But we must be allowed to quote one little poem; an impromptu one, written on the death of a Catholic prelate (February 13th, 1866) whose memory is held in benediction by a vast number of our readers:
"Son of St. Patrick, John, the best of men,
Boston's blest bishop bids good-by again.
Not long ago we parted on the shore,
And said farewell—nor thought to see him more:
That brain so weary, and that heart so worn
With many cares! The parting made us mourn.
But he came back—he could not die in Rome.
Tho' well might those bones rest by Peter's dome,
Or Ara Coeil—and the sacred stair
That climbs the Capitol—or anywhere
In that queen city. …
"Scholar and friend! old schoolfellow, though far
Past me in learning, that was ne'er a bar
To our free intercourse; for thou hadst thine
One muse to worship—leaving me the nine.
Thy faith was large, even in thy fellow-men:
And it pleased thee to patronize my pen
When I turned Horace into English rhyme,
And thought myself a poet for the time,
In Latin school-days—but, alas! thy shroud
Drives from remembrance all this gathering crowd
Of tender images; farewell to all!
I cannot think of these beside thy pall.
Thine, good Fitzpatrick, noble heir of those
Who went before thee—Fenwick and Bordeaux's
Gentle apostle Cheverus, and Toussaud—
Whom in my boyhood I was blest to know.
"But the bell moves me. Christian, fare thee well.
I loved my bishop and I mind his bell."
Let us now approach our subject more closely. But here the difficulty is how to enable our readers, who are not acquainted with the original Italian, to appreciate the fidelity of the American translator—a fidelity the beauty whereof consists in that Mr. Parsons translates almost literally and at the same time his translation is poetry. After all, he is not entitled to extraordinary praise who, being endowed with poetical genius, catches the sense of the original and gives it in foreign verses. The best plan seems to us to give the text, then a literal (pedantic or lineal) translation, and afterward Parsons's. Thus, for instance, Dante reads on the architrave over the entrance to hell:
[Transcriber's Note: The arrangement of the text of pages 217, 218, and 219 is confusing, including two parallel renderings and numerous footnotes. The renderings have been placed in sequential order and the footnotes placed following the references.]
"Per me si va nella città dolente. [Footnote 93]
Per me si va nell' eterno dolore:
Per me si va tra la perduta [Footnote 94] gente.
Giustizia mosse 'l mio alto Fattore:
Fecemi la divina Potestate,
La somma Sapienza, e 'l primo Amore.
Dinanzi a me non fur cose create,
Se non eterne, ed io eterna duro:
Lasciate ogni speranza, voi, che 'ntrate."
[Footnote 93: Dolente means sorrow without any mixture of hope— wailing and gnashing of teeth.]
[Footnote 94: Perduta, in the sense of that pecunia sit tibi in perditionem, (Acts viii. 20,) absolute condemnation. Uemo perduto in Italian is the ruptus disruptusque of Cicero, a "gone" man, beyond all hope of moral recovery.]