His maned head erect, neighing to the winds:
The watchful valour of the dogs gives answer from the cabins
And the whole valley resounds with lusty lowings.
But man, whom thou awakenest to consume his life in work,
Still regards thee with thoughtful admiration,
Just as, in time gone by, the noble Aryan fathers
Upright among their white flocks adored thee on the mountain.”
It is a pity that it is impossible for us to give the subtle melody of Carducci’s verse. Although French and German poets have recognised the master and translated some of his works, no Englishman appears to have as yet shown this mark of appreciation. Nevertheless, the characteristic way of treating the subject is clearly visible. The hawk, emblem of freedom and strife, is the first living creature that strikes the poet’s eye and mind. The sea-gull, the galloping foal, then the baying of the dogs and the “lusty lowings,” render an impression rather of grandeur than tenderness; the smaller birds are hardly mentioned, the landscape is clear and exact. At the same time there are little touches of exquisite beauty, worthy of Virgil himself, as in the “rosy breath” with which the Dawn kisses the clouds, the “chilly shudder of the woods,” “the garrulous nests whispering among the damp leaves.” Such jewels of expression are indeed scattered throughout the whole of Carducci’s work, their conciseness rendering very apparent the classicality of the models on which Carducci formed his style. Of him, indeed, Tennyson might have said, as he did of Virgil—
“All the wealth of all the Muses,
often flowering in a lonely word.”
Spring sets Carducci’s heart beating in dithyrambs; it is in his spring songs that he abandons himself most completely to the joy of life as life, and attains, perhaps, some of his highest flights of lyric song. Very beautiful, for instance, are the three poems entitled “Greek Spring Songs”: i. Æolic; ii. Doric; iii. Alexandrine. From the first of these we may quote the return of Apollo