III
The Poet Speaks
The poet prophet has so long abdicated his rights among us moderns that we are incredulous when told that he has again exercised his function. That is the reason why the story of a poet's part in leading the Italian people toward their decision is received by Americans with such skeptical humor. And Gabriele d' Annunzio in the rôle! A poet who is popularly supposed to be decadent, if not degenerate, gossipingly known for his celebrated affair with a famous actress, whose novels and plays, when not denounced for their eroticism, are very much caviar to the "wholesome" man, so full are they of a remote symbolism, so purely "literary." "Exotic" is the chosen word for the more tolerant American minds with which to describe the author of "Il Fuoco" and "San Sebastian."
In recent years the Italian poet has abandoned his native land, living in Paris, writing his last work in French, having apparently exiled himself for the rest of his life and renounced his former Italianism. Circumstances were stronger than the poet. The war came, and D'Annunzio turned back to his native land.
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He came to Italy at a critical moment and characteristically he filled the moment with all the drama of which it was capable. His reappearance in Italy, as every one knows, was due to the ceremonies in connection with the unveiling of a monument to the famous Garibaldian band,—the Thousand,—in the little village of Quarto outside of Genoa, from which Garibaldi and his Thousand set forth on their march of liberation fifty-five years ago. The monument had been long in the making. The opportunity for patriotic instigation was heightened by the crisis of the great war. The King and his ministers had indicated, previously, their intention of participating in this national commemoration, but as the day grew near and the political situation became more acute, it was announced that the urgency of public affairs would not permit the Government to leave Rome. It may have been the literal fact that the situation precipitated by the presence of Giolitti demanded their constant watchfulness. Or it may well have been that the King and the Salandra Government had no intention of allowing their hand in this dangerous game to be forced by any reckless fervor of the poet. They were not ready, yet, to countenance his inflammation. At any rate, they left the occasion solely to the poet.
How he improved it may best be gathered from his address. To the American reader, accustomed to a blunter appeal, the famous Sagra will seem singularly uninflammatory—intensely vague, and literary. One wonders how it could fire that, vast throng which poured out along the Genoa road and filled the little Garibaldian town. But one must remember that nine months of hesitation had prepared Italian minds for the poet's theme—the future of Italy. He linked the present crisis of choice with the heroic memories of that first making of a nation, "Oggi sta sulla patria un giorno di porpora; e questo é un ritorno per una nova dipartita, o gente d'Italia!"—A purple day is dawning for the Fatherland and this is a return for a new departure, O people of Italy! The return for the new departure—to make a larger, greater Italy, just as the Thousand had departed from this spot to gather the fragments of a nation into one. "All that you are, all that you have, and yourselves, give it to the flame-bearing Italy!" And in conclusion he invoked in a new beatitude the strong youth of Italy who must bear their country to these new triumphs: "O happy those who have more because they can give more, can burn more…. Happy those youths who are famished for glory, because they will be appeased…. Happy the pure in heart, happy those who return with victory, because they will see the new face of Rome, the recrowned brow of Dante, the triumphal beauty of Italy."
The youth of Italy avidly seized upon the poet's appeal. The Sagra was read in the wineshops of little villages, on the streets of the cities. The voice of the poet reached to that fount of racial idealism, of patriotism, that glows in the hearts of all real Italians. He tied their heroic past with the heroic opportunity of the present. And he did not speak of the "unredeemed" or of the "aspirations." Instead, "This is a return for a new departure, O people of Italy!"
The politician, awaiting in Rome the effect of his advice to choose the safe path, must have wondered, as too many Americans wondered, how this poet fellow could stir such mad passion by his fine figures of birds and sea! But there was a spirit abroad in Italy that would not be appeased with "compensations": the poet had the following of all "young Italy."
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