And how noble is the conclusion:
"Mancano, il sento, all anima,
Alta, gentile e pura,
La sorte, la natura,
Il mondo e la beltà.
Ma se tu vivi, O misero,
Se non concedi al fato,
Non chiamerò spietato
Chi lo spirar mi dà."
Of the other poems I hope I have been able to give an almost adequate rendering; but of this, such a rendering was impossible. The sense is so blended with the music of the verse, and the music is so peculiar to the Italian language, that I doubt whether any translation could ever do it full justice. It is quite unique among his works. He never wrote anything before or afterwards even remotely like it. He seems to have revelled in the sweetness of the melody, and to have sported with his sorrow in the music of the lines.
XXI. "A Silvia." The subject of this poem was a young girl of Recanati, whom the poet and his brother Carlo used frequently to see in their young days. It is a beautiful specimen of his almost supernatural powers of concentration and depth. From bewailing her untimely end, the poet rises to contemplate the vanity of earthly things. "Before such masterpieces," Montefredini justly observes, "as 'Silvia' and the 'Passero Solitario,' we are struck dumb with admiration." It is an instance of how powerful an effect a great writer can produce by slight means.
XXII. "Le Ricordanze." If I were asked to award the palm to one above all the other "Canti," I should name the "Ricordanze." It offers a combination of the rarest beauties. Possessing the highest biographical interest as a picture of his youth, it invests all the visions it conjures up with the richest poetical colouring. The reader will observe how simple is the opening, and how the verses gradually rise in thought and style until they reach the splendid outburst:
"E che pensieri immensi,
Che dolci sogni mi spirò la vista
Di quel lontano mar, quei monti azzurri,
Che di qua scopro, e che varcare un giorno
Io mi pensava, acani mondi, acana
Felicità fingendo al viver mio!"
This superb passage is concluded with the utterance of tragic emotion:
"Ignaro del mio fato, e quante volte
Questa mia vita dolorosa e nuda
Volentier con la morte avrei cangiato."
Then, by a natural transition, he introduces the celebrated imprecation on Recanati, the energy of which leads us to forget its injustice. How beautifully is youth called "the solitary flower of barren life!" Still more beautiful is the following paragraph with its description of happy childhood. The apostrophe to his vanished hopes is full of sublimity, as also the picture of his gloomy meditations. The two last paragraphs make a worthy conclusion, especially the transcendant passage on Nerina, to which no parallel can be found in the whole range of lyric poetry.
XXIII. "Canto Notturno di un Pastore Errante dell' Asia." This poem was suggested by a passage in Baron Meyendorffs "Voyage d'Orenbourg à Boukhara," quoted in the "Journal des Savans," for September, 1826, where, speaking of a nomadic tribe of Asia, he says: "Plusieurs d'entre eux passent la nuit assis sur une pierre à regarder la lune, et à improviser des paroles assez tristes sur des airs qui ne le sont pas moins." Some critics are inclined to place the "Canto Notturno" above all other productions of our poet, and the opening is indeed divine: