,
Reclining where your skill gives marble life.
O lofty father of Etruscan rhyme!
If of terrestrial things,
And if of her whom thou hast placed so high,
In thine abode the tidings can be rife:
I know that not for thee thou feelest joy,
That frailer than the sands the ocean brings,
Likened to thy renown, which ne’er shall die,
Are bronze and marble; and if years destroy,
Or have destroyed, thine image in our soul,
Our anguish shall even more disastrous grow,
And thy race, by the whole
Wide world despised, shall weep in everlasting woe.
But not for thee, for this thy hapless land
Be joyous, if the example of its sire
Can ever give such strength
Unto the race, so sunk in slumber’s hand,
That for a moment it can greatly dare.
Oh! by what evils dire
Thou seest her bowed down, who so ill-starred
Seemed to thine eyes when thou
To Paradise didst finally repair!
Now so reduced that, to her present plight,
She then was like a queen whom splendours guard.
Such anguish crowns her now
That when thou seest, thou mayst doubt thy sight.
The other evils and the other foes,
But not the newest and the most unkind,
I shall in silence close,
Whereby thy land well nigh its fatal hour did find.
Thrice blessed thou, whom Fate
Did not condemn such horrors to behold!
Who didst not see embraced,
By foemen fierce, Italian wives; nor hate
And foreign fury desolate each field,
And rob the cities of their goods and gold;
Nor of Italian skill
The works divine to wretched thraldom led
Beyond the Alpine snows; nor cannons wield
Their ponderous weight along the grief-thronged road;
Nor stern commands, nor haughty rule for ill;
Nor didst thou hear the insults and the dread
Abuse of Freedom’s name, which seemed to goad
Our grief, while lashes did resound and chains.
Who did not grieve? What did we not endure?
What region ne’er complains
Of how those recreants sinned? What temple was secure?
Why in such evil times did we appear?
Why didst thou give us birth, O cruel fate?
Or why not early death?
Enslaved and subject is our land so dear
To strangers and blasphemers; all her pride
Is fallen and desolate;
No succour and no comfort can we see;
All balm to ease the pain
That gives her keenest anguish, is denied;
No solace can our bitter quest perceive.
Alas! our life blood we gave not to thee,
Land, dear to us in vain!
Nor have I perished; though for thee I grieve.
Here wrath and pity in all hearts abound:
Full many of our number fought and bled:
Alas! their doom they found,
Not for our Italy, but for her tyrants dread.
O Father, if thine ire
Lies dormant, thou art other than of yore;
Upon the barbarous plains
Of Scythia, the Italian brave expire,
Worthy of other death; the winds and skies,
The beasts and men wage on them cruel war.
In mighty hosts they fell,
Naked and wasted, and with gore besmeared.
For their dire bed the fatal snowstorm lies.
Then as they felt their last, expiring pain,
To her with whom their deep affections dwell,
They said: “Oh, not the clouds or winds that reared
Their deadly force, but steel, and for thy gain,
Should end our lives, dear country! From thee far,
When fairest years begin to meet our gaze,
We, who all unknown are,
Perish for that dire race which fetters thee and slays.”
For their lament the Arctic desert bleak
Felt pity, and the moaning forests old.
Thus did they meet their end,
And wild beasts their neglected bodies seek
Upon that horrid ocean of deep snow,
Devouring their limbs cold;
And the renown of the sublime and brave
Shall lie with those for aye
Whom tardy vileness claimeth. Though your woe
Be infinite, ye cherished souls so dear!
Yet be at peace; and this console your grave,
That consolation’s ray
Shall neither now nor in a future year
Be seen by you. Rest in your sorrow vast,
O ye true sons of her to whose supreme
Misfortunes unsurpassed,
Yours only is so great it can their equal seem!
Ah! not of you complains
Your native land, but of the one who made
Your weapons ’gainst her rise,
So that for evermore she mourns her pains,
And with your sorrows bids her own resound.
Oh! would for her, whom once Renown arrayed,
Fair Pity’s light were shed
In such a heart as could to her be sent
To raise her from the dark abyss profound
Where she is lying! O! thou glorious Bard!
Say, of thine Italy if love be dead?
Say, if the flame that fired thee now be spent?
Say, shall no more that wreath its verdure guard
Wherewith we did so long our ills beguile?
Lie all our crowns now shattered in the dust?
Nor in a little while
Shall men arise like thee so generous and just?
Are we for ever withered? And our shame
No boundaries can hold?
I, whilst I live, shall everywhere exclaim:—
“Thou evil race, turn to thine ancestors;
Survey these ruins old,
And all the treasures wondrous arts bestow:
Think on what soil thou treadest; if thy heart
Feels not the light such high examples show,
Why stay? Rise and depart.
To be the scene of deeds so mean and fell,
This land of mighty heroes was not made:
If cravens here must dwell,
’Twere better it should be deserted and betrayed.”




TO ANGELO MAI


On His Discovering the Books of Cicero on the
Republic.

Dauntless Italian! why dost thou not rest
From waking in the tomb
Our old forefathers? And why bid them hold
Discourse unto this age so lost in gloom
Of worn exhaustion? Wherefore, voice of old,
Appealest thou so often to our ears,
For centuries though dumb?
What is the reason of this mighty change?
As rapidly as lightning’s flash, the page
Of sages we discover; to these years
The dusty treasures come,
Bearing enshrined the glorious wisdom’s range
Of those ancestral minds. What daring rage
Doth Fate give to thy soul, Italia’s pride?
Or is it Fate who vainly human worth defied?
Truly, it is by Heaven’s high design
That in this hour when we
Are most oblivious of our old renown,
We should the ghosts of our forefathers see,
Who on the baseness of their offspring frown.
Kind Heaven still has mercy on our land,
And seeks Italia’s weal:
For either this or none must be the hour
To give unto our shattered virtue strength,
Which long beneath a sable shade did stand;
And lo! the tombs reveal
The buried who cry out; in mightier power,
The long-forgotten heroes rise at length,
And of this period so remote they ask
If thou, my country, still must wear a coward’s mask?
Thou glorious throng! dost thou for us yet cherish
A ray of hope? nor void
Are we of worth? To you, perchance, doth show
The future what it brings? I am destroyed,
Nor have I any weapon ’gainst my woe;
Dark are the years to come; and what I see
Is such that hope appears
An idle dream. Heroic souls august!
Within your homes a mob obscure and vile
Hath made its dwelling; by your progeny
In these disastrous years
All good is scorned; your old renown so just
Kindles nor love nor shame; and follies while
Our days away at your proud marble’s base,
And we to future times are patterns of disgrace.
Thou noble mind! Now whilst the others heed not
Our parents of the past,
’Tis thine to heed, to whom Fate did inspire
Such favoured thoughts that by thy hand recast
Appears the time1 when from oblivion dire
Their laurelled brows the old immortals raised,
With learning long enshrined,
They, to whom Nature spoke full many a word
Without revealing where her being lay,
And who in Athens and in Rome were praised.
Oh times, so long declined
In sleep eternal! Then was not yet heard
Our country’s final doom; nor every ray
Was spent of indignation at our shame,
And on the wind some sparks from this our soil yet came.
Thy hallowed ashes harboured latent heat,
Foe, nevermore resigned,
Of Fortune, thou to whose indignant smart
Much more dark Hell than this our world was kind;2
Hell: and where shall we fail to see a part
Better than ours? And thy sweet-toned chords
Yet sounded to thy skill,
O tuneful lover, in thy love much tried!3
Alas! from woe Italian song doth take
Its origin. And yet our woe affords
Less cause for grievous ill
Than weariness. O thou beatified,
Whose life was full of sorrow! But we make
Ourselves the prey of drear, fastidious scorn,
Our cradles and our graves thereby become forlorn.
Then was thy life with the ocean and the stars.
Thou dauntless Genoese!4
When past Alcides’ pillars and the shore
That feigned to hear the hissing of the seas
As sank the sun to rest, thou, ’mid the roar
Of wild waves cast, discoveredst the ray
Of the declining sun,
The dawn that blushes when we find the shade,
And overcamest Nature’s wrathful frown.
An unknown mighty land was to thy way
The matchless glory won,
The perilous return! Alas! once made
The circuit of the world, it dwindles down,
And vaster far the earth, the sea, the sky,
Appeareth to a child’s, than to a wise man’s, eye.
Where is the pleasing beauty of our dreams
Of the abode unknown
Of races strange, or of the stars’ retreat,
When glared the morn, or of the couch where shone
Aurora’s beauty, or where chargers fleet
Did bear the chariot of the orb of day?
They vanished for all time!
The world is compassed in a narrow round:
All things are like; the more we shades dispel,
The more the void increaseth. Gone for aye,
Imagining sublime,
Art thou from us; though truth be scarcely found,
We bid thee an eternal fare-thee-well;
Thy former power is shattered by the years,
And the last comfort dieth of our woes and fears.
Meanwhile, for sweetest visions wast thou born,
And radiance fired thine eyes,
Prevailing bard5 of valour and love’s joy
That in an age less full than ours of sighs
With happy errors banished life’s annoy:
New hope of Italy! O halls! O towers!
O ladies fair! O knights!
O palaces! O gardens! Full of ye,
My mind is lost within a varied maze
Of vain enchantments. Fiction’s fragrant flowers
And Fancy’s daring flights
Were balm of yore to human misery:
Now we have driven them from our vision’s gaze,
What is the end? Now that all things are plain?
The certain truth to know that all, save grief, is vain.
Torquato! O Torquato!6 Heaven then gave
To us thy lofty mind,
To thee nought else than agony and tears.
O thou unblessed Torquato! couldst thou find
Solace in song? The icy chill of fears
That froze the daring ardour of thy soul,
Which Tyranny did grieve,
And Envy, nought could banish. Love betrayed,
Love, last delusion of our earthly life,
Thy injured heart. An empty waste the whole
Vast world thou didst conceive
To be, and Vacancy a queenly shade;
Thine eyes were closed when tardy praise was rife.
To thee thy final hour gave balm. He prays
For death, who knows our ills, and not for glorious bays.
Return, return to us; arise from thy
Cold grave disconsolate,
If yet thou lovest grief, O much deplored
Example of deep woe. Worse is our fate
Than that which did unto thy heart afford
Such cause for long lament. O thou endeared!
Who would thy doom bemoan,
If, save themselves, for nothing else men care?
Who would not scorn on thy great sorrow cast,
If all that greatness and ambition reared
Be held as Folly’s own?
If now obscure neglect fall to the share
Of the sublime, as envy in the past,
If higher than song we sordid grasping place,
Who would a second time thy brow with laurels grace?
From thee, until this hour, no man arose,
Thou prey to Fortune’s rage,
Worthy of the Italian name, save one alone,7
Alone superior to his craven age,
Ferocious Allobrogue; to whom was shown
Heroic fire from regions of the skies,
Not from the barren soil
Of this our weary land; whence, without shield,
Upon the stage on tyrants he waged war,
A memorable and a rare emprise!
This war, at least, be foil
To fruitless wrath, and some frail comfort yield.
He stood, the only champion, to the fore:
None followed him, for sloth and silence vile,
More than all other things, the hearts of men defile.
With scorn and indignation he pursued
His life august and grand,
And death preserved him from beholding worse.
O my Vittorio! this was not a land
Or age for thee; a loftier race should nurse
Illustrious minds. Now we, who nothing heed
Save dull repose, live bound
By mediocrity; the learned fall,
The rabble rises to an equal plain,
Making the world as one. Oh, still proceed,
Discoverer renowned,
To rouse the dead from their funereal pall,
Because the living slumber; make again
Old heroes speak, so that this age at last
May rise to glorious deeds, or blush for errors past.

ON THE MARRIAGE OF HIS SISTER PAOLINA.


