And thou, oh sky, from far above the worlds
serene—infinite sky, immortal—
oh! with thick-falling tears of stars inundate
this atom dark of Evil.
Such poems bear, however, but a small proportion to the rest of the work even in the first edition of the Myricæ, and a still smaller proportion in the later editions. The note is struck and left for a time: heard again, it has been developed into a theme whose harmonies are rich and deep.
The Myricæ, now in its fifth edition, is a collection of the shortest of poems. Many of them are but a few lines long, that pass in Italian like the brush of wings and cannot be rendered in our heavier English. Now it is a little picture, cut like a sixteenth century cameo, of some detail of the country or of country life, generally with just a touch at the end that relieves the feeling of pure objectiveness, and suggests the Infinite which lies around and behind the fragment presented; now it is some philosophical maxim or reflection which has evidently become part of the poet’s individuality; now an impression of infancy, childhood, girlhood, old age; now a fine-wrought point of irony to prick the ignorance and arrogance of the Philistine.
A consideration of Pascoli’s relation to Nature and the peasantry immediately suggests a comparison with Wordsworth. It is, however, a curious fact that the more one attempts to fix the similarity between the two, the more elusive does it prove to be. We might say, tentatively, that Pascoli is both more pagan and more human, notwithstanding Margaret and Michael, than Wordsworth. He is more pagan in that his delight in the beauty of a natural object is more self-sufficing, therefore more intense; it is a delight that suggests no defined religious or quasi-religious ideas, though there is always a feeling, conscious or sub-conscious, that the object is an organic part of the Universe. He is more human in that the peasants too attract him more for their own sakes than for the moral reflections to which they may give rise. They are, moreover, peasants in the full sense of the word. They are an inseparable part of their surroundings, and their interest derives from their unbroken contact with Nature, who now favours, now destroys their toil. A carefully thought out parallel study of the two poets would without doubt be interesting: it would have to set out from the fact that the fundamentals of the philosophy of the two men are essentially different: the Christianity and Platonism of the English poet being replaced in the Italian—citizen of a nation which is rapidly casting off metaphysical speculation—by a frank facing of the possibilities and probabilities opened up by modern scientific research, by a passionate longing for truth built upon the rock of scientific fact. A reference to the poet’s lecture entitled L’Era Nuova (The New Era) will put this point beyond dispute.
Among the poems which mark most strongly this fundamental difference and this elusive similarity between Wordsworth and Pascoli is that published in the Marzocco of August 19th, and entitled Inno del Mendico. The simplicity of the diction, the spaciousness of the atmosphere, the patient resignation of the beggar-man, his harmony with the upland and the lake which form a setting for him, at once suggest Wordsworth; but the details of the poem are so totally different from any conception of Wordsworth’s that a second reading shows the likeness to be superficial. Pascoli is too thoroughly modern in his scientific attitude, notwithstanding his Latin affinities (or perhaps if the matter be well thought out partly in consequence of them), to have many points of contact with any of the early Victorian English poets.
As for the Myricæ, the poems are so varied that it is difficult to characterise or to illustrate them. Some of the most individual and attractive—“Dialogue” (between sparrows and swallows), “Hoof-beats,” and others—are very delicate word-imitations of movements, of sounds, of mental states even: and the verbal imitation is quite inseparable from the conception. The poet himself groups his little “swallow-flights of song” under a number of heads; but is nevertheless constrained to leave many standing alone. Thus we have a set of ten headed “From Dawn to Sunset,” in which occurs the “Hoof-beats” already mentioned; another group entitled “Remembrances” in which is the little poem above quoted on the anniversary of his mother’s death; another headed “Thoughts”—short but pregnant reflections of a philosophical character; “Young Things”—five tiny pieces which reveal a tender sympathy with young illusions, springing from a deep sense of the contrast between the world of the children and the reality into which they have been born. We may perhaps quote a couple as they emphasize the feeling for contrasts visible in other parts of Pascoli’s work.
Fides.
When evening was glowing all ruddy,
and the cypresses seemed made of fine gold,
the mother spoke to her boy-child:—
“a whole garden’s up there, made like that.”
The baby sleeps and dreams of golden boughs,
of golden trees, of forests of pure gold:
meanwhile the cypress in the murky night
weeps in the rainstorm, fights against the wind.