Cetra non rese più dolci gemiti
Mai nei sì molli spirti
Di Lesbo un dì tra i mirti.
The second of these examples demands translation as exhibiting perhaps more forcibly than any others we could select the boldness with which Carducci asserts the survival of the Hellenic spirit in the love of nature as well as in art and literature, despite the contrary influences of ascetic Christianity:
The other gods may die, but those of Greece
No setting know; they sleep in ancient woods,
In flowers, upon the mountains, and the streams,
And eternal seas.
In face of Christ,[3] in marble hard and firm,
The pure flower of their naked beauty glows;