Now that thy home thou leavest,
Its happy silence and serene repose,
And the ancient error which from Heaven flows,
Adorning in thy sight this lone abode,
By Fortune led upon the scene of life:
Become acquainted with the evil age
Which destiny devoteth to our years,
My sister, who in times
Of strife, dismay, and fears,
Proceedest to increase the ill-starred race
Of hapless Italy. Great models place
Before thine offspring. An unswerving doom
To virtuous enterprise
Unclouded days denies,
Nor in a bosom faint can lofty soul find room.
Unhappy or else craven
Shall be thy sons. Then nobly choose the first.
A mighty gulf hath evil custom set
’Twixt bravery and fortune. Ah! too slow,
And in the sunset of terrestrial things,
Doth man begin to suffer and to know.
Heaven see’th why. The thought unto thee brings
Its first solicitude,
That not in Fortune’s net
Thy sons shall fall, nor be to terror low,
Or hope the wretched tools: thence to be hailed
Happy and blessed in the future far:
For such the habits are
Of our ignoble race,
That living worth we scorn, and dead in honour place.
Our fatherland, O women!
Expecteth much from ye; and not to harm
Our humankind, lurks in your eyes such charm
That it transcends the power of fire and steel.
To gain your praise, the warrior and the sage
Labour and think. Where’er the sun doth shine,
We see all things your mighty influence feel.
Of you the cause I ask
Why sank so low our age?
Did by your deed the fire of youth divine
Languish and die? By you, our nature made
So shattered and so base? Our slumbering souls,
Our will to shame betrayed,
Our native valour spent:
Must we for these on you our indignation vent?
Love leads to mighty actions,
Who knows him well; and of emotions vast
Is Beauty the inspirer. Void of love
Is he who feeleth no impassioned fire
When storms terrific raise their wrathful blast,
When sable clouds are darkly seen above,
And mountains tremble at their frenzy dire.
O wives and virgins fair!
From you scorn be his share
Who shuns the path of danger; who ignores
His country’s claim, unworthy; who adores
A lowly idol in his recreant mind;
If in your hearts you find
The love of men doth glow
And not of those who ever trivial fancy show.
Scorn to be named the mothers
Of an unwarlike race. The trials deep
Of virtue let your offspring learn to bear,
And in the bondage of contempt to keep
Whate’er is honoured by this shameful age.
Bid them rise to great actions. Make them know
What this our land doth to its fathers owe.
Even as the heroes’ name
Was held in honoured fame
By Sparta’s sons as they increased in years,
Until their spouses girded on their sword,
And then their death in anguish deep deplored,
And rent their hair with tears
When from the gory field
The warrior was brought home upon his faithful shield.
With heavenly skill, Virginia,
Did all-prevailing beauty mould thy form,
And thy disdain made Rome’s ignoble lord
In tempests of fierce passion rage and storm.
Yes, thou wast fair, and in those happy years
When pleasing dreams joy to the soul afford,
What time thy father’s unrelenting sword
Thy snowy bosom pierced,
And thou to Hades dark
Didst gladly sink. “May age with wrinkles mark
My features, O my father! May the tomb
Await me with its everlasting gloom,
Ere to the tyrant’s bed
A victim I be led.
Slay me, if Rome be rescued by the blood I shed.”
O maiden lofty-hearted!
Though in thy days the sun more brightly shone
Than now it shines, yet honoured and consoled
Thy tomb becomes, bewailed by many a moan,
Thy native country’s sighs. Ah, now, behold!
The race of Romulus with new-born ire
Is fired around thy tomb. See, tyrants sink
Unto the very dust,
And freedom doth inspire
The once oblivious hearts; and o’er the earth
Subdued, the Latin valour doth proceed
From the dark pole even to the torrid clime:
And thus eternal Rome,
Of languor deep the home,
Doth Fate, by woman’s hand, revive a second time.




THE SOLILOQUY OF BRUTUS.


After the carnage of the Thracian plain,
Where in vast ruins fell
The strength of Roman freedom, whence one day
Ausonia’s valleys and the Tiber’s banks
Should tremble at barbarian foes’ affray
By Fortune’s doom, and from the rugged woods
Of distant regions cold,
To desolate the lofty walls of Rome
Should Gothic hordes proceed:
O’ercome and crimsoned with fraternal gore,
Brutus, in shadow of the lonely night,
Resolved by self-directed sword to bleed,
The inexorable Gods
And cruel fate defies,
Filling in vain the air with his impassioned cries:
“O idle virtue! In the realms of gloom,
Haunt of the unquiet shades,
Thy dwelling lies; thy footsteps are pursued
By vain repentance. Ye unfeeling Gods,
(If Phlegethon’s dark torrents are imbued
With knowledge of your presence, or the skies)
You mock the wretched race
From whom you temples claim. Decrees of fraud
Insult our humankind.
So much the sorrow of terrestrial things
Moves heavenly wrath? Say, Jupiter, art thou
Enthroned the guardian of the evil mind?
When storms terrific rave
And thunder rumbles wide,
Dost on the just and pious thou the lightning guide?
“Unbending Fate! Necessity austere
Crushes with heavy yoke
The slaves of death; and if without an end
They see their ills, the thought consoles them still
That such must be. But doth woe less offend
When without balm? Doth he feel less of pain
Who is despoiled of hope?
An everlasting war, O ruthless Fate!
On thee the brave man wages
Who knows not how to yield; thy tyrant soul,
When thou, victorious, overwhelmest him,
With exultation o’er thy victim rages,
What time his heart august
The fatal sword receives,
And he with mockery spurns the base abode he leaves.
“He who to Hades takes a violent way
Doth rouse the gods to ire.
Such strength lies not in soft, eternal souls.
Stern Fate, perchance, our labours and our cares,
Our bitter fortunes that Despair controls,
Unto their leisure for amusement gave?
Not amid woe and guilt,
But in the woods, a free and spotless age
Did Nature to us give,
Our Goddess once and Queen. Now that undone
By impious custom is the blissful reign,
And ’neath strange laws we unrejoicing live:
When these disastrous days
A dauntless soul doth spurn,
Should Nature, to accuse a shaft not hers, return?
“Of guilt unconscious and of their distress,
The happy beasts are led
By Time serenely to the end ignored.
But if ’gainst rugged trees their heads to strike,
Or from the summit, where the wild winds roared,
Of rocky mountains to hurl down their frame,
They were by grief advised:
To their desire no stern refusal harsh
Would laws mysterious make
Or doubtful minds. Its joys from you alone
Of all the creatures by the earth brought forth,
Sons of Prometheus, did existence take:
From you the shades of death,
When Fate of wrath gives proof,
Alone from you, ye wretched, Jove doth hold aloof.
“Thou art arising from the ocean-wave
That reddened with our gore,
To gaze, fair moon, on the unquiet night
And plain so fatal to Ausonian strength.
Their slaughtered kinsmen meet the conquerors’ sight;
The mountains tremble; from her pride’s august
Doth ancient Rome decline:
And thou art so unmoved? Thou didst behold
Lavinia’s race, the years
Of dazzling glory, and the laurels proud;
And on the Alps thy never-varying ray
Thou still wilt shed when ’mid the grief and tears
Of Italy enslaved,
Her solitary ground
Unto barbarians’ tread shall mournfully resound.
“’Mid naked rocks, or on the verdant trees,
Behold, the beasts and birds,
Lost in the oblivion they forever bore,
Remain unconscious of the ruin Vast
And of the shattered world; and as of yore
The peasant’s roof shall redden to the sun,
And with their morning lay
The birds awake the valleys, and the speed
Of fiercer beasts pursue
The less resisting over hill and dale.
Oh Fate! Oh idle race! an abject part
We are of nature; not the caves that knew
The sound of sighs, nor glebes
Drenched in our gore, display
Compassion for our grief, nor stars endim their ray.
“The unheeding Kings of Heaven and Hell
Or of the unworthy earth,
Or night, in dying I do not invoke;
Nor ye, last radiance of the shades of death,
Ye future ages. Who the gloom e’er broke
Of haughty tombs, with praise, and sighs, and gifts
Of crowds ignoble? Worse
The years become; and in an evil guard
The honour of the brave
And their last vindication lies, when left
To their degenerate sons. Upon my corpse
May birds of prey in famished fury rave,
And wild beasts rend my limbs,
And what remains be dust,
And to the air be left my name and memory just.”




TO SPRING;

OR,

THE FABLES OF ANTIQUITY.


Because the sun restores
Its beauty to the sky, and airs revive
At Zephyr’s breath, whence heavy clouds retire,
Divided in their shadows deep and grey:
The birds their pinions trust
Unto the breeze, and the diurnal ray
Doth give new hope of love and new desire
To happy beasts amid the dews dissolved,
Amid the forests filled with joyous light:
Perchance unto the weary minds of men,
In graves of woe entombed,
Returns the happy age, by grief and dire
Torches of truth consumed
Before its time? Darkened for aye and spent
Are not Heaven’s rays for him to anguish doomed
Through Time’s eternal flight?
And, odorous Spring, art thou on firing bent,
This frozen heart, to whom hath long been told
Even in the flower of life, that it is worn and old?
Dost thou still live, divine
Nature, still live? And the unaccustomed ear
Receives the sound of the maternal voice?
The streams were haunts of spotless nymphs erewhile
Abodes and mirrors clear
Were liquid springs. The secret dances strange
Of feet immortal, shook the wild ravine
And wood remote (where now the fierce winds range,
Deserted else); and the mild shepherd heard,
When guiding to meridian shades beside
The flowery river bank,
His thirsty flock, a piercing lay proceed
From sylvan deities’ reed,
Resounding far: and witnessed with amaze
The waters quake; for veiled from mortal gaze,
The Goddess of the bow
Sank in the warm stream of the flood below,
And from the dust of the ensanguined chase
Her snowy limbs did cleanse and arms of virgin grace.
In happier days of yore
The flowers, the herbs, the forests were alive.
The firmament, the Titan of the light,
Were conscious of mankind; o’er hill and vale
When shone thy silver beam,
O radiant Cynthia! in the lonely night
With orbs intent thy brow the wanderer sought,
And thee his path’s companion he did deem,
And fancied we were cherished in thy thought.
If man from factions of fierce cities fled
And from disastrous strife,
Seeking for refuge mid the mighty trees
Of deepest forest lone:
He thought that fire ran through their arid veins,
That foliage breathed; and quivering in the embrace
Full of delicious pains,
Daphne and Phyllis, or the wailing moan
For him who in Eridanus was cast
By fury of the Sun, he heard upon the blast.
Nor piercing wail and sighs
Of human woe, ye rocks of rigid height,
Struck you, unfeeling, whilst lone Echo dwelt
In your recesses of alarming night:
No error of vain wind,
But wretched spirit of a nymph in tears,
Of mortal shape despoiled by ruthless Fate
And cruel Love. She, ’mid the grottos blind
And naked crags and dwellings desolate,
The loud complaining of our woes and fears
To the imprisoned air
Revealed and taught. And thee in earthly deed
Well versed did Fame declare,
Sweet-throated warbler in the leafy wood
Who now dost praise the infant year with song,
Lamenting once the wrong
That made thy spirit with deep anguish bleed,
In notes sublime unto the darkening sky,
At which for pity and rage light did from Heaven fly.
But not to ours allied
Is now thy race; those varied notes of thine
Pain mellows not; and thee, unstained by guilt,
Much less endeared, the dusky valleys hide.
Alas! now that divine
Olympus mourns its empty halls; and wide
The thunder wanders o’er the cloud-capped peaks,
In sightless rage the noble and the base
Appalling with its rumbling; and our soil,
Unconscious of the offspring it doth feed,
Brings forth its sons for moyle:
Thou the deep anguish and the fate obscure
Of mortals dost endure,
O wondrous Nature! Thou the ancient spark
Art kindling in my soul, if thou indeed
Livest; if aught there be
In Heaven above, or on the sunny earth,
Or in the bosom of the azure main,
To gaze, even though unpitying, on terrestrial pain.




HYMN TO THE PATRIARCHS.


