"Yes!" he cried, as his glance accidentally fell upon Oswald; "look on Corinne, if you may pass your days with her—if that twofold existence can be long secured to you; but behold her not, if you must be condemned to leave her. Vainly would you seek, however long you might survive, the creative spirit which multiplied in partaking all your thoughts and feelings; you would never find it more!"
Oswald shuddered at these words; his eyes were fixed on Corinne, who listened with an agitation self-love cannot produce; it belongs only to humility and to gratitude. Castel Forte resumed the address, which a momentary weakness had suspended. He spoke of Corinne as a painter and a musician; of her declamation and her dancing. "In all these exertions," he said, "she is still herself—confined to no one mode, nor rule—but expressing, in various languages, the enchantments of Art and Imagination. I cannot flatter myself on having faithfully represented one of whom it is impossible to form an idea till she herself is known; but her presence is left to Rome, as among the chief blessings beneath its brilliant sky. Corinne is the link that binds her friends to each other. She is the motive, the interest of our lives; we rely on her worth, pride in her genius, and say to the sons of other lands, 'Look on the personation of our own fair Italy. She is what we might be, if freed from the ignorance, envy, discord, and sloth, to which fate has reduced us.' We love to contemplate her, as a rare production of our climate, and our fine arts; a relic of the past, a prophetess of the future; and when strangers, pitiless of the faults born of our misfortunes, insult the country whence have arisen the planets that illumed all Europe, still we but say to them, 'Look upon Corinne.' Yes; we will follow in her track, and be such men as she is a woman; if, indeed, men can, like women, make worlds in their own hearts; if our moral temperaments, necessarily dependent on social obligations and exterior circumstances, could, like hers, owe all their light to the glorious touch of poesy!"
The instant the Prince ceased to speak, was followed by an unanimous outbreak of admiration, even from the leaders of the State, although the discourse had ended by an indirect censure on the present situation of Italy; so true it is, that there men practise a degree of liberality, which, though it extends not to any improvement of their institutions, readily pardons superior minds for a mild dissent from existing prejudices. Castel Forte was a man of high repute in Rome. He spoke with a sagacity remarkable among a people usually wiser in actions than in words. He had not, in the affairs of life, that ability which often distinguishes an Italian; but he shrunk not from the fatigue of thinking, as his happy countrymen were wont to do; trusting to arrive at all truths by intuition, even as their soil bears fruit, unaided, save by the favor of heaven.
[CHAPTER III.]
Corinne rose, as the Prince finished his oration. She thanked him by an inclination of the head, which diffidently betrayed her sense of having been praised in a strain after her own heart. It was the custom for a poet, crowned at the capitol, to extemporize or recite in verse, ere receiving the destined bays. Corinne sent for her chosen instrument, the lyre, more antique in form, and simpler in sound, than the harp; while tuning it, she was oppressed by so violent a tremor, that her voice trembled as she asked what theme she was to attempt. "The glory and welfare of Italy!" cried all near her. "Ah, yes!" she exclaimed, already sustained by her own talents; "the glory and welfare of Italy!" Then, animated by her love of country, she breathed forth thoughts to which prose or another language can do but imperfect justice.
CHANT OF CORINNE AT THE CAPITOL.[1]
Cradle of Letters! Mistress of the World!
Soil of the Sun! Italia! I salute thee!
How oft the human race have worn thy yoke,
The vessels of thine arms, thine arts, thy sky!
Olympus for Ausonia once was left,
And by a god. Of such a land are born
Dreams of the golden time, for there man looks
Too happy to suppose him criminal.
By genius Rome subdued the world, then reign'd
A queen by liberty. The Roman mind
Set its own stamp upon the universe;
And, when barbarian hordes whelm'd Italy,
Then darkness was entire upon the earth.
Italia reappear'd, and with her rose
Treasures divine, brought by the wandering Greeks;
To her were then reveal'd the laws of Heaven.
Her daring children made discovery
Of a new hemisphere: Queen still, she held
Thought's sceptre; but that laurel'd sceptre made
Ungrateful subjects.
Imagination gave her back the world
Which she had lost. Painters and poets shaped
Earth and Olympus, and a heaven and hell.
Her animating fire, by Genius kept,
Far better guarded than the Pagan god's,
Found not in Europe a Prometheus
To bear it from her.
And wherefore am I at the capitol?
Why should my lowly brow receive the crown
Which Petrarch wore? which yet suspended hangs
Where Tasso's funeral cypress mournful waves:
Why? oh, my countrymen! but that you love
Glory so well that you repay its search
Almost like its success.
Now, if you love that glory which too oft
Chooses its victims from its vanquishers,
Those which itself has crown'd; think, and be proud
Of days which saw the perish'd Arts reborn.
Your Dante! Homer of the Christian age,
The sacred poet of Faith's mysteries—
Hero of thought—whose gloomy genius plunged
In Styx, and pierced to hell; and whose deep soul
Was like the abyss it fathom'd.
Italia! as she was in days of power
Revived in Dante: such a spirit stirr'd
In old republics: bard and warrior too,
He lit the fire of action 'mid the dead,
Till e'en his shadows had more vigorous life
Than real existence; still were they pursued
By earthly memories; passions without aim
Gnaw'd at their heart, still fever'd by the past;
Yet less irrevocable seem'd that past,
Than their eternal future.
