The Poems of Leopardi

by Giacomo 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 time[1] 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 bard[5] 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.

[1] The Renaissance.

[2] Dante.

[3] Petrarch.

[4] Columbus.

[5] Ariosto.

[6] Tasso.

[7] Alfieri.

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.