And you the song of unrejoicing sons,
Ye lofty fathers of the human race,
Shall celebrate with praise; ye far more dear
Unto the eternal Ruler of the stars,
And much less sorrowing brought unto the light
Sublime than we. Not piety and not
The laws of Heaven imposed the unceasing ills
That now afflict mankind, for sorrow born,
And destined to discover greater joy
In the nocturnal shadows of the tomb
Than in the radiance of the orb of day.
And if an ancient legend still doth tell
The story of your ancient error dire
That yielded man unto the tyranny
Of suffering and grief; the guilt more fell,
The more unquiet minds and frenzy fierce
Of your descendants made the injured skies
And Nature, in return for all her cares
Spumed and neglected, feel indignant wrath:
From which the fire of life a curse received,
And mothers trembled at the load they bore,
And Hell itself was imaged on the earth.

Thou first, O father of the human race,
Didst see the sparkling of revolving spheres,
The new-born generations of the fields,
The breezes roving o’er the infant trees,
When towering rocks and yet unpeopled vales
Heard for the first time Alpine fury sound
Of rushing torrents; when unconscious Peace
Reigned o’er the destined regions of renowned
Nations and cities full of strife and noise;
And when upon uncultivated hills
Silent and lonely did the radiance shine
Of sun and moon. Oh happy then, ignoring
Events disastrous and the name of guilt,
The vast abode of earth! Oh, how much grief
Unto thy race, thou Father full of sorrow!
How long a series of most bitter deeds
The Fates prepare! The soil, behold! is stained
With deepest crimson of a brother’s blood,
By brother shed, and o’er the sky divine
The wings of Death their evil shadow throw.
The fratricide with horror taketh flight,
Shunning the lonely dimness of the shades
And secret wrath of winds in forest deep;
He is the first to build proud towns, henceforth
Domain and dwelling of Care’s pallid form;
And first Remorse despairing fixeth man
In a pent-up and undelightful home.
Then from the plough the guilty hand was ta’en,
And scorn was cast on labours of the field,
And the evil halls became the home of sloth.
All minds lay languid and of strength bereft
In weary frames; and as the last and worst
Of ills, mankind by slavery was bound.

And thou from pouring skies and rolling seas
That lashed the summits of the cloudy peaks,
Didst save the germ of the ill-fated race,
O thou to whom from sable space of air
And from the mountains floating in the deep,
A sign of hope restored by snowy dove
Was brought; and from the ancient clouds emerging,
The troubled sun upon the skies obscure
Painted the bow of many beauteous hues.
The rescued race returns unto the earth,
Renewing evil deeds and ruthless thoughts
And their pursuing terrors. To the reign
Of oceans inaccessible it shows
Its vengeful might, and beareth tears and grief
To stars unknown and to remotest shores.

Now thee within my heart I meditate,
And of thy race the generous descendants,
Thou just and valourous father of the pious!
I shall relate how, seated in the calm
Meridian shadows of a quiet home,
Beside the meads so dear unto thy flocks,
Thy soul was blest by strangers from the Heavens
Ethereal and disguised; and how, O son
Of wise Rebecca! in the evening hour
Beside the rustic well and in the vale
Of Haran, cherished by the gentle shepherds
In their gay leisure, love inspired thy heart
For Laban’s beauteous daughter: love supreme,
Who to long exile and affliction long,
And to the hated yoke of servitude,
Made many a soul of haughty strength submit.

Once, truly once (nor with mere shadows idle
Aonian song and legendary lore
Delude mankind), this globe of ours benign
And dear and pleasant to our race appeared,
And golden was the tenour of our age.
Not that with milk the fertile springs rushed forth,
And from the mountains to the valleys spread;
Nor with the flocks the tiger did resort
In happy peace; nor with the wolves the shepherd
Proceeded gaily to the crystal fount;
But that our humankind lived without grief,
Unconscious of the fate that o’er it hung,
And of the woes impending; the sweet error,
The fond delusions, and the pleasing veil
Across the laws of Heaven and Nature thrown,
Were all sufficient; and our quiet bark
Was led into the haven of calm Hope.

Thus, in the boundless forests of the West
Liveth a happy race, whom pallid Care
Pursueth not, whose members are not wasted
By dire disease; to whom the trees yield fruit;
Abode, the caverns kind; refreshing drink,
The rivulets and brooks; and as her prey
Death claims them unforeseen. Alas! ’gainst our
Unhallowed daring, how defenceless are
The haunts of Nature wise! our dauntless fury
Doth penetrate the shores and caves remote
And quiet forests, teaching the despoiled
Desires and sorrows which they never knew,
And hunting Happiness, aghast and naked,
Even to the splendours of the setting sun.




THE LAST SONG OF SAPPHO.


Thou peaceful night, thou chaste and silver ray
Of the declining Moon; and thou, arising
Amid the quiet forest on the rocks,
Herald of day: O cherished and endeared,
Whilst Fate and doom were to my knowledge closed,
Objects of sight! No lovely land or sky
Doth longer gladden my despairing mood.
By unaccustomed joy we are revived
When o’er the liquid spaces of the Heavens
And o’er the fields alarmed doth wildly whirl
The tempest of the winds; and when the car,
The ponderous car of Jove, above our heads
Thundering, divides the heavy air obscure.
O’er mountain peaks and o’er abysses deep
We love to float amid the swiftest clouds;
We love the terror of the herds dispersed,
The streams that flood the plain,
And the victorious, thunderous fury of the main.

Fair is thy sight, O sky divine, and fair
Art thou, O dewy earth! Alas, of all
This beauty infinite, no slightest part
To wretched Sappho did the Gods or Fate
Inexorable give. Unto thy reign
Superb, O Nature, an unwelcome guest
And a disprized adorer, doth my heart
And do mine eyes implore thy lovely forms;
But all in vain. The sunny land around
Smiles not for me, nor from ethereal gates
The blush of early dawn; not me the songs
Of brilliant feathered birds, not me the trees
Salute with murmuring leaves; and where in shade
Of drooping willows doth a liquid stream
Display its pure and crystal course, from my
Advancing foot the soft and flowing waves
Withdrawing with affright,
Disdainfully it takes through flowery dell its flight.

What fault so great, what guiltiness so dire,
Did blight me ere my birth, that adverse grew
To me the brow of fortune and the sky?
How did I sin, a child, when ignorant
Of wickedness is life, that from that time
Despoiled of youth, and of its fairest flowers,
The cruel Fates wove with relentless wrath
The web of my existence? Reckless words
Rise on thy lips; the events that are to be,
A secret council guides. Secret is all,
Our agony excepted. We were born,
Neglected race, for tears; the reason lies
Amid the gods on high. Oh cares and hopes
Of early years! To beauty did the Sire,
To glorious beauty an eternal reign
Give o’er this humankind; for warlike deed
For learned lyre or song,
In unadorned shape, no charms to fame belong.

Ah, let us die! The unworthy garb divested,
The naked soul will take to Dis its flight,
And expiate the cruel fault of blind
Dispensers of our lot. And thou, for whom
Long love in vain, long faith and fruitless rage
Of unappeased desire assailed my heart,
Live happily, if happily on earth
A mortal yet hath lived. Not me did Jove
Sprinkle with the delightful liquor from
The niggard urn, since of my childhood died
The dreams and fond delusions. The glad days
Of our existence are the first to fly;
And then disease and age approach, and last,
The shade of frigid Death. Behold! of all
The palms I hoped for, and the errors sweet,
Hades remains; and the transcendent mind
Sinks to the Stygian shore
Where sable night doth reign, and silence evermore.




THE FIRST LOVE.


The day once more within my memory lives
When first I felt the affray of Love, and said:
“Ah me, if this be Love, what pangs he gives!”
Unto the earth I bent mine eyes and head,
Beholding her from whom my heart did learn
The first and stainless passion whence it bled.
Love, to dire goal thou didst my fancy turn!
Why should so tender an affection sting
With such desire, such agonies that burn?
Why not serene, and with unfettered wing,
Why full of frenzy and of loud lament
Into my heart didst thou thy joyaunce bring?
Tell me, my tender heart, what terror sent
A shaft through thee, what anguish ’mid the thought,
Beside which paled whate’er was once content?
That thought by day with flattering pleasure fraught.
By night as well, unto my mind appeared,
When worlds the silence of deep shadows sought.
Restless, yet happy, though to grief endeared,
Thou on my pillows didst alarm my frame
With palpitations, every minute feared.
And where I sad and grieved and weary came
To close mine eyes in slumber, feverish fire
And frenzy roused me, sleep could never tame.
How ’mid the shades, the queen of my desire
Uprose with vivid splendour, and mine eyes
Gazed on her closed, the lids not rising higher!
How many a thrill of sweet emotion flies
Through my glad frame which joyous ardours seize!
How many thoughts within my soul arise,
Uncertain, undefined! Thus ’mid the trees
Of ancient forests doth a murmur sound,
Vague, deep of tone, in answer to the breeze.
And whilst in silence all my thoughts were bound,
What said’st thou, heart, when she went far away,
For whom a world of passion thou hadst found?
I scarce within me felt the heat a day,
Arising from Love’s furnace, when the air
Whereon it came, to scenes remote did stray.
At early dawn I lay in sleepless care;
Before our house the horses pranced, ere long
To make me of my only joyaunce bare!
And I, to whom misgivings vague belong,
These orbs did idly in the shadows strain,
And forced my hearing with an effort strong
To catch the voice, last token I could gain
From the fair lips of her whom I revere:
All else, alas! hath Heaven from me ta’en.
How many a time struck on my doubtful ear
Plebean cries and accents, and I froze
In all my frame, my heart appalled with fear!
And when at last within my heart I close
The voice so well beloved, and hear the race
Of wheels and horses as the carriage goes:
Knowing myself despoiled, I hide my face,
And shut mine eyes, and sink upon my bed,
And sigh, and on my heart my hand I place.
After a while with wavering limbs I tread
As one amazed, along the silent room,
And “What power else hath struck my heart?” I said.
Then the remembrance with most bitter gloom
Settled within my bosom; and my soul
Became to all the scenes of life a tomb,
And seas of anguish through my being roll,
And I did feel as when the torrents drear
Pour from the clouds, and shades o’ercast the whole
Space of the sky; nor born for many a tear,
Knew I the youth of vanished years twice nine,
When, Love, thou first didst in full power appear,
When for all pleasure scorn alone was mine,
Nor dear the quiet dawn or meadows green
Or joyous radiance of the stars that shine.
The love of glory was no more the queen
Of this my soul, which it before did burn,
For love of beauty reigned there all serene.
To wonted studies no more thoughts I turn,
And those unto my fancy idle seem
For which all other thoughts I used to spurn.
Ah! I myself another self must deem
That so much love another love hath ta’en!
We are, in truth, vain as an empty dream!
Only my heart did please me, and we twain
In an eternal dialogue immersed,
I loved to sit, the guardian of my pain.
Mine eyes bent on the ground or else inversed
Within myself, on lovely face to gaze
Or on a form unpleasing, never durst:
For the unspotted image to erase
That dwelt within my bosom, much I feared,
As calm lakes ruffle when the zephyr plays.
And the remorse that not enough I cheered
My heart with joy, a thought so full of pain
That pleasures past it maketh unendeared,
Rankled within me in the days that wane,
For shame could not my cloudless soul appal,
Nor hue of indignation my brow stain.
To Heaven, to you, ye gentle lovers all,
I swear no evil will did in me strive,
None could my fire base and ignoble call.
That fire yet lives, my love is yet alive,
Still in my thought the beauteous image reigns,
Whence other joys than from the skies derive,
I never felt; enough content remains.




THE LONELY BIRD.8


Upon the summit of the ancient tower
Unto the land around, thou, lonely bird,
Carollest sweetly till the evening hour,
And through the vale thy melody is heard.
Spring makes the gentle air
Fragrant and bright, and animates the fields,
Bidding the gazer in his heart rejoice.
Hark to the lowing herds, the flocks that bleat,
The other birds that full of joyaunce sing
And in the air in happy circles meet,
As though they homage to their fair time bring.
Thou, full of thought, beholdest all aside,
Nor carest to take wing
With thy companions, scorning their delight.
Thou singest, and the flower
Of spring thus fadeth with thy life’s sweet hour.

