E l'occhio a terra chino o in sè raccolto Nè in leggiadro soffria nè in turpe volto: Turbare egli temea pinta nel seno, Tuttora il sen: che la vergogna, e il duro Che voglia non mi entrò bassa nel petto, Vive quel foco ancor, vive l'affetto, Spira nel pensier mio la bella imago Giammai non ebbi, e sol di lei m' appago." 39. In the next year he thus apostrophises Italy: with respect to which we must observe that he was comprehensive and impartial in his repugnance to the yoke of strangers, and that he appears still more to have revolted from a French than from a German domination. We conceive that this Canzone (All' Italia), with the one which follows it, must at once have placed him in the first rank among the lyric poets of his country : "O patria mia, vedo le mura e gli archi Ma la gloria non vedo, Non vedo il lauro, e il ferro, ond' eran carchi Oimè quante ferite, Che lividor, che sangue! Oh qual ti veggio, Chi la ridusse a tale? E questo è peggio Tra le ginocchia, e piange. Piangi! che ben hai donde, Italia mia, E nella fausta sorte, e nella ria. Se fosser gli occhi tuoi due fonti vive, Adeguarsi al tuo danno ed al scorno 40. It was a strong indignation which prompted the following verses of the same year, from the piece 'On the Monument of Dante to be erected in Florence;' and in it that master of all Italian poetry, might perhaps have recognised the fire of a genius entitled to claim some distant kindred with his own: "O Italia, a cor ti stia Far ai passati onor: che d'altrettali Pensier degl' avi nostri, e de' nepoti." And again in this majestic burst: "O dell' Etrusco metro inclito padre, Se di costei che tanto alto locasti, Son bronzi e marmi: e dalle nostre menti Se mai cadesti ancor, s' unqua cadrai, Cresca, se crescer può, nostra sciaura, E in sempiterni guai Pianga tua stirpe, a tutto il mondo oscura: 41. In the Bruto Minore, published in 1824, and belonging to the second period of his life, he gave more visibly to the world his unhappy opinions, still, however, veiling himself by putting them into the mouth of the Roman hero. The following passage may, however, serve as a specimen of its high poetical merits : "E tu, dal mar cui nostro sangue irriga, E l'inquieta notte e la funesta Tu sì placida sei? Tu la nascente Lieti vedesti, e i memorandi allori; Sotto barbaro piede Rintronerà quella solinga sede.” 42. In the Consalvo, a dying youth-recalling, we need hardly add, the poet-abandoned by all but the object of his love, entreats of her the parting gift of an only kiss. The description which follows is surely a noble specimen of the power of the Italian language in blank verse: "Stette sospesa e pensierosa in atto Del trepido, rapito amante impresse." From the serious poems we have quoted somewhat largely, yet insufficiently. We might, if space permitted, advert to La Ginestra, the fragment xxxix., and others: but we pass on from them with the observation that the reader, opening them at hazard, will find no page of them without abundant beauties, though in some places they are scarred and blighted by emanations from the pit of his shoreless and bottomless despair. And this brings us to the threshold of the last and very painful portion of our task, some reference, namely, to the philosophical speculations of Leopardi. 43. Before entering, however, we may advert shortly to his principal production in satirical poetry. He wrote very early and then rewrote a poem, rather imitated than translated from the Batrachomyomachia; and he followed this up with an original sequel (in the ottava rima) which he brought to its abrupt ending immediately before his death in 1837. Perhaps the idea of it may also have been in part suggested by the satirical Poem of Casti, Il Poema Tartaro, in which he attacks the Russians. It shows a facility in employing the language for its end quite equal (and more can hardly be said) we think to that of Byron in Don Juan; while some parts of the political satire, for fineness and keenness, might rank with that of Swift. He takes up the tale at the point where the mice, whose victory over the frogs had been converted into defeat and rout by the arrival of the crabs, rally and reorganise themselves, and he continues it in eight cantos, under the name Paralipomeni della Batrachomiomachia, through their subsequent negotiations and war with their later and more formidable enemy. Nothing can be more successful than the passage in which the general of the crabs, in answer to the demand of the envoy of the mice, who wishes to know what right they had to interfere, states that they did it to preserve the balance of power, and goes on to explain the theory of political equilibrium. |