We have then direct description of Nature; direct description of man sometimes as influenced by Nature; sometimes Nature used as the scenery of human passion; but no intermingling of them both. Each is for ever distinct. The only thing that unites them in idea, and in the end, is that both have proceeded from the creative joy of God.
Of course this way of thinking permits of the things of Nature being used to illustrate the doings, thinkings and character of man; and in none of his poems is such illustration better used than in Sordello. There is a famous passage, in itself a noble description of the opulent generativeness of a warm land like Italy, in which he compares the rich, poetic soul of Sordello to such a land, and the lovely line in it,
And still more labyrinthine buds the rose,
holds in its symbolism the whole essence of a great artist's nature. I quote the passage. It describes Sordello, and it could not better describe Italy:
Sordello foremost in the regal class
Nature has broadly severed from the mass
Of men, and framed for pleasure, as she frames
Some happy lands, that have luxurious names,
For loose fertility; a footfall there
Suffices to upturn to the warm air