Ah me! how like to thine
My habit doth appear! Pleasure and mirth,
The happy offspring of our earlier age,
And thou, Youth’s brother, Love,
Thou bitter sigh of our advancing years.
I heed not; why, I cannot tell; but far
From them I take my way;
And like a hermit lone,
Nor to my birthplace known,
I see the spring of my existence die.
This day that now is yielding to the night.
Was in our hamlet ever festive held.
Upon the air serene the bells resound
And frequent firing of the distant guns,
Arousing the deep echoes far and wide.
In festival attire
The youths and maidens go,
Leaving their homes, upon the country paths,
Rejoicing to be seen and to admire.
I to this tower, remote
From sight of men, repairing all alone,
All joy and mirth postpone
For other times; and as I gaze on high,
The sun doth strike mine eye;
Beyond the summit of yon mountain far,
After the day serene,
He sinketh to his rest, and seems to say
That happy youth is leaving me for aye.

Thou, lonely warbler, coming to the close
Of what the stars have granted thee to live,
In truth of these thy ways
Shalt not complain, for Nature on thee lays
Thy fondness of repose.
To me, if of old age
The dreaded terrors stern
I cannot from me turn,
When to no heart this soul of mine can yearn,
When void the earth will be, the future day
More than the present, wearisome and grey:
How will this lone mood seem?
What shall I of myself in past years deem?
Ah me! repent too late,
And often gaze behind disconsolate.

THE INFINITE.


I always loved this solitary hill
And this green hedge that hides on every side
The last and dim horizon from our view.
But as I sit and gaze, a never-ending
Space far beyond it and unearthly silence
And deepest quiet to my thought I picture,
And as with terror is my heart o’ercast
With wondrous awe. And while I hear the wind
Amid the green leaves rustling, I compare
That silence infinite unto this sound,
And to my mind eternity occurs,
And all the vanished ages, and the present;
Whose sound doth meet mine ear. And so in this
Immensity my thought is drifted on,
And to be wrecked on such a sea is sweet.




THE HOLIDAY NIGHT.


The night is fair, without a breath of wind,
And on the roofs and gardens full of peace
The moon reposes and reveals afar
Each mountain all serene. O my beloved!
The haunts of men are silent; in their homes
Rarely doth glimmer a nocturnal lamp.
Thou art asleep, by gentle slumber wrapped
Within thy quiet room; no carking care
Disturbs thy rest; nor dost thou know or think
How deep a wound thou openedst in my heart.
Thou art asleep; I sally forth to greet
The firmament, to gaze on so benign,
And Nature, mighty in her ancient ways,
Who made me but for woe. “To thee be hope
Denied,” she said, “even hope; and in thine eyes
No other light, save that of tears, may shine.”
This day was full of pleasure; from thy pastime
Thou now dost take repose: perchance in dreams
Those who pleased thee and whom thyself did please,
Thou seest; but not I, for all my hopes,
Occur unto thy fancy. I, meanwhile,
I ask myself how much of life remains
For me to live, and here upon the earth,
Moaning and shuddering, do I throw me down
In utter desolation. O ye days
So full of horror for such early years!
Ah, woe is me! Upon the road not far
I hear a workman’s solitary song;
After his joyaunce, in late hours of night
He is returning to his poor abode;
And bitterly my heart is rent in twain
When I consider all on earth doth pass
And leaveth not a trace. Behold! the day
Of joy is gone, and to its festive hours
The day of toil succeeds, and time doth take
Whate’er belongs to man. Where, where is now
The pride of ancient nations? Where the fame
Of our renowned forefathers, and the vast
Dominion of old Rome, the clash of arms
Resounding o’er the ocean and the earth?
All now is peace and silence, and the world
Is wrapped in rest, and speaks of them no more.
In those beginning years, when eagerly
We seek the festive day, I lay awake
When it was over, tossing full of grief
Upon my bed; and in late hours of night
A song I heard upon the road without,
Expiring in the distance by degrees,
With equal sorrow rent my heart in twain.




TO THE MOON.


O fair and gracious Moon! Well I remember
A year hath passed, since up this very hill
I came so full of anguish to behold thee:
And o’er yon forest thou didst shed thy beams,
As at this moment, filling it with light.
But veiled in mist, and tremulous with tears
That hung upon my lashes, to mine eyes
Thy radiance did appear, for dark with woe
Was then my life, and is, nor will it change,
O Moon, thou my adored! And yet I love
To bear in mind and one by one to count
The slow years of my sorrow. Oh, how sweet
It is to youth, when hope has yet a long,
And memory has but a brief, career,
To dwell in thought on things for ever past,
Though they be sad and though affliction live!




SOLITUDE.


When on his roost the cock begins to crow
And beat his wings; and to his work proceeds
The tiller of the soil; and on the dews
The rising sun his flashing rays doth cast:
Upon the panes the morning shower doth beat,
Awaking me from slumber with its sound:
And I arise and bless the filmy clouds,
The birds that tune their notes, the pleasant wind
And the delightful verdure of the meads:
Because, ye walls of unpropitious towns,
I’ve seen and known ye far too well, where Hate
Haunteth Affliction, where I sorrowing live,
And so shall die, would it were soon! At least
Some scanty pity is allowed my grief
In these abodes by Nature, once, alas!
How kinder far to me! And thou as well,
O Nature, turnest from the wretched; full
Of scorn for woe, thou payest homage vile
To Happiness, the universal queen.
In Heaven and Earth no friend for the ill-starred,
No refuge, death excepted, doth remain!
At times I seat me in a lonely spot,
Upon a hill, or by a calm lake’s bank,
Fringed and adorned with flowers taciturn.
There, when full mid-day heat informs the sky,
His peaceful image doth the sun depict,
And to the air moves neither leaf nor herb,
And neither ruffling wave nor cricket shrill,
Nor birds disporting in the boughs above,
Nor fluttering butterfly, nor voice nor step
Afar or near, can sight or hearing find.
Those shores are held in deepest quietude:
Whence I the world and even myself forget,
Seated unmoved; and it appears to me
My body is released, no longer worn
With soul or feeling, and its old repose
Is blended with the silence all around.
O fleeting Love! full many a day is gone
Since from my bosom thou hast ta’en thy flight,
Though fired of yore by most impassioned zeal.
It hath been blighted by the frigid hand
Of cold misfortune, and is turned to ice
Even in the time when it should blossom forth.
The period I remember when thou first
Didst hold thy court within this heart of mine.
It was the time, irrevocably sweet,
When youthful eyes are opened to the scene
Of earthly sorrow, and it smiles on them
As though it were a paradise below.
The guileless heart of youth doth gladly beat
For virgin hopes and for desires sublime;
And the deluded mortal doth prepare
For all the labours of his days to come,
As if they were a joyous festival
And gay carousah—But I scarcely saw,
Love, thine approach, than Fortune harsh destroyed
The tenour of my life, and to these eyes
Nought else was seemly than eternal tears.
But if at times along the sunny meads
In early morn, or when meridian rays
On hills and plains and houses shed their light,
I see the features of a maiden fair;
Or when in the untroubled quietude
Of Summer night my vagrant steps proceed
And guide me to the walls of near abodes,
And I behold the lonely scene, and hear
A maiden’s thrilling voice, who in the hours
Of silent night accompanies her work
With joyous lay; emotion moves my heart
That seemed a stone; but it, alas! returns
Ere long to wonted gloom: a stranger now
Is every tender feeling to my soul.
O beauteous moon, unto whose tranquil ray
The forest things display their love; and in
The early dawn the hunter doth complain,
Finding their traces intricate and false,
Erroneous led astray: hail, O benign
Nocturnal Queen! Unwelcome falls thy light
In lonely wood or mountainous recess
Or ruined building empty, on the steel
Of pallid bandit, who with eager ears
Hearkens afar unto the sound of wheels
And horses’ hoofs, or to the steps that tread
The quiet road; then suddenly advancing,
With clanking arms, and with a rough, rude voice.
And with death-boding looks, chills with alarm
The wanderer’s heart, and leaves him on the earth
Despoiled and well-nigh dead. Unwelcome comes
Within the city precincts, thy clear light
To paramour ignoble, who doth lurk
Near walls and portals, hiding in the shade
Of secret gloom, and standing still and dreading
The lamps that through the windows pour their ray,
And peopled halls. Unwelcome to base minds,
To me benign for ever shall thy sight
Amid the regions be, where nothing else
Than happy hills and spacious fields thou showest
Unto my gaze. And even I was wont,
Though innocent my soul, to accuse thy ray
Divinely fair in scenes inhabited,
When offering me unto the sight of men,
And showing human forms unto mine eye.
Now shall I praise it ever, when I gaze
Upon thee sailing ’mid the clouds, or thou
Serenest ruler of ethereal spheres,
Art looking down upon the abode of earth.
Thou oft shalt see me, taciturn and lone,
Wandering in bowers, or through the verdant meads,
Or on the grass reclining, well content
If I have leisure from deep heart to sigh.




TO HIS LOVE.


Loved beauty, who afar,
Or hiding thy sweet face,
Inspirest me with amorous delight,
Unless in slumberous night,
A sacred shade my dreamy visions trace
Or when the day doth grace
Our verdant meads and fair is Nature’s smile:
The age, devoid of guile,
Perchance thou blessedst, which we golden style,
And now amid the race
Of men thou fliest, light as shadows are,
Ethereal soul? Or did beguiling Fate
Bid thee, veiled from our eyes, the future times await?
To gaze on thee alive
The hope henceforth is flown,
Unless that time when naked and alone
Upon new paths unto a dwelling strange
My spirit shall proceed. When dawn did rive
The early clouds of my tempestuous day,
Methought thou wouldst upon earth’s barren soil
Be the companion of mine arduous range.
But there is nought we on our globe survey
Resembling thee; and if with careful toil
We could discover any like to thee,
She would less beauteous be,
Though much of thine in face, in limb, and voice we’d see.
Amid the floods of woe
That Fate hath given to our years below,
If son of man thy beauty did adore,
Even such as I conceive it in my mind,
He would existence, so unblessed before,
Sweet and delightful find;
And clearly doth to me my spirit tell
That I to praise and glory would aspire,
As in mine early years, for love of thee.
But Heaven hath not deemed well
To grant a solace to our misery;
And linked to thee, existence would acquire
Such beauty as on high doth bless the heavenly choir.
Amid the shady vale
Where sounds the rustic song
Of the laborious tiller of the soil,
Where seated I bewail
The youthful error that was with me long,
But now doth far recoil;
And on the hills where I, remembering, weep
The lost desires and the departed hope
Of my sad days, the thought of thee doth keep
My heart from death, and gives life further scope.
Could I in this dark age and evil air,
Preserve thine image in my soul most deep,
’Twere joy enough, for truth can never be our share.
If an eternal thought
Thou art, whom ne’er with mortal, fragile frame
Eternal Wisdom suffers to be fraught,
Or to become the prey
Of all the sorrows of death-bringing life;
Or if another globe,
Amid the innumerable worlds that flame
On high when Night displays her dusky robe,
Thy beauty doth convey;
Or star, near neighbour of the sun, doth leave
Its light on thee while gentler breezes play:
From where the days are short and dark with strife,
This hymn of an unknown adorer, oh receive!




THE REVIVAL.


I thought that in me utterly
In life’s most fragrant flower
The sweet woes had lost power,
Born in my early years.
The sweet woes and the tenderest
Sighs of the heart profound,
All things whereby a ground
For joy in life appears.

How many tears and murmurings
Did from my new state flow,
When I my heart of snow
Discovered void of pain!
Gone was the wonted agony,
And love I could not hold,
And this my bosom cold
Gave sighing up as vain.

I wept that life so desolate
And waste for me was made,
The earth in gloom arrayed,
Closed in eternal frost;
The day forlorn, the taciturn
Night more obscure and lone;
For me no kind moon shone;
The stars in Heaven were lost.

But of that grief the origin
In old affection lay;
Within my bosom’s sway
My heart was still alive.
Yet for the wonted images
The weary fancy sighed;
My sorrow’s boundless tide
With pain did ever strive.

