"From hill to hill I roam, from thought to thought,
With Love my guide; the beaten path I fly,
For there in vain the tranquil life is sought:
If 'mid the waste well forth a lonely rill,
Or deep embosom'd a low valley lie,
In its calm shade my trembling heart is still;
And there, if Love so will,
I smile, or weep, or fondly hope or fear,
While on my varying brow, that speaks the soul,
The wild emotions roll,
Now dark, now bright, as shifting skies appear;
That whosoe'er has proved the lover's state
Would say, 'He feels the flame, nor knows his future fate.'
"On mountains high, in forests drear and wide,
I find repose, and from the throng'd resort
Of man turn fearfully my eyes aside;
At each lone step thoughts ever new arise
Of her I love, who oft with cruel sport
Will mock the pangs I bear, the tears, the sighs;
Yet e'en these ills I prize,
Though bitter, sweet—nor would they were removed;
For my heart whispers me, 'Love yet has power
To grant a happier hour:
Perchance, though self-despised, thou yet art loved.'
E'en then my breast a passing sigh will heave,
Ah! when, or how, may I a hope so wild believe?
"Where shadows of high rocking pines dark wave,
I stay my footsteps; and on some rude stone,
With thought intense, her beauteous face engrave:
Roused from the trance, my bosom bathed I find
With tears, and cry, 'Ah! whither thus alone
Hast thou far wander'd? and whom left behind?'
But as with fixed mind
On this fair image I impassion'd rest,
And, viewing her, forget awhile my ills,
Love my rapt fancy fills;
In its own error sweet the soul is blest,
While all around so bright the visions glide;
O! might the cheat endure,—I ask not aught beside.
"Her form portray'd within the lucid stream
Will oft appear, or on the verdant lawn,
Or glossy beech, or fleecy cloud, will gleam
So lovely fair, that Leda's self might say,
Her Helen sinks eclipsed, as at the dawn
A star when cover'd by the solar ray:
And, as o'er wilds I stray,
Where the eye nought but savage nature meets,
There Fancy most her brightest tints employs;
But when rude truth destroys
The loved illusion of those dreamed sweets,
I sit me down on the cold rugged stone,
Less cold, less dead than I, and think and weep alone.
"Where the huge mountain rears his brow sublime,
On which no neighbouring height its shadow flings,
Led by desire intense the steep I climb;
And tracing in the boundless space each woe,
Whose sad remembrance my torn bosom wrings.
Tears, that bespeak the heart o'erfraught, will flow.
While viewing all below,
From me, I cry, what worlds of air divide
The beauteous form, still absent and still near!
Then chiding soft the tear,
I whisper, low, haply she, too, has sigh'd
That thou art far away; a thought so sweet
Awhile my labouring soul will of its burden cheat.
"Go thou, my song, beyond that Alpine bound,
Where the pure smiling heavens are most serene:
There, by a murmuring stream, may I be found,
Whose gentle airs around
Waft grateful odours from the laurel green;
Nought but my empty form roams here unblest.
There dwells my heart with her who steals it from my breast."[41]
Petrarch's Italian poetry, written either to please his lady or to relieve the overflowing of his hearty bears in every line the stamp of warm and genuine, though of refined and chivalric, passion. It has been criticised as too imaginative, and defaced by conceits: of the latter there are a few, confined to a small portion of the sonnets. They will not be admired now, yet, perhaps, they are not those of the poems which came least spontaneously from the heart. Those have experienced little of the effects of passion, of love, grief, or terror, who do not know that conceits often spring naturally from such. Shakspeare knew this; and he seldom describes the outbursts of passion unaccompanied by fanciful imagery which borders on conceit. Still more false is the notion, that passion is not, in its essence, highly imaginative. Hard and dry critics, who neither feel themselves nor sympathise in the feelings of others, alone can have made this accusation: these people, whose inactive and colourless fancy naturally suggests no new combination nor fresh tint of beauty, suppose that is a cold exercise of the mind, when
"The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven."
As they with difficulty arrive at comprehending poetic creations, they believe that they were produced by dint of hard labour and deep study. The truth is the opposite of this. To the imaginative, fanciful imagery and thoughts, whose expression seems steeped in the hues of dawn, are natural and unforced: when the mind of such is calm, their conceptions resemble those of other men; but when excited by passion, when love, or patriotism, or the influence of nature, kindles the soul, it becomes natural, nay, imperative to them to embody their thoughts, and to give "a local habitation and a name" to the emotions that possess them. The remarks of critics on the overflowings of poetic minds remind one of the traveller who expressed such wonder when, on landing at Calais, he heard little children talk French.
Petrarch, on the other hand, would deceive us, or rather deceived himself, when he alludes depreciatingly to his Italian poetry. Latin was the language of learned men: he deemed it degrading to write for the people; and, fancying that the difficulty of writing Latin was an obstacle glorious to overcome, he treated with disdain any works expressed in the vulgar tongue. Yet even while he said that these compositions were puerile, he felt in his heart the contrary. He bestowed great pains on correcting them, and giving them that polished grace for which they are remarkable. Still his reason (which in this instance, as in others, is often less to be depended upon than our intuitive convictions,) assured him that he could never hold a high place among poets till he composed a Latin poem.