What time the chain was forged which then I bore,
Air, earth, and heavens were linked in one delight;
The air was never so serene before,
The sun ne'er shed such pure and tranquil light;
Young leaves and flowers upon the grassy floor
Gladdened the earth where ran a streamlet bright,
While Venus in her father's bosom lay
And smiled from heaven upon the spot that day.
She from her brows divine and amorous breast
Took with both hands roses of many a hue,
And showered them through the heavens that slept in rest,
Covering my lady with their gracious dew;
Jove, full of gladness, on that day released
The ears of men, that they might hear the true
Echoes of melody and dance divine,
Which fell from heaven in songs and sounds benign.
Fair women to that music moved their feet,
Inflamed with gentle fire by Love's breath fanned:
Behold yon lover with his lady sweet—
Her hand long yearned for clasped in his loved hand;
Their sighs, their looks, which pangs of longing cheat;
Brief words that none but they can understand;
The flowers that she lets fall, resumed and pressed,
With kisses covered, to his head or breast.
Amid so many pleasant things and fair,
My loveliest lady with surpassing grace
Eclipsed and crowned all beauties that were there;
Her robe was white and delicate as lace;
And still her eyes, with silent speech and rare,
Talked to the heart, leaving the lips at peace:
Come to me, come, dear heart of mine, she said:
Here shall thy long desires at rest be laid.
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The impression of these verses is hardly marred by the prosy catalogue of Lucrezia's beauties furnished in the Innamoramento. Lorenzo was an analyst. He could not escape from that quality so useful to the observer, so fatal to artists, if they cannot recompose the data furnished by observation in a new subjective synthesis. When we compare his description of the Age of Gold in the Selve,[472] justly celebrated for its brilliancy and wealth of detail, with the shorter passage from Poliziano's Stanze, we measure the distance between intelligent study of nature and the imagination which unifies and gives new form of life to every detail. The same end may be more briefly attained by a comparison of this passage about roses from Lorenzo's Corinto with a musical Ballata of Poliziano[473]:
Into a little close of mine I went
One morning, when the sun with his fresh light
Was rising all refulgent and unshent.
Rose-trees are planted there in order bright,
Whereto I turned charmed eyes, and long did stay
Taking my fill of that new-found delight.
Red and white roses bloomed upon the spray;
One opened, leaf by leaf, to greet the morn,
Shyly at first, then in sweet disarray;
Another, yet a youngling, newly born,
Scarce struggled from the bud, and there were some
Whose petals closed them from the air forlorn;
Another fell, and showered the grass with bloom;
Thus I beheld the roses dawn and die,
And one short hour their loveliness consume.
But while I watched those languid petals lie
Colorless on cold earth, I could but think
How vain a thing is youthful bravery.
Trees have their time to bloom on winter's brink;
Then the rathe blossoms wither in an hour,
When the brief days of spring toward summer sink;
The fruit, as yet unformed, is tart and sour;
Little by little it grows large, and weighs
The strong boughs down with slow persistent power;
Nor without peril can the branches raise
Their burden; now they stagger 'neath the weight
Still growing, and are bent above the ways;
Soon autumn comes, and the ripe ruddy freight
Is gathered: the glad season will not stay;
Flowers, fruits, and leaves are now all desolate.
Pluck the rose, therefore, maiden, while 'tis May!
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That is good. It is the best kind of poetry within Lorenzo's grasp. But here is Poliziano's dance-song:
I went a-roaming, maidens, one bright day,
In a green garden in mid month of May.
Violets and lilies grew on every side
Mid the green grass, and young flowers wonderful,
Golden and white and red and azure-eyed;
Toward which I stretched my hands, eager to pull
Plenty to make my fair curls beautiful,
To crown my rippling curls with garlands gay.
I went a-roaming, maidens, one bright day,
In a green garden in mid month of May.
But when my lap was full of flowers I spied
Roses at last, roses of every hue;
Therefore I ran to pluck their ruddy pride,
Because their perfume was so sweet and true
That all my soul went forth with pleasure new,
With yearning and desire too soft to say.
I went a-roaming, maidens, one bright day,
In a green garden in mid month of May.
I gazed and gazed. Hard task it were to tell
How lovely were the roses in that hour;
One was but peeping from her verdant shell,
And some were faded, some were scarce in flower.
Then Love said: Go, pluck from the blooming bower
Those that thou seest ripe upon the spray.
I went a-roaming, maidens, one bright day,
In a green garden in mid month of May.
For when the full rose quits her tender sheath,
When she is sweetest and most fair to see,
Then is the time to place her in thy wreath,
Before her beauty and her freshness flee.
Gather ye therefore roses with great glee,
Sweet girls, or ere their perfume pass away.
I went a-roaming, maidens, one bright day,
In a green garden in mid month of May.
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Both in this Ballata and also in the stanzas on the Age of Gold, it might almost seem as though Poliziano had rewritten Lorenzo's exercise with a view to showing the world the difference between true poetry and what is only very like it.
The Selve d'Amore and the Corinto belong to Lorenzo's early manner, when his heart was yet fresh and statecraft had not made him cynical. The latter is a musical eclogue in terza rima; the former a discursive love-poem, with allegorical episodes, in octave stanzas. Up to the date of the Selve the ottava rima had, so far as I know, been only used for semi-epical poems and short love-songs. Lorenzo proved his originality by suiting it to a style of composition which aimed at brilliant descriptions in the manner of Ovid. He also handled it with an ease and brightness hitherto unknown. The pageant of Love and Jealousy and the allegory of Hope in the second part are both such poetry as only needed something magical from the touch of Ariosto to make them perfect.[474] As it is, Lorenzo's studies in verse produce the same impression as Bronzino's in painting. They are brilliant, but hard, cold, calculated, never fused by the final charm of poetry or music into a delightful vision. What is lacking is less technical skill or invention than feeling in the artist, the glow of passion, or the charm of spiritual harmony. Here is a picture of Hope's attendant train:
Following this luckless dame, where'er she goes,
Flit dreams in crowds, with auguries and lies,
Chiromants, arts that cozen and impose,
Chances, diviners, and false prophecies,
Spoken or writ in foolish scroll and glose,
Whose forecast brings time flown before our eyes,
Alchemy, all who heaven from our earth measure,
And free conjectures made at will and pleasure.
'Neath the dark shadow of her mighty wings
The whole deluded world at last must cower:—
O blindness that involves all mortal things,
Frail ignorance that treads on human power!—
He who can count the woes her empire brings,
Could number every star, each fish, each flower,
Tell all the birds that cross the autumnal seas,
Of leaves that flutter from the naked trees.
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His Ambra is another poem in the same style as the Selve. It records Lorenzo's love for that Tuscan farm which Poliziano afterwards made famous in the sonorous hexameters he dedicated to the memory of Homer.[475] Following the steps of Ovid, Lorenzo feigns that a shepherd Lauro loved the nymph Ambra, whom Umbrone, the river-god, pursued through vale and meadow to the shores of Arno. There he would have done her violence, but that Diana changed her to a rock in her sore need:
Ma pur che fussi già donna ancor credi;
Le membra mostran, come suol figura
Bozzata e non finita in pietra dura.
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