Then, when he sickened, weighted now with years,
And the severe disease seemed past a cure,
So great the sorrow everywhere appeared
That all the civil orders shared in it;
And, when fair daylight followed on the cloud,
The joy was equal to the genuine grief.
In style now classic or romantic now
Native Academies acclaim the event;
And I, in verse extemporized almost
(And Fame still guerdons it with some applause),
Saluted, in the name of Italy,
The Bourbon Sovereign restored to health.[11]
One Gallo (maybe Corvo?), of Sicily,
Who thought himself a swan of Hippocrene—
Or Gallo or Corvo, acrid and malign—
Trying to do me an ill turn, did a good.
And this affair I’m minded to narrate,—
A curious little story as it is.
He spread on all sides a censorious croak
That my address was outrage ’gainst the King:
And yet that ode contains such flatteries
That, when I now reflect on it, I blush;
And he discerned therein, and clamoured loud,
An actual insult in the seeming praise.[12]
Against my verses such a cackle-cry
Was raised by him on one and other hand
That in the end our arbitrary Police
Prohibited their printing in the book;
And many said that I should find myself
Dismissed my employ, or sent to jail perchance.
The selfsame calumnies against my song,
From quarters more than one, arrived in court.
The King called for a copy, and, reading it,
He was affected, and was moved to tears.
The Duke of Ascoli was on the spot,
Who with minuteness told me of the facts.
Indeed the King so highly prized my lines
That he directed the Home-Minister
To have me summoned, and to give me thanks
In a dispatch sent by the government:
And, paper in hand, he added—“Tell him too,
I wept at it, and feel indebted to him.”
Further to crush that shameless calumny
Which he remarked some people still believed,
He made the Minister Tommasi read
The poem aloud, in Council at the full,—
And oh what plaudits did my lines secure!
And at some parts the King shed tears anew.
I, then at the Museum, saw arrive
A Halberdier with grave and serious mien.
Ah what uncertainties assailed my heart!
Here comes the announcement that will strip me bare!
I read, in doubt and wavering, the dispatch:
“His Majesty requires you—come at once.”
Anxious I sped, and pondered on the way
What answer I could offer to the charge.
I entered with that sinister forecast,
And General Naselli, a Minister,
Came forward and encountered me, all smiles.
He said “Be seated”—pointing with his hand
To a gilded sofa, face to face with him.
He, turning with an affable regard
Toward me, my eyebrows arching with surprise,
Repeats, with manifest complacency,
The kindly words used by the Sovereign:
And on my countenance he could observe,
Mingled with pleasure, some astonishment.
I answered—after a simple preluding
With which I need not here concern myself—
“This moment compensates for studious years,—
I’m thankful for the kindness of our King.
But, Sir, is any power above his own?
What he so much approves others reject.”
He answered me with an offended air—
“Have you your senses? This I can’t excuse.”
And I: “The whole collection is in print,
And my one poem only turned adrift;
My senses serve me well, your Excellency:
The Censorship has over-ruled the King.”
He smiled, and then, in a laconic tone,
Dictated to his secretary thus:
“The poems all must pass the censorship,
Except the one by Gabriel Rossetti.
From his the printing cannot be withheld,
Because the King has passed it and approved.”
I showed about all this no great conceit,
But it was greeted warmly by the young,
And that Sicilian Gallo, envious man,
Remained a laughing-stock, and drooped his comb.[13]
Then, when my lyric came to public light,
It won in Naples universal praise.
The fame of it went forth to Rome itself,
Where I am proud of being amply known,
For there I left a band of well-wishers
When the Provisional Government dissolved
In which I unobtrusively had held
In the Fine Arts a post of eminence.[14]
And the Sebezia Academy with pride
Noted my victory, which involved its own,
And which was viewed with so much bitterness
By Gallo that he fled that very night.
This Gallo against me, an exile now,
Perhaps is crowing still—which I forgive.
In that Parthenopean Company
I sang the Threnody for several dead,
And for the saintly Bruno d’Amantea,
The noble surgeon and philanthropist;[15]
And good Valletta, on coming back from Rome,
And fair Paloma, did I celebrate.[16]
And in the presence of the royal court,
Which had erected a majestic tomb,
I sang the glory and deplored the death
Of the renowned Giovanni Paisiello,[17]
Who, the harmonic Siren’s progeny,
Bore sway o’er Europe’s music on the stage.
Torquato Tasso’s golden trumpet next
Blew with my breath, to magnify himself,[18]
He mine inspirer from the living stone
Which near the sea the King had raised for him;
And on that evening the Sebezia
Brought from all Europe choicest guests to meet.
There the good King of Denmark’s worthy heir
Came to embrace me ’mid a crushing throng;[19]
And with my daring images I struck
French, Russians, Germans, Spaniards, Englishmen.
And now in Sapphic now in Theban mood,
I sang beside the urn, with laurel wreathed,
Wherein Luigi Quattromani sleeps,[20]
A casket from the Bible’s treasure-stores:
In him I greeted, and I bless him now,
The kindly master in the social friend.
Truly a poet—I seem to see him still—
Inspired himself, inspiring others too:
When blind and old, he in his mind preserved
Acutest sight and lively youthfulness.
