The races dead, of war-like men and wise,
With joy saluted the great soul's returning.
The antagonism between the pagan and the Christian religious instincts comes to light in all that Carducci writes of his revered master. Half in anger he chides the awful singer who
Comes down from heaven bringing the Hymn Supreme,
while upon his brow shines
a radiance divine
Like his who spake with God in Sinai,—
because he cared not for
His poor country and the endless strife that rent its cities.
With the splendours of the holy kingdom, amid which Dante stood, Carducci contrasts the mortal fields of civil war and the wastes deserted and malignant,