The Poems of Leopardi

by Giacomo Leopardi

[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.

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.

[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.

FINIS.

---

POEMS
TO ITALY. [33]
ON THE MONUMENT OF DANTE ABOUT TO BE ERECTED IN FLORENCE. [40]
TO ANGELO MAI [49]
ON THE MARRIAGE OF HIS SISTER PAOLINA. [58]
THE SOLILOQUY OF BRUTUS. [63]
TO SPRING; OR, THE FABLES OF ANTIQUITY. [69]
HYMN TO THE PATRIARCHS. [74]
THE LAST SONG OF SAPPHO. [80]
THE FIRST LOVE. [84]
THE LONELY BIRD. [89]
THE INFINITE. [92]
THE HOLIDAY NIGHT. [93]
TO THE MOON. [96]
SOLITUDE. [97]
TO HIS LOVE. [102]
THE REVIVAL. [106]
TO SILVIA. [115]
THE MEMORIES. [119]
THE NOCTURNAL SONG OF A NOMADIC SHEPHERD IN ASIA. [127]
THE RULING THOUGHT. [134]
LOVE AND DEATH. [141]
TO HIMSELF. [147]
ASPASIA. [148]
ON AN ANCIENT SEPULCHRAL BASSO RILIEVO REPRESENTING A MAIDEN
TAKING LEAVE OF HER FRIENDS. [153]
THE SETTING OF THE MOON. [159]
THE GENISTA OR THE FLOWER OF THE DESERT. [163]