In the duke, my brother, to conduct us,
So early in the year, to this retreat.
Here we possess ourselves, here we may dream
Uninterrupted hours—dream ourselves back
Into the golden age which poets sing.
I love this Belriguardo; I have here
Pass'd many youthful, many happy days;
And the fresh green, and this bright sun, recall
The feelings of those times.
"Leonora. Yes, a new world
Surrounds us here. How it delights—the shade
Of leaves for ever green! how it revives—
The rushing of that brook! with giddy joy
The young boughs swing them in the morning air;
And from their beds the little friendly flowers
Look with the eye of childhood up to us.
The trustful gardener gives to the broad day
His winter store of oranges and citrons;
One wide blue sky rests over all; the snow
On the horizon, from the distant hills,
In light dissolving vapour steals away."
The conversation winds gracefully towards poetry and Tasso. We will answer at once the interesting question, whether the poet has represented Leonora d'Este, the princess, as being in love with Tasso. He has; and very delicately has he made her express this sentiment. From the moment when, doubtless thinking of the living poet, she twined the laurel wreath which she afterwards deposited on the brow of Virgil, to the last scene where she leads the unhappy Tasso to a fatal declaration of his passion, there is a gentle crescendo of what always remains, however, a very subdued and meditative affection. She loves—but like a princess; she muses over the danger to herself from suffering such a sentiment towards one in so different a rank of life to grow upon her; she never thinks of the danger to him, to the hapless Tasso, by her betrayal of an affection which she is yet resolved to keep within subjection. To be sure it may be said, that all women have something of the princess in them at this epoch of their lives. There is a wonderful selfishness in the heart, while it still asks itself whether it shall love or not. The sentiment of the princess is very elegantly disguised in the jesting vein in which she rallies Leonora Sanvitale—
"Leonora.—Your mind embraces wider regions; mine
Lingers content within the little isle,
And 'midst the laurel grove of poesy.
"Princess.—In which fair isle, in which sweet grove, they say,
The myrtle also flourishes. And though
There wander many muses there, we choose
Our friend and playmate not alone from them,
We rather greet the poet there himself,
Who seems indeed to shun us, seems to fly,
Seeking we know not what, and he himself
Perhaps as little knows. 'Tis pretty when,
In some propitious hour, the enraptured youth
Looking with better eyes, detects in us
The treasure he had been so far to seek.
"Leonora.—The jest is pleasant—touches, but not near.
I honour each man's merit; and to Tasso
Am barely just. His eye, that covets nothing,
Light ranges over all; his ear is fill'd
With the rich harmony great nature makes;
What ancient records, what the living scene,
Disclose, his open bosom takes it all;
What beams of truth stray scattered o'er this world,
His mind collects, converges. How his heart
Has animated the inanimate!
How oft ennobled what we little prize,
And shown how poor the treasures of the great!
In this enchanted circle of his own
Proceeds the wondrous man; and us he draws
Within, to follow and participate.
He seems to near us, yet he stays remote—
Seems to regard us, and regards instead
Some spirit that assumes our place the while.