Ere long in me that agony
Of pain was wholly spent,
And further to lament
I had no courage left.
I lay all senseless and amazed,
I did not ask for balm;
As though in death’s last calm,
My heart in twain was cleft.

I was from him how different,
In whom did ardours shine,
Who errors all divine
Fed in his soul of yore!
The early swallow vigilant,
Who near the windows gay
Salutes the rising day,
Moved this my heart no more;

Nor did the Autumn pale and sere
Where lonely I might dwell;
Nor did the evening bell;
Nor sun that sought the main.
In vain I saw bright Hesperus
Shine in celestial round,
In vain the valleys sound
With nightingale’s sweet pain.

And ye, O eyes of tenderness
And glances full of joy,
Ye, unto lovers coy
First love that never dies;
And snowy hand of whitest grace
That liest in my own;
In vain your power is shown,
My gloomy mood ne’er flies.

Bereft of every happiness,
Sad, but not tempest-torn,
I was not all forlorn,
My brow became serene.
I should have murmured for the end
Of this my life of woe,
If in me long ago
Dead had desire not been.

As in old age decrepitude
Makes life disprized and bare,
My years of youth most fair
Thus, thus alone were spent;
’Twas thus the days ineffable
Thou, O my heart, didst live,
Days that short joyaunce give,
By Heaven to us lent.

Who the obscure, inglorious
Repose bids me now miss?
What virtue new is this,
This that in me I find?
Emotions sweet, imaginings
Erroneous and sublime,
Are ye not for all time
The exiles of my mind?

Are ye in truth the only ray
Of these my sable years,
The loves I lost with tears
In a more tender age?
Though on the sky or verdant meads
Or where I list, I gaze,
Grief doth my soul amaze,
And yet delights assuage.

And with my musing sympathize
The plains, the woods and hills;
My heart doth hear the rills,
And murmur of the sea.
Who after such forgetfulness
Gives me the gift of tears?
How is it the earth appears
So changed and new to me?

Perchance fair Hope, O weary heart,
Hath granted thee a smile?
Ah! Hope, so full of guile,
I’ll ne’er again behold.
My fond delusions and desires
None else than Nature gave,
My native ardour brave
Grief did in bondage hold,

Though not destroy: ’twas unsubdued
By misery and fate,
Nor did it death await
From Truth’s unhallowed gaze.
To my divine imagining
I know that she is strange;
I know that Nature’s range
Lies far from Mercy’s ways;

That not for weal solicitous
She is, for life alone;
She bids us live to groan,
For nothing else she cares.
I know that the unfortunate
No pity find below,
That from the sight of woe
Men hurry unawares;

That this our age so reprobate
Scorns virtue and renown;
That glory fails to crown
The noble, learned toil.
And you, ye eyes so tremulous,
Ye glances all divine,
I know you idly shine,
And far from love recoil.

There is no wondrous, intimate
Affection in your gaze;
No spark ere long to blaze,
Lies in that snowy breast;
For it doth mock the tenderest
Emotion and desire;
And a celestial fire
By deep scorn is distrest.

And yet in me I feel revive
The dear illusions known:
My soul looks on its own
Sensations with surprise.
From thee, my heart, this last and fair
Spirit and inborn fire,
All comforts in my dire
Grief, but from thee arise.

I feel my spirit is not dowered,
Though lofty, sweet, and pure,
By Nature, Fortune’s lure,
The world, or loveliness:
But if thou livest, O, ill-starred,
And yieldest not to Fate,
I’ll ne’er as cruel hate
Who gave me life’s distress.




TO SILVIA.


Silvia, rememberest thou
Yet that sweet time of thine abode on earth,
When beauty graced thy brow
And fired thine eyes, so radiant and so gay;
And thou, so joyous, yet of pensive mood,
Didst pass on youth’s fair way?

The chambers calm and still,
The sunny paths around,
Did to thy song resound,
When thou, upon thy handiwork intent,
Wast seated, full of joy
At the fair future where thy hopes were bound.
It was the fragrant month of flowery May,
And thus went by thy day.

I leaving oft behind
The labours and the vigils of my mind,
That did my life consume,
And of my being far the best entomb,
Bade from the casement of my father’s house
Mine ears give heed unto thy silver song,
And to thy rapid hand
That swept with skill the spinning thread along.
I watched the sky serene,
The radiant ways and flowers,
And here the sea, the mountain there, expand.
No mortal tongue can tell
What made my bosom swell.

What thoughts divinely sweet,
What hopes, O Silvia! and what souls were ours!
In what guise did we meet
Our destiny and life?
When I remember such aspiring flown,
Fierce pain invades my soul,
Which nothing can console,
And my misfortune I again bemoan.
O Nature, void of ruth,
Why not give some return
For those fair promises? Why full of fraud
Thy wretched offspring spurn?

Thou ere the herbs by winter were destroyed,
Led to the grave by an unknown disease,
Didst perish, tender blossom: thy life’s flower
Was not by thee enjoyed;
Nor heard, thy heart to please,
The admiration of thy raven hair
Or of the enamoured glances of thine eyes;
Nor thy companions in the festive hour
Spoke of love’s joys and sighs.

Ere long my hope as well
Was dead and gone. By cruel Fate’s decree
Was youthfulness denied
Unto my years. Ah me!
How art thou past for aye,
Thou dear companion of my earlier day,
My hope so much bewailed!
Is this the world? Are these
The joys, the loves, the labours and the deeds
Whereof so often we together spoke?
Is this the doom to which mankind proceeds?
When truth before thee lay
Revealed, thou sankest; and thy dying hand
Pointed to death, a figure of cold gloom,
And to a distant tomb.




THE MEMORIES.


Ye stars of Ursa’s sign, I did not think
I should return, as formerly, to gaze
Upon you, shining on my father’s garden,
And with you to hold parley from the windows
Of this old mansion where in youth I dwelt,
And of my joys beheld the bitter end.
How many strange imaginings of yore
Your aspect and the stars that near you shine,
Created in my thoughts when ’twas my wont,
In silence wrapped, on verdant sward reclining,
To pass the hours of evening, gazing long
Upon the sky and list’ning to the sound
That issued from frog-haunted marshes far.
’Twas then the glow-worm hovered round the hedges
And o’er the beds of flowers; while to the wind
The fragrant alleys rustled, and beyond
The cypress forest moaned; and ’neath our roof
Voices proceeded, and the quiet work
Of the attendants. And what thoughts immense,
What sweetest dreams inspired me at the view
Of that far-distant sea, those azure mountains,
Which yonder I discern, and which some day
I hoped to cross, an unknown world, unknown
Felicity depicting to my years!
This life of mine, so painful and so bare,
I willingly with death would have exchanged!

Nor did my heart foretell I should be doomed
To consummate my youthful years in this
My native hamlet rude; amid a race
Ribaldrous, vile; to which are names most strange,
And often themes of mockery and jibes,
Learning and science; and it hates and shuns me,
Not out of envy, for it does not deem
My worth superior, but because it knows
That in my heart I think so, though thereof
An outward sign to none I ever gave.
Here do I pass my years, abandoned, hidden,
And without love or life; and needs amid
A rabble so malignant, bitter grow;
Here I discard all pity and all virtue,
And a despiser of mankind become,
Because of those around me; and, meanwhile,
The cherished time of youth escapes, more dear
Than fame or laurels, dearer than the pure
Radiance of day and vital breath; I lose thee
Without a joy, and uselessly, in this
Inhuman dwelling-place, immersed in woes,
Of barren life thou solitary flower!

I hear the wind that wafts the striking time
From yonder village-clock. I well remember
That sound was the sole comfort to my nights,
When as a child, in darkness of my room,
I passed a sleepless vigil, full of terrors,
Sighing for day. Around me there is nothing
I see or hear, whence fancies old do not
Return, or sweet remembrances arise,
Sweet in themselves; but full of pain appears
The present to my mind, the vain desire
For what is past, though sad, the thought “I was!”
Yon loggia, turned towards the dying light
Of the expiring day; these pictured walls,
Those herds that live in painting, and the sun
O’er lonely country rising, to my leisure
Gave many joys, what time my mighty error
Beside me stood, wherever I might be,
Prompting my heart. Here in these ancient halls,
When shone the snow without, and stormy blasts
Were whistling round these ample windows high,
My pleasures had their scene, and my gay laugh
Re-echoed in that time when we suppose
The bitter, cruel mystery of things
Entirely sweet; an inexperienced lover,
Admiring heavenly beauty he conceives,
The youth pays court unto his life which yet
Before him lies untasted, unconsumed.

Ye hopes, ye vanished hopes, ye sweet illusions
Of my beginning years! always in song
To you I come; and although time doth fly,
And thoughts do change, and even affections vary,
Forget you, I shall never. Shades, I know,
Are glory and honour, riches and delight,
Merest desire; life doth not yield a fruit,
Tis useless misery. And although empty
Are these my years, and desolate and dark
My lot on earth, I see that fortune keeps
Little from me. Alas! but when my thoughts
Recur to you, oh ye my ancient hopes!
And to my fond imagining of yore,
And then consider my existence, made
So painful and so vile that death is all
That of such high aspiring still is mine:
I feel my heart contract, I feel that wholly
There is no consolation for my fate.
And when at last this long implored for death
Shall come to me, and thus the end be reached
Of all my woes; when to my soul this earth
Shall be a vale remote; and from my sight
The future shall escape: of ye in truth
I will be mindful, and even then your image
Will make me sigh, will make the thought most bitter
That I have lived in vain, and even the sweetness
Of dying it will temper with affliction.

Even in the earliest youthful turbulence
Of happiness, of anguish, of desire,
I often called for death; and long I sat
Out there, upon the margin of yon fountain,
And thought of ending in that lucid stream
My hope and pain. But soon Misfortune blind
Conducted me through life’s most various maze,
And I then wept for youth and for the flower
Of my ill-fated days, that ere its time
Withered; and often through belated hours
Upon my bed reclining, mournfully
Conning my verses at the lamp’s dim ray,
With silence and with night I did lament
My spirit flying hence, and on myself
In languid pain a funeral dirge I sang.

Who without sighing can remember ye,
O early dawn of youth, O happy days
Charming beyond narration? When on man
Fair women first do smile and make him blest
With tokens of their love; when all around
Is radiant; when even envy still is silent,
Not yet roused, or else kind; and when it seems,
Oh unaccustomed miracle! the world
Doth offer him a helping, generous hand,
Forgives his errors, celebrated his new
Arrival in this life, and full of homage
Appears to hail him and receive him lord?
Ah fleeting days! As swift as lightning’s flash
They disappear. And who of those on earth
Can be to woe a stranger, if for him
That season is no more, if his fair time,
If youth, ah youth! for evermore be gone?

O my Nerina I and perchance of thee
These scenes I hear not tell? Art thou perchance
Fallen from my recollection? Where art thou,
That here of thee the memory alone
I find, my sweetest love? This native soil
Sees thee no more; that window, whence thy wont
It was to hold discourse with me, and whence
Sadly the starry radiance is reflected,
Is desolate. Where art thou, that no more
I hear thy voice as in a former day,
When every distant accent from thy lips
That reached mine ear, had in it such a charm,
It changed my hue? Those times are gone. Those days
Are over, my adored. Thou passedst. Others
By Fate are now allowed on earth to live
And make their dwelling ’mid these fragrant hills.
But far too rapidly thy life did end,
Even as a dream. It was thy wont to dance,
And on thy brow shone joy, and in thine eyes
That fond imagining, that radiant light
Of youth, when Fate extinguished them, and thou
Didst lie in death. Ah me, Nerina! Still
The old love reigns in my heart. If I at times
To festive pleasures go, unto myself
I say: “Alas, Nerina I For such joys
Thou dost no more array thee, nor proceed.”
If May returns, and flowers and roundelays
The lovers offer to their well-beloved,
I say, “Nerina mine! for thee no more
Doth Spring return, nor do the sweets of love.”
Each day serene in beauty, and each bed
Of flowers I see, each joyaunce that I feel,
I say: “Nerina now no more enjoys them,
Nor sees the earth and sky.” Ah, thou art gone,
Thou my eternal sigh, gone: and united
With all my musings, with my tenderest feelings,
And with the heart’s emotions, sad yet dear.
Shall be for aye the bitter memory.