Methinks that Dante, banish'd his own soil,
Bore to imagined worlds his actual grief,
Ever his shades inquire the things of life,
And ask'd the poet of his native land;
And from his exile did he paint a hell.
In his eyes Florence set her stamp on all;
The ancient dead seem'd Tuscans like himself:
Not that his power was bounded, but his strength;
And his great mind forced all the universe
Within the circle of its thought.
A mystic chain of circles and of spheres
Led him from Hell to Purgatory; thence
From Purgatory into Paradise:
Faithful historian of his glorious dream,
He fills with light the regions most obscure;
The world created in his triple song
Is brilliant, and complete, and animate,
Like a new planet seen within the sky.
All upon earth doth change to poetry
Beneath his voice: the objects, the ideas,
The laws, and all the strange phenomena,
Seem like a new Olympus with new gods—
Fancy's mythology—which disappears
Like Pagan creeds at sight of Paradise,
That sea of light, radiant with shining stars,
And love, and virtue.
The magic words of our most noble bard
Are like the prism of the universe;—
Her marvels there reflect themselves, divide,
And recreate her wonders; sounds paint hues,
And colors melt in harmony. The rhyme—
Sounding or strange, and rapid or prolong'd—
That charm of genius, triumph of high art;
Poetry's divination, which reveals
All nature's secrets, such as influence
The heart of man.
From this great work did Dante hope the end
Of his long exile: and he call'd on Fame
To be his mediator; but he died
Too soon to reap the laurels of his land.
Thus wastes the transitory life of man
In adverse fortunes; and it glory wins,
If some chance tide, more happy, floats to shore.
The grave is in the port; and destiny,
In thousand shapes, heralds the close of life
By a return of happiness.
Thus the ill-fated Tasso, whom your praise,
O Romans! 'mid his wrongs, could yet console—
The beautiful, the chivalric, the brave,
Dreaming the deeds, feeling the love he sung—
With awe and gratitude approached your walls,
As did his heroes to Jerusalem.
They named the day to crown him; but its eve
Death bade him to his feast, the terrible!
The Heaven is jealous of the earth; and calls
Its favorites from the stormy waves of time.
'T was in an age more happy and more free
Than Tasso's, that, like Dante, Petrarch sang:
Brave poet of Italian liberty.
Elsewhere they know him only by his love:
Here memories more severe, aye, consecrate
His sacred name; his country could inspire
E'en more than Laura.
His vigils gave antiquity new life;
Imagination was no obstacle
To his deep studies; that creative power
Conquer'd the future, and reveal'd the past.
He proved how knowledge lends invention aid;
And more original his genius seem'd,
When, like the powers eternal, it could be
Present in every time.
Our laughing climate, and our air serene
Inspired our Ariosto: after war,
Our many long and cruel wars, he came
Like to a rainbow; varied and as bright
As that glad messenger of summer hours.
His light, sweet gayety is like nature's smile,
And not the irony of man.
Raffaële, Galileo, Angelo,
Pergolese; you! intrepid voyagers,
Greedy of other lands, though Nature never
Could yield ye one more lovely than your own;
Come ye, and to our poets join your fame:
Artists, and sages, and philosophers,
Ye are, like them, the children of a sun
Which kindles valor, concentrates the mind,
Develops fancy, each one in its turn;
Which lulls content, and seems to promise all,
Or make us all forget.
Know ye the land where orange-trees are blooming
Where all heaven's rays are fertile, and with love!
Have you inhaled these perfumes, luxury!
In air already so fragrant and so soft?
Now, answer, strangers; Nature, in your home,
Is she as generous or as beautiful?
Not only with vine-leaves and ears of corn
Is nature dress'd, but 'neath the feet of man,
As at a sovereign's feet, she scatters flowers
And sweet and useless plants, which, born to please,
Disdain to serve.
Here pleasures delicate, by nature nurst—
Felt by a people who deserve to feel;—
The simplest food suffices for their wants.
What though her fountains flow with purple wine
From the abundant soil, they drink them not!
They love their sky, their arts, their monuments;
Their land, the ancient, and yet bright with springs;
Brilliant society; refined delight:
Coarse pleasures, fitting to a savage race,
Suit not with them.
Here the sensation blends with the idea;
Life ever draws from the same fountain-head;
The soul, like air, expands o'er earth and heaven.
Here Genius feels at ease; its reveries
Are here so gentle; its unrest is soothed:
For one lost aim a thousand dreams are given,
And nature cherishes, if man oppress;
A gentle hand consoles, and binds the wound:
E'en for the griefs that haunt the stricken heart,
Is comfort here: by admiration fill'd,
For God, all goodness; taught to penetrate
The secret of his love; not thy brief days—
Mysterious heralds of eternity—
But in the fertile and majestic breast
Of the immortal universe!
Corinne was interrupted for some moments by impetuous applause. Oswald alone joined not in the noisy transport around him. He had bowed his head on his hand, when Corinne said——
"E'en for the sorrows of the stricken heart
Is comfort here:"
he had not raised it since. Corinne observed him; and from his features, the color of his hair, his dress, his height—indeed, from his whole appearance—recognised him as English. She was struck by the mourning which he wore, and his melancholy countenance. His gaze, then fixed upon herself, seemed gently to reproach her: she entered into his thoughts, and felt a wish to sympathize with him, by speaking of happiness with less reliance, and consecrating some few verses to Death in the midst of a festival. With this intention, she again took up her lyre; a few prolonged and touching tones silenced the assemblage, while thus she continued:——