I interrupt the verse-narrative for a moment, to point out that Rossetti here recounts—what was of leading importance in his Neapolitan career—how he came to be an improvising poet. Luigi Quattromani was a renowned improvisatore, and (so far as I infer) little or not at all an author of verse written and published. The date when Rossetti first knew him, and soon afterwards began improvising, is not here defined; I suppose it may have been towards 1810. When my father came to London in 1824 he resolved not to prolong the practice; thinking, and no doubt rightly, that, although he might excite some surprise and attention by improvising, it would on the whole lower his position as a serious professional man in the teaching and literary vocation. Yet he did occasionally give a specimen of his prowess as an extempore poet; the latest notice I find of such a performance was in his family-circle, in 1840. If I myself ever heard him improvise, I have forgotten it. The observations which he here makes on the dangers of the habit, both to health and to purity of poetic style, are worth noting. He first proceeds with a description of Quattromani’s doings.
Whenso I heard him touch on David’s harp,
All fervid with extemporaneous power,
Upon his face shone out the impassioned soul
Which spread around spontaneous bursts of light.
And that same flame I saw a-shine in him
On mine own spirit did I feel descend.
Yes, what I heard meseemed not possible;
’Twas ecstasy to me, enchantment, dream.
But what appeared incredible almost
Was coming to be realized in myself.
On my way home I tried to do the like,
And oh astonishment! I also sang
Line after line: so strange the upshot seemed
That I renewed the essay for several days.
By daytime and by night assiduously
Did I repeat that same experiment.
Often with Quattromani I conferred,
Who gave my verses not a little praise;
And once the blind old man exclaimed to me—
“Alternate with me in an improvise.”
And, after a few trials and demands,
He took me up with so much ardent zest
That ’mid the pomp of images produced
He gave me many a “viva” from his heart.
He closed by saying: “For poetic strifes
Nature has given you athletic power.”
“Persist,” he often said to me, “persist,
And let no sloth impede you on your road.
A poet you were born, and those who seek
To change your course—believe this—envy you.
What you at your commencement do with me
Might seem the fruit of lengthy studying.”
And often did our verses alternate
In choice assemblies with co-equal praise,
So much men’s judgments wavered in the scales
That ’twixt us victory remained in doubt.
But this impressed on me the stamp of worth—
What honour to contend with such a man!
He, like a living mirror, faces me,
And, seeing myself in him, I can but grieve.
He old and blind, and I too blind and old:
And he died poor, and I am dying poor.
But which of us the more deplorable?
He in his country, I exiled by fate!
Oft on this foreign shore I’ve asked myself,
Did my addiction to extempore song
Harm me, or profit? I remain in doubt.
But this, without nice solving, I’ll affirm—
I was becoming palsied and in spasms.
A Galen’s rigour ought to cry it down,
And thus prevent so miserable an end.
’Twas so my Brother Dominick expired,[21]
Who in such efforts was expert and apt.
I never heard that brother of mine recite—
He left me a child, but I remember him;
And well I know that he at Parma’s bar
Was greeted as a re-born Cicero.
Youthful he died, far from his family—
And wherefore died? Because he improvised.
More than one symptom has convinced me clear
That, through my leaving off that exercise,
Exile, in that alone, has been my friend:
And so, from much reflection I can say,
That mental strain leads to paralysis.
Nor only with regard to healthful life
Makes it the nerves uncertain and unstrung,
But as to writing with correctness too
I fear at last it worsens toward neglect.
Yes, that it harms the style I can but think:
To work a-sudden is not working well.
Thou who wouldst merit the Phœbean wreath,
O youth, take caution ’gainst this same abuse;
For these my verses, written slipshod-like,
Perhaps derive from that ill-wont of mine;
For now I hurry verse to follow verse,
And reel them off as ’twere a kind of talk.
Good composition craves a needful space,
Not emulous capricious fantasy.
Though such a practice I cannot defend,
Still I become renowned because of that.
Full many a noted passage from my muse
Was quoted, serious and facetious both;
And oft-times at the tables of the great,
Invited guest and poet, I had my place.
What precious days I wasted on good cheer,
Whence, save keen penitence, I’ve nothing now!
Amid our Princes, Dukes, and Marquises,—
Cassero, Campochiaro, Berio—
Phœbus joined Bacchus with a joyous note,
Doubly to drench the mind’s ebriety.
Inflamed and reckless ’mid the toasts and praise,
I saw my youthful Muse more daring grown;
And, when I went from Naples to the Tiber,
I found my fame there copiously diffused.
Among the poets whom I cherished there,
I give but Biondi’s and Ferretti’s names.[22]
As one of the Provisional Government
King Joachim had summoned me to Rome:[23]
Monte Citorio there, seven months and more,
Saw me employed at morning and at eve;
And I was present at the Pope’s return
In year thirteen of this our century.
And there was likewise put in exercise
My Muse, by urgencies a thousandfold;
And I again aroused enthusiasm,
For poetry in Rome is greatly loved.—
Of this no more, for I can hear a voice—
“To enlarge hereon were obvious self-conceit.”
Nor does Rome stint herself to mere applause,
But gives me titles and diplomas too.
The Arcadia, and Tiberine Academy,
The Ardenti of Viterbo, and others more,
Inscribed my own ’mid many goodly names.
In Naples not of the Sebezia alone
But the Pontanian Society,
And even the Orezia from Palermo,
I hold diplomas in this distant land;
And, now that I am at my day’s extreme,
One also I receive from Lyons in France.
I was, not am. The past is all a school
Where clear I see the nothingness of man.
For me has vanished all: only the grave
Awaits me, and thither willingly I go.
Life is a lengthened dream, and, when it ends,
All lettered glory is a dream as well;
And vanity of vanities I mark,
Yea even in that which crowns the highest of men
Had I the golden trump and deathless name
Of Homer, or of Virgil or Torquato,
What would the guerdon of my verses be?
Just a dissyllable I should not hear.
Sad fate!
But I return to Ferdinand,