THE NOCTURNAL SONG

OF A

NOMADIC SHEPHERD IN ASIA.


Wherefore, O Moon, art thou on high? O say,
Thou silent Moon serene!
At night thou dost proceed,
Our waste beholding, then dost sink to rest.
Hast thou ne’er weary been
Of repursuing the everlasting way?
Untired as yet, still takest thou delight
On earth to turn thy sight?
Even as thy life on high,
The shepherd’s life doth fly.
When dawn succeeds to night,
He sallies forth and leads his flock to graze.
He sees the grass and flowers,
And, weary, resteth in nocturnal hours,
Nor other hope doth raise.
Say, Moon, what boots his life
To humble swain, or thy
Divine existence unto thee on high?
Where doth my life below,
Thy course immortal go?

Even as an old man bent,
Ragged and white of hair,
Whose aching shoulders grievous fardels bear,
O’er mountains and through vales,
O’er pointed rocks, through sandy wastes, through marshes,
A prey to winds, to tempests, to fierce heat,
To snow, to ice, to sleet,
Still toils upon his way,
Through sloughs and torrents goes,
Falls, rises, hurries as though time were brief,
Without rest or relief,
Footsore and suffering, until he arrives
Where his long path did tend,
Where all his weary wandering finds an end:
A dread abyss profound
Where dark oblivion grasps him as her prey:
Thou virgin Moon, even so
Is this our life below.

Man draws for toil his breath,
And birth itself is on the verge of death.
In pain and suffering dire
His days begin, and in life’s early morn
His mother and his sire
Try to console him that he e’er was born.
As he in years doth grow,
They help him onwards, and for ever strive,
By action and by word,
To keep his hope alive,
And to console him for our fate below:
Nor any way more kind
Their fondness to display, can parents find.
But why give to the light,
Why with life animate
A wretched spirit ever seeking balm?
If heavy be our fate,
Why do we bear its weight?
O virgin Moon, even so
Is this our life below.
But thou in region calm
Dost little heed upon my wail bestow.

Eternal pilgrim on thy lonely way,
Who full of thought dost shed thy silver ray,
Perchance to thee well known
Are life and suffering and distressful moan;
Thou knowest what is death, what the supreme
Grey pallor of the face,
The earth that leaveth not a mental trace,
And the awakening from our life’s deep dream.
And thou, in truth, dost see
The cause of things, and what the fruit may be
Of morning and of night,
And of Time’s silent, never-ending flight.
Thou knowest, in truth, what tender love and sweet
Spring with its buds doth greet,
Why summer heats arise, and what device
Brings winter with its ice.
A thousand things unto thy soul are plain,
Which are but riddles to the simple swain.
Oft when I see thee shine
In lonely sphere and solemn state divine
Upon our waste that stretches to the skies;
Or when my flock I lead
And see thy radiance on my path proceed,
And when the stars’ clear rays attract mine eyes,
Within my soul I say:
“What means so many a ray?
Where goes the wind? what booteth in the sky
The endless space serene? What is the thought
Of this vast solitude, and what am I?”
Thus my amazement to express I sought,
Nor of the proud abode,
Too vast in size, nor of the unnumbered race,
Nor of the labours and the powers that goad
All things of earth and of the realms divine,
Revolving without rest,
To be again where they commenced their road:
Of all I cannot trace
The use or meaning. Surely thou art blest
With deeper lore, who in the spheres dost shine.
I only know and feel,
Of all the skies reveal,
Of my frail life below,
That unto me existence is but woe.

O thou, my flock that liest in repose!
Thrice blessed thou, unconscious of distress!
How much I envy thee!
Nor merely that from woes
Thy destiny is free,
Nor that all things unkind,
All sudden fears soon vanish from thy mind;
But most because thou knowest not weariness.
When lying on a grassy plot in shade,
Thou art contented made.
A long part of the year
Thus flies by thee, and not a care is near.
And I as well on grassy plot in shade
My body oft have laid;
But weariness lies heavy on my soul;
And, seated, I am further from the goal
Of peace and sweet repose.
And yet I yearn for nought,
Nor have I any reason for my woes.
What makes thy happy state
I cannot say; but thou art fortunate,
And I have little joy,
My flock; nor therein lies my whole annoy.
If thou couldst speak, I’d ask
Why, lying in calm shade,
All beasts are happy made;
But when I leisure know
I am assailed by weariness and woe?

If wings perchance had I
Above the clouds to fly,
And one by one the radiant stars to count,
Or like fierce thunder o’er the crags to roam,
I should be happier, thou my gentle flock,
I should be happier, virgin Moon on high.
Or else, perchance, my thought
By vagrant dreams is full of errors fraught;
Perchance in every form
That Nature may on everything bestow,
The day of birth brings everlasting woe.




THE RULING THOUGHT.


Omnipotent and kind,
Lord of the deep recesses of my mind;
In terrors clad, yet dear
Gift of the skies; so near
In my gloom-darkened days,
Thought upon which so oft I fix my gaze:

Thy nature unrevealed
Who doth not contemplate? Who wears a shield
Impervious to thy power?
Though tongue of man must say
What passion in his bosom beareth sway,
All thou may’st utter seemeth new for aye.

How like a hermit lone
Was this my spirit made
Even from the time thou didst my mind invade!
As rapidly as lightnings flash and die,
My other thoughts did fade,
Not one remaining. Like a strong tower, high
On solitary plain,
Thou, lonely giant, o’er my soul dost reign.

What to my visionary gaze became
All things of earth, and all
That life can give, alone excepting thee!
How on my spirit pall
The labours and the leisure,
And vain desiring of still vainer pleasure,
Compared unto that joy,
That heavenly joy, which maketh thee my treasure!

As from the naked peaks
Of rugged Appenine,
With longing gaze the weary pilgrim seeks
The verdant meads that in the distance shine:
Thus from the harsh and dry
Scene of the world, to thee I gladly fly,
As to a beauteous garden, and I find
Thy fair abode unto my spirit kind.

I scarcely can believe
That I this life and our ignoble world
For years of weary length
Without thee had the strength
To bear. Hard to conceive
It is that men aspire,
Ignoring thee, to many a vain desire.

Ne’er from the hour when first
Experience taught me what this life can be,
Did fear of death bring terror to my heart;
And now a jest to me
Seems what the world so base
At times extols, but never dares to face,
The necessary end:
If any peril falleth to my part,
Before its threat my spirit doth not bend.

I always held in scorn
The craven and the mean;
Now every deed, of lowly baseness born,
Doth move my spirit keen;
My soul doth flash with ire
When human vileness desolates my view.
This haughty age untrue,
Feeding itself on barren hopes and vain,
To folly gentle, and to virtue dire,
That asks for things of use,
Nor sees by what abuse
Our life becometh useless more and more,
I loathe, arising o’er
Its meanness. Human acts I ne’er esteem;
The crowd that doth disdain
Thy loveliness, in all I worthless deem.

What passion doth not yield
To that inspired by thee?
The one thou hast revealed
Alone rules man in sovran majesty.
Pride, hatred, avarice and fierce disdain,
The zeal to shine and reign,
What else than shadows vain
Are they beside it? One affection lives
Among our race below,
By laws eternal sent
To rule mankind, a lord omnipotent.

Life hath no meaning and not one delight
Except from that which unto man is all,
The sole excuse of Fate
Who placed on earthly soil
Our race to languish in such fruitless toil;
Whereby alone at times,
Not to the rabble, but the gentle heart,
Life more than death appears the better part.
To cull thy joys, O thought divinely sweet!
The weight of human woes,
Of life the weary chain,
Were not endured in utter anguish vain;
And I would even return,
Versed as I am in every earthly ill,
For such a goal to repursue the road.
Of viper’s sting and of the sands that burn
I never felt the goad
So much, that, coming unto thy relief,
It gave no balm unto terrestrial grief.

What wondrous worlds, what new
Immensities, what Paradise is there,
Where oft thy wizard power my spirit drew
In lofty flights, and where
By other radiance than on earth e’er shined,
I stray, nor to my mind
My earthly state recall, nor truth unkind!
Such are, methinks, the dreams
Of the immortals. Ah! a dream, in sooth,
Thou art, sweet thought, a garment to adorn
Harsh and unlovely truth,
An error palpable. But even of those
Fair errors Nature shows,
Thou art divine, because so strong and deep,
That ’gainst the real thou thy ground dost keep;
Thy power its equal seems,
And only in death from mortal spirit goes.

And thou, indeed, my thought, unto my days
Alone the vital breath,
Thou cherished cause of infinite despair,
With me shalt fall beneath the stroke of death:
I gather from the signs my soul displays
That thou shalt reign, eternal monarch, there.
All other errors, sweet
Disperse on pinions fleet
At Truth’s approach. And even the more I turn
Upon her brow to gaze,
Of whom with thee discoursing my days fly,
The more the joyaunce grows,
The frenzy wild whence my existence flows.
Angelic loveliness!
The fairest face that ever met mine eye,
Methinks like image vain
Attempts to rival thee. Thou art alone
The fountain and the spring
Of every charm that can enchantment bring.

From when I saw thee first,
What other care did ever prompt my heart
Than love of thee? How much of day doth part
Without a thought of thine? In sleep immerst,
When lay my weary soul
By dreams unhaunted of thy sovran form?
As beautiful as dreams
Thy angel vision seems.
On earth below or in the distant spheres:
What hope to me appears
Of finding aught more lovely than thine eyes,
Or sweeter joyaunce than thy thought supplies?




LOVE AND DEATH.


“He dies in youth who to the gods is dear.”
MBNANDER.

Brethren at one time, Love and Death, did Fate
Of yore ingenerate.
Nought fairer here below

Hath this our world, nor have the stars, to show.
Joys from the one do flow,
The greatest joys that we
Can in the ocean of existence see.
The other every pain
And every woe bids wane.
A maiden fair of face,
Sweet to behold, not such
As doth imagine this our craven race,
She likes to join full oft
The youthful god of love,
And both then fly aloft,
The paths of earth above,
Chief comfort of each wise and noble heart;
Nor was a heart more wise
Than when by love inspired;
Nor in a braver mood
This life of woe and anguish to despise,
Nor for a lord more high
Than this one is, each danger to defy:
For where thou giv’st thine aid,
Love, courage soon is made,
Or doth revive; in noble actions wise
And not, as it is wont, in idle mind,
Becomes our humankind.

When in the heart profound
Ariseth young and
A weary, languid longing for the grave
Our bosom doth inspire:
How, I know not; but such
Of real love the first effect is found.
Perchance our eyes we cast
Upon the desert of the world aghast,
And mortal man his habitation loathes
Without that joy supreme
Whereof his soul doth dream;
But in his heart foreboding tempests wild
From that same joy, he sighs for quiet mild
And for a harbour’s ease
That should the storm appease,
Of which he felt such wild emotions vast.

And when with vivid fire
The passion burns the heart,
And an imperishable empire gains:
How many times, O Death,
With an intense desire
The lover prays thee to conclude his pains!
How oft by night, how oft
By day, impatient of his weary frame,
He would have called his destiny divine,
If he had ne’er arisen,
Nor seen again the unpitying planets shine!
And oft when tolled the deep funereal knell,
And sang the dirge beside the sable hearse
That bears the dead to their eternal night,
With many burning sighs
From deepest heart he envied the repose
Of him who went among the tombs to dwell.
Even they of low degree:
The tiller of the soil,
All strength ignoring that from wisdom flows.
The tender maiden, full of fear and shame,
Who at the very name
Of Death was wont to quake:
The gloomy horrors of the dreaded grave
Oft overcome with fortitude most brave,
Long thoughtful of the means
That end all earthly woes,
And in uncultured mind
The wondrous beauty of expiring find.
So much to death inclined
The power of love appears; and many a time,
To such a height the furious tempest risen
That it breaks through the trammels of its prison,
The body worn and frail
Yields to the storm, and Death we see prevail
Even in that guise through her fraternal power;
Or Love so deeply stirs the heart to ire,
That by their deed the rustic, void of guile,
And tender maiden fair
In agonised despair
Their lives destroy when youth doth on them smile.
The world doth mock their end,
To whom may Heaven peace and old age send.

