Like a bird caught in its flight, which
Turns and gives battle.
In the preface of the same volume (1877) he pleads in behalf of his new metres that “it may be pardoned in him that he has endeavoured to adapt to new sentiments new metres instead of conforming to the old ones, and that he has thus done for Italian letters what Klopstock did for the Germans, and what Catullus and Horace did in bringing into Latin use the forms of the Eolian lyric.”
In the Nuove Rime (1887) are three Hellenic Odes, under the titles “Primavere Elleniche,” written in three of the ancient metres, the beauty of which would be lost by translation into any language less melodious and sympathetic than the Italian. We give a few lines from each:
I. EOLIA
Lina, brumaio turbido inclina,
Nell'aër gelido monta la sera;
E a me nell'anima fiorisce, O Lina,
La primavera.
II. DORICA