To fervent, to sublime,
To daring souls august,
May one or both of ye kind Fortune yield,

O friends and lords, and shield
Of this our humankind,
Ye to whose power no rival power we find
Throughout the world, where we our eyes may cast,
Unless in Fate, so terrible and vast.
And thou, whom even from earliest days of yore
I honour and implore,
Thou beauteous Death, alone
Of all the world to earthly woes benign!
If e’er to thee I’ve shown
My love in song, if to thy sway divine
I tried to expiate
Unthankful scorn and hate,
Delay no more, incline
To an unwonted prayer,
Close from the light’s harsh glare
These tear-worn eyes, O sovereign of our fate!
Me thou shalt find, whatever be the day
When at my moan thou shalt thy wings display,
With an undaunted brow,
’Gainst Fortune fortified,
The ruthless hand that with my guileless gore
Is crimsoned o’er and o’er.
Not covering with praise,
Not blessing, as the ways
Of men dictate, whom ancient errors guide;
All idle hopes that may console them now
Like children in their grief,
And every comfort brief
I’ll spurn: nought else than thee in any age
Implore my woes to assuage;
Hope but that day’s relief
When I, serene, my head can lay to rest
Upon thy virgin breast.




TO HIMSELF.


Now shalt thou rest for aye,
My weary heart. The final error dies
Wherewith I nourished my divinest dreams.
’Tis gone. I feel in me for sweet delusions
Not merely hope, but even desire, is dead.
Rest for all time. Enough
Hath been thine agitation. There is nought
So precious, thou shouldst seek it; and the earth
Deserveth not a sigh. But weary bitterness
Is life, nought else, and ashes is the world.
Be now at peace. Despair
For the last time. Unto our race did Fate
Give nought, save death. Now hold in scorn and hate
Thyself and Nature and the power unknown,
That reigns supreme unto the grief of all,
And the vast vanity of this terrestrial ball.




ASPASIA.


Again at times appeareth to my thought
Thy semblance, O Aspasia I either flashing
Across my path amid the haunts of men
In other forms; or ’mid deserted fields
When shines the sun or tranquil host of stars,
As by the sweetest harmony awoke,
Arising in my soul which seems once more
To yield unto that vision all superb,
How much adored, O Heaven I of yore how fully
The joyaunce and the halo of my life?
I never meet the perfume of the gardens,
Or of the flowers that cities may display,
Without beholding thee as thou appearedst
Upon that day, when in thy splendid rooms
Which gave the perfume of the sweetest flowers
Of recent Spring, arrayed in robes that bore
The violet’s hue, first thine angelic form
Did meet my gaze as thou, reclining, layest
On strange, white furs, and deep, voluptuous charm
Seemed to be thine, whilst thou, a skilled enchantress
Of loving hearts, upon the rosy lips
Of thy fair children many a fervent kiss
Imprintedst, bending down to them thy neck
Of snowy beauty, and with lovely hand
Their guileless forms, unconscious of thy wile,
Clasping unto thy bosom, so desired,
Though hidden. To the visions of my soul
Another sky and more entrancing world
And radiance as from heaven were revealed.
Thus in my heart, though not unarmed, thy power
Infixed the arrow which I wounded bore,
Until that day when the revolving earth
A second time her yearly course fulfilled.

A ray divine unto my thought appeared,
Lady, thy beauty. Similar effects
Beauty and music’s harmony produce,
Revealing both the mysteries sublime
Of unknown Eden. Thence the loving soul,
Though injured in his love, adores the birth
Of his fond mind, the amorous idea
That doth include Olympus in its range,
And seems in face, in manner, and in speech
Like unto her whom the enchanted lover
Fancies alone to cherish and admire.
Not her, but that sweet image, he doth clasp
Even in the raptures of a fond embrace,
At last his error and the objects changed
Perceiving, wrath invades him, and he oft
Wrongly accuses her he thought he loved.
The mind of woman to that lofty height
Rarely ascends, and what her charms inspire
She little thinks and seldom understands.
So frail a mind can harbour no such thought;
In vain doth man, deluded by the light
Of those enthralling eyes, indulge in hope;
In vain he asks for deep and hidden thoughts,
Transcending mortal ken, of her to whom
Hath Nature’s laws a lesser rank assigned,
For as her frame less strength than man’s received,
So too her mind less energy and depth.?

Nor thou as yet what inspirations vast
Within my thought thy loveliness aroused,
Aspasia, could’st conceive. Thou little knowest
What love unmeasured and what woes intense,
What frenzy wild and feelings without name,
Thou didst within me move, nor shall the time
Appear when thou canst know it. Equally
The skilled performer ignorant remains
Of what with hand or voice he doth arouse
Within his hearers. That Aspasia now
Is dead, whom I so worshipped. She lies low
For evermore, once idol of my life:
Unless at times, a cherished shade, she rises,
Ere long to vanish. Thou art still alive,
Not merely lovely, but of such perfection
That, as I think, thou dost eclipse the rest.
But now the ardour, born of thee, is spent:
Because I loved not thee, but that fair goddess
Who had her dwelling in me, now her grave.
Her long I worshipped, and so was I pleased
By her celestial loveliness, that I,
Even from the first full conscious and aware
Of what thou art, so wily and so false,
Beholding in thine eyes the light of hers,
Fondly pursued thee while she lived in me;
Not dazzled or deluded; but induced
By the enjoyment of that sweet resemblance,
A long and bitter slavery to bear.

Now boast, for well thou may’st; say that alone
Of all thy sex art thou to whom I bent
My haughty head, to whom I gladly gave
My heart in homage. Say that thou wert first
And last, I truly hope, to see mine eyes’
Imploring gaze, and me before thee stand
Timid and fearful (as I write, I burn
With wrath and shame); me of myself deprived,
Each look of thine, each gesture and each word
Observing meekly; at thy haughty freaks
Pale and subdued; then radiant with delight
At any sign of favour; changing hue
At every glance of thine. The charm is gone;
And with it shattered, falls the heavy yoke,
Whence I rejoice. Though weariness be with me,
Yet after such delirium and long thraldom,
Gladly my freedom I again embrace,
And my unshackled mind. For if a life
Void of affections and of errors sweet,
Be like a starless night in winter’s depth,
Revenge sufficient and sufficient balm
It is to me that here upon the grass
Leisurely lying and unmoved, I gaze
On sky, earth, ocean, and serenely smile.




ON AN ANCIENT SEPULCHRAL BASSO RILIEVO

REPRESENTING A MAIDEN TAKING LEAVE OF HER FRIENDS.


Where goest thou, and what imperious voice
Calls thee away from love,
Thou maiden fair of face?
Why, lonely wanderer, from thy native place
Dost thou depart before thy days are old?
Say, wilt thou ne’er return? No more rejoice
Whom round thee now thou dost in tears behold?

Thou weepest not, and dauntless is thy brow,
Though sadness on thy features leaves a trace.
If life hath pleasing or unjoyous been,
If dark with gloom or bright with joy the place
To which thou hurriest now,
Is by no sign upon thy features seen.
Alas! I cannot find
Solution of the problem in my mind:
Nor can our race below
With full assurance know
If Heaven to thee doth gentle favour show,
Or unrelenting ire,
Or if thy doom be fortunate or dire.

Death summons thee. The dawning of thy days
Beholds their early close.
The home thy footsteps leave
Shall ne’er again thy beauteous form receive.
On thy fond parents thou no more shalt gaze;
Beneath the earth thy future home is laid,
Where for all time thy dwelling shall be made.
It may be, thou art blest: but on thy doom
Who meditates, must sigh in bitter gloom.

The light ne’er to have seen,
Methinks would be the best. But, being born,
When beauty first begins to reign, a queen,
And the fair form to adorn,
And meets eternal praise,
And many a fervent and adoring gaze;
When Hope her fragrant buds begins to show,
And ere the beauteous land and sky around
Unpitying Truth in darkness doth confound:
To find, like vaporous and ethereal clouds
That in frail shapes on the horizon play,
The future fly, as though unheralded,
The joys of times desired
Beneath the silent tombstone lying dead:
If in this doom the mind
Some happiness can find,
Even sternest heart with pity must be fired.

Thou mother feared and wept
By mortal races from their earliest days,
Nature, thou marvel that I cannot praise,
Who givest life in order to destroy!
If agony be kept
Alive by early and untimely death,
Why on the innocent thy wrath employ?
And if it give relief,
Why of all woes the chief,
Why make the parting so disconsolate
To him who still draws breath,
To him whom Death’s eternal realms await?

Unhappy where we gaze,
Unhappy where we turn or where we rest,
Are man’s disastrous days!
It pleaseth thee that void
And utterly destroyed
Should be our youthful hope; that seas of woe
Should part our years; to evil only shield
Be Death; and that which we can never shun,
The law stern and supreme,
By thee is given us when our course is run.
Ah me! But after our laborious way
Why is, at least, the goal not fair and gay?
Why her, who doth control
Our future, looming darkly in our soul,
Why her, who is the balm
To these our days ne’er calm,
In sable robes array,
Involve in shadows grey?
Why in our fancy form
The harbour more terrific than the storm?

If this, indeed, be woe,
This death which thou dost keep
Impending o’er us all, whom, without guilt,
Unconscious and unwilling, thou hast doomed
To live; he who is wrapped in death’s long sleep,
Should more our envy rouse,
Than he who liveth his beloved to weep.
If, as I firmly think,
Life is but misery
And death a mercy, yet whoever could
Desire, even as he should,
The fatal day of those to him most dear,
To find himself bereaved,
Disconsolate and grieved,
To see away from his deserted home
The cherished figure borne
That did for many years his life adorn?
To utter an eternal fare-thee-well,
Without hope finding birth
To meet again on earth;
Then lonely and abandoned in this world,
Gazing around in wonted time and scene,
To bear in mind the union that hath been?
Ah I tell me, Nature, how hast thou the heart
From the embrace to rend
Of friend, the loving friend,
From brother, brother dear,
The offspring from the sire,
And love from love; and bidding one expire,
Doom the survivor to existence dire?
How could thy ruthless deed
Cause so much sorrow that the living bleed
In heart for love entombed? But Nature’s end,
On her mysterious way,
Is not to foster joy, or sorrow to allay.




THE SETTING OF THE MOON.


As in the lonely night
O’er lakes and mountains bathed in silver light,
When zephyr gaily plays,
And visions meet our gaze,
Strange forms that weave a power
In the nocturnal hour,
By distant shadows wrought
O’er hill and dale and gently flowing streams:
The Moon descends unto the sky’s last verge
Behind the ridge of Alp or Appenine,
Or in the Tyrrhene sea her rays doth merge;
And as she falls, no radiance more doth shine,
The shadows fade, and all
The world lies wrapped in one funereal pall;
Bereaved the night remains;
And singing in impassioned, mournful strains,
The wanderer salutes the last, faint ray
Of her who lit his way
With argent crescent in the spheres divine:

Even thus youth wanes and flies,
And every joyaunce dies,
And Hope expires, the reed whereon we leant
In happier days, ere every bliss was spent,
And ere our life obscure
And desolate became.
The weary wanderer gazes on the scene
Of sable hue that now doth intervene,
And vainly asketh why
So dire a path before him yet should lie;
And as unto his eye
The world appeareth changed,
He finds himself no more what he hath been,
But to the world and all its ways estranged.

Too happy and too gay
Our span of mortal life
Would seem unto the powers that rule above,
If youthfulness were to endure for aye,
Wherein a thousand sorrows yield one joy;
Too gentle the decree
Whence all that liveth doomed to death we see,
Unless a gift were made,
When men have finished half of their long way,
Than death itself with greater terrors fraught;
The worst of ills and the extreme of woe,
Old age was found by an unswerving doom,
Wherein desire doth glow,
Hope wanes and pales and dwindles down to nought,
The fountains of delight are frozen and quelled,
The sorrow’s greater, and all bliss withheld.

Ye mountains and ye plains,
When fall the rays that in the West adorn I
With silvery trace the sable veil of night,
Ye shall not be forlorn
For many hours: the Eastern skies ere long
Ye shall perceive aglow
With break of day and early rise of morn,
Whom following, the Sun his fires doth show,
And blazing all around
In full effulgence strong,
With seas of light invades
The space above and the terrestrial glades.
But life of man, when lovely youth is spent,
No other light hath found,
Nor to existence other dawn is lent:
’Tis lonely and bereaved even to its close:
And to the night that weighs on later years,
By the decree of doom,
As goal is given the silence of the tomb.




THE GENISTA

OR

THE FLOWER OF THE DESERT.


“Men loved darkness rather than the light.”
ST. JOHN III., XIX.

Here on the barren soil
Of Mount Vesuvius dread,
That fell destroyer stern
Who doth delight no other flower or tree,
Thy solitary blossoms thou dost spread,
Fragrant Genista sweet,
Rejoicing in the deserts. I beheld
Thy flowers adorn the lonely hills that stand
Around the city grand,
That was of yore the Empress of mankind,
And for the reign resigned,
They with their dumb solemnity austere
Seem from the wanderer to claim a tear.
Now I again behold thee on this shore;
Fond of sad haunts, abandoned by the world,
Companion of misfortune evermore.
These regions, sprinkled o’er
With showers of barren ashes and supplied
With lava petrified,

Resounding to the pilgrim as he treads:
Where we see twining in the sun the snake,
And where in caverns dark
The timorous hares their wonted refuge take:
Were happy homes, and fields,
Like those where harvest now its rich boon yields,
Alive with lowing herds;
They were palatial halls
And wondrous gardens, dear
Unto the great, and famous cities’ walls:
All which the haughty mountain with the torrents
That from his fiery crater ruthless rolled,
Crushed, while their inmates were by death destroyed.
Now ruin makes a void
Of all around where, beauteous flower, thou growest,
And as in pity for the scene of woe
Upon the air a perfume sweet bestowest,
Consoling to the desert. To this shore
Let him proceed whose wont it is to praise
Our earthly state, and let him see how much
Our race is held in care
By loving Nature. And he here as well
Can more exactly tell
How far extends the power of human kind,
Whom its harsh tyrant, when it least may fear,
With slight exertion can destroy in part,
And with a little more
Could in an instant wholly sweep away,
Annihilate, and slay.
Upon these shores are seen
Of our poor human race
“The splendid fortunes and progressive pace.”9
Here gaze as on a mirror,
Thou age unwise and proud,
Who errest from the way
That rising thought illumined with its ray,
And as thy steps a backward course pursue,
Art glad of thy return,
Which seemeth progress to thy troubled view.
Thy folly by all minds
Whose evil destiny made thee their sire,
Is pampered, even though
They, when unheeded, throw
Disdain on thee. Not I
Will so inglorious sink into my grave,
’Twere easy enough, I know,
For me to join the others in their wrong
And to thine ears melodious make my song:
But rather the disdain of thee that lies
Within my bosom deep,
I shall, as widely as I can, display,
Although neglect for those
Be held in store who much their age oppose.
This evil which I’ve borne
With thee in common, moved till now my scorn.
Fair freedom is the subject of thy dreams:
Yet thou enslavest thought,
By whom alone we’re brought
From rudeness by degrees, by whom alone
Is culture fostered, who alone can send
The fate of nations to a better end.
So much didst thou in horror hold the truth
Of the harsh doom and dungeon-like abode
That Nature gave us. Therefore didst thou turn,
With craven soul, thy vision from the light
That made it clear; and in thy flight dost spurn
As vile who seek its rays,
And him alone dost praise,
Who, scornful of himself or of the rest,
Above the stars says man’s degree is blest.

He, poor of state and suffering of frame,
Who has a generous and lofty soul,
Doth not the homage claim
That gold and strength procure,
Nor of a splendid life and figure proud
Maketh among the crowd
An empty show absurd;
But not with treasures or with vigour blessed
He owns himself unfeigning, and is heard
In discourse to be candid on himself,
Still giving truth its due.
Unwise I hold his mind,
And not of loftier kind,
Who, born to perish and in sorrow bred,
?Says: “I am made for joy;”
And with unhallowed pride
The annals of humanity supplied,
Grand destinies and wondrous happiness,
Which even to Heaven are strange, not to our globe
Alone, predicting here
To those whom stormy wave
Or breath of air malignant, or the shock
Of earthquake, so destroys
That Memory scarcely lingers o’er their grave.
A noble nature he
Who with a spirit free
Dares mortal eye to raise
Upon our common fate; who with bold tongue,
Debarring nought from truth,
Owneth the evil Fortune bade prevail,
And our low state and frail;
Who in affliction dire
Shows fortitude and lofty strength of soul,
Nor the fraternal hatred and the ire
So frequent on our earth, and worst of ills,
Unto his misery addeth by declaring
Man guilty of his woe, but casteth blame
On her alone who merits all the shame,
Who gives birth to mankind,
But all whose deeds we harsh and cruel find.
Her he calls hostile; and considering men,
As truth itself declares,
In union joined against her evil ways
By social bonds of old,
He as confederates doth all mortals hold
Among themselves, and all
With equal love surveys,
And giveth aid where ’tis desired and needed
In various peril and disastrous ways,
Beset by common warfare. And to raise
A vengeful hand for injuries of men,
Our neighbour to destroy,
So ill-advised he deems as on the field
Of battle, close surrounded by the foe,
When most the fight doth rage
Against our friends to wage
Disastrous war, oblivious of the rest,
And with pernicious sword
To spread dismay and slaughter ’mid their ranks.
When thoughts like these are made,
As once they were, unto the nations known,
By real knowledge in its influence vast;
And the dread horror shown
That first ’gainst Nature bade
Our humankind in social chain unite:
Then shall the just, the honest and the right,
And patriotic fire,
And mercy find a more enduring source
Than is supplied by haughty dreams and vain
That now the vulgar righteousness sustain,
Which proves itself even so
As everything that doth from error flow.10

Full often on this shore,
Clad by the hardened flood
Of lava in a garment dark of hue
That seems to surge, I seat myself at night,
And shining on the saddened land, the stars
In plains of purest azure meet my view,
Reflected by the deep;
And through the space serene in circles vast
The sparkling Heavens open on my sight,
And when my vision on those lights I cast,
That seem so small to be,
And are in truth so large
That by their side would shrivel land and sea
To nothingness; to whom
Not humankind alone
Is utterly unknown,
But even this globe where man is less than nought;
And when I gaze upon those clustering stars
In greater distance without any end,
Seeming to us like vapour, unto whom
Not merely man and not the earth he treads,
But all the stars, the neighbours of our world,
And even the golden radiance of the Sun,
Were never known, or else appear as they
Unto our sight, a spot
Of luminous mist: what then unto my thought,
Becomest thou, mankind?
And when I bear in mind
Thy state below, whereof the signs are seen
Upon the soil I tread: and when I think
Thy pride doth call thee queen
And end of all, and how thou lovest oft
To fable that unto this grain obscure
Of wretched dust which bears the name of earth,
For love of thee, of universal things
The lords descended, and were known to dwell
Benignly in thy midst: and that the dreams
So idle even the present age renews,
Opprobrious to the wise, although it seems
In knowledge and in deed
Superior to the past: what passion fires,
O hapless race of man, what thought inspires
For thee my heart? In truth, I cannot say
If mockery or if pity beareth sway.

As from its tree a ripened apple falling,
By Autumn’s power, nought else,
Cast on the earth in full maturity,
Crushes and overwhelms
The populous abode of busy ants,
Destroying all their hoarded treasures vast,
The fruit of summer toil,
Which they had piled in those elaborate caves
Formed by their cunning in the yielding soil:
Even thus in dread and thundering fury cast
From the deep rumbling womb
Of yon destructive mountain in its ire,
Night and destruction in a cloud of ashes,
Of rocks and lurid fire,
Fall on the land devoted to its doom;
And boiling torrents run
And down the mountain flow
With rapid wrath and all-consuming rage;
And o’er the verdure falls
A furious rush and grand
Of liquid metal and of fiery sand,
Such as o’erwhelmed the cities on the shore,
And in an instant they were seen no more.
On their deserted site
We see the browzing goat,
And other cities we behold arise,
Beneath whose splendid domes
Full many a vast and ancient ruin lies;
And even these lofty walls
The haughty mountain threatens and appals.
Nature no more doth hold
In tenderness and love
The race of man than insects of the earth;
And if we in mankind
May less destruction find,
’Tis that of offspring it has greater dearth.

One thousand and eight hundred years have passed
Since by the force of subterranean fire
The peopled cities found an end so dire;
And still the peasant full of anxious fears
For what he planted on the arid soil,
Amid the death-like ashes and the stones,
Suspicious turns his eye
To where he sees, aspiring to the sky,
The fatal peak, as cruel as of yore,
For ever threatening ruin to his home.
And oft at night, alarmed,
Lying for sleepless hours,
In terror listening to the wandering wind,
At last he rises and ascends his roof,
And gazes thence upon the dreaded course
Of boiling lava, rushing from the womb
Of the unexhausted mount,
O’er sandy ridge, and casting lurid light
On Capri’s distant strand,
On Naples’ bay and Mergellina’s land.
He wakes his children and his trembling wife,
If he perceives it coming, or within
His household well heats seething waters boil;
And with whatever they can snatch in haste,
Away they rush, and witness from afar
Their dwelling and their field,
From hunger and despair their only shield,
By the disastrous torrents soon laid waste,
That fiercely rush and cruelly invade,
And lie for ever on the wreck they’ve made.
Even as a skeleton that from its grave
Is brought to light by piety or greed,
The dead Pompeii to the realms of day
From old oblivion doth again proceed:
And from the ruined Forum and the file
Of shattered columns tall,
The wanderer gazes on the cloven peak
And on the smoky crest,
Still threatening even the ruins in their fall
And in the horror of the secret night,
Among theatres empty and forlorn,
Among the mouldering temples and among
The shattered houses where the bat doth hide,
Like an ill-omened torch
In empty fanes and halls untenanted,
The terrors run of the funereal stream,
Which in the shade doth gleam
And tinges all around with fiery red.
Of man unconscious and of all the years
That he calls old, and offspring laid by sire,
Thus Nature stands in ever-blooming youth;
Or rather, she proceeds
Upon a path so long, a course so wide,
That to our eyes she never seems to move.
Meanwhile realms fall, and tongues and nations wane
She seeth nought, and man doth still presume
Eternity to claim in haughty pride.

And thou, slow-spreading flower,
With many an odorous wood,
Who dost adorn these regions desolate;
Thou too ere long shalt sink beneath the power
Of the unpitying subterranean fire,
Which will extend its ire,
Returning to the scene it knew of old,
Unto thy gentle forests, and beneath
The fatal weight thou wilt thy head incline,
Though innocent, without a murmuring wail,
But not till then in cowardice cast down
With supplication and imploring prayer
Before the future tyrant, but not raised
With frenzied pride unto the very stars,
Nor on the desert where
Thou hadst thy dwelling-place,
Not by thy will, by the decree of Fate:

But wiser far, and less
Ill-starred than man, because thou didst not think.

Thy race endowed by Doom,
Or by thyself, with an immortal bloom.

Notes

1 The Renaissance.

2 Dante.

3 Petrarch.

4 Columbus.

5 Ariosto.

6 Tasso.

7 Alfieri.

8 i.e. “Passero Solitario” a bird very common in Italy, shy, and of lonely habits, with dark blue feathers on its breast. Its voice is most melodious.

9 Words of a modern writer to whom mil their elegance is due. (Leopardi’s note.)

10 In these verses we perceive the germ of a whole system of ethics.