What strange conceits, what fabulous histories Your aspect made familiar to my mind, And all your bright companions! in that time When, silent, seated on the verdant earth, I whiled so many twilight hours away Gazing upon the sky, and, listening, heard The bull-frog chanting in his distant home. Near me the fire-fly through the hedges gleamed And o'er the furrows; whispering with the wind Were alleys overgrown and cypresses
Fragrant in yonder grove; while from this roof Alternate voices came, the tranquil hum Of menial labour. Then, what high resolves, What dreams, the vistas of the sea inspired; And those blue mountains, dimly visible, I thought one day to traverse, nursing hope Of hidden worlds and happiness beyond Wherein to dwell! unwitting of my fate, And of the hours when this poor sickly life I would have bartered gladly for a bier. Nor any presage gave me then my heart
That, young in days, I should be thus condemned To wither out my life in this dull town Among a people ignorant and rude,*
To whom all learning is a senseless jest,
An unknown word fit argument for mirth;
Who hate and shun me, not that envy moves
Their churlish thought-they deem me not their better- But, though I let no outward sign appear,
They hold that I esteem them less than me. Here then I pass my years, neglected, lost, Loveless and lifeless, in my own despite Harsh to the folly and ill-will I meet; Stripped of compassion, of the genial warmth That misery chills; contemner of my kind- So grown through contemplation of this herd! Meanwhile, flies from me the sweet time of youth, Dearer than fame or laurels, dearer far
Than the clear light of day or breath of being :
I lose thee, joylessly, without return,
In this abhorred confine, amidst these ills
O, in the desert of my life, sole flower!
* These strictures would only apply to persons of his own class; towards the peasantry Leopardi is always kind and sympathetic. He was unanimously elected to represent Recanati at Bologna in the abortive Revolution of 1831.
Now, borne upon the wind, the hour-bell's chime Comes from the tower hard by. Great comfort oft, I well remember, was that sound to me
In my dark chamber, when, a child, at night By haunting terrors held, I wakeful lay And wished the dawn. Nothing I see or hear About me but recalls some tender image,
Or wakes some sweet remembrance in my mind- Sweet in itself, though with regret intrudes Sense of the present, and the vain desire, Still sad, of bygone joys, the thought: I was. That arbour turned to meet the sun's last ray, The painted cattle on those pictured walls, And rugged weald o'er which the morning breaks, Brought to my careless hours untold delight, When, wheresoe'er I went, my potent error Was ever with me, whispering at my side. In these old halls, bright from the winter's snow, About those casements rattling to the wind, Our sports resounded and the noisy mirth Of children's voices, in that fraudful time When the unworthy mystery of things Puts on alluring airs before our eyes,
And the too credulous youth, like a fond lover, Sighs for his untried life, and in his mind Feigns the celestial beauties he admires.
Hopes, tender hopes, delusions of my youth, Ever discoursing thus I turn to you; Since, through the intervention of long years, Other affections, and new paths discerned, You I may not forget! Honour-I feel- And glory are but phantoms; our delights, The good we seek, mere unappeased desire; Nor has this life one fruit-vain misery! And, though my lot be empty of all joy, My mortal state a dark and barren waste, Fortune takes little from me, I well see.† But oh! alas! when I look back on you,
My early-cherished hopes, my first sweet dreams,
* Possente errore.' A supposed illusion concerning the possibility of human happiness which dominated the writer's mind in early years. Elsewhere called 'l'antico error, celeste dono,' now only permitted to the young; of old the companion of man through life. See also 'Alla sua donna,' l. 37. + Because, philosophically considered, life at best is so poor a thing; but the poet protests.
And think, of all the promise of that time, Death is the only hope now left to me,
I feel my heart would break; I feel that never Shall I find comfort in my destiny.
And when this death, so long invoked, draws near, And I have reached the end of my mischance; When earth becomes a stranger's land to me, And future hours no more beguile my eyes; Surely you will be present to my mind,
Will cause fresh tears to flow, will make more bitter The life thus lived in vain, and with regret Temper the sweetness of that parting day.
And more than once in the first youthful tumult Of new contentments, anguish, and desire I had already called on death; long while Sat by yon fountain half resolved to end Sorrow and hope beneath those waves. Led near the grave by some strange malady, I wept my youth, the flower of my poor days So early blasted, and, through the late hours, Oft seated on my conscious bed beside A feeble lamp, in plaintive elegy, Lamented with the silence and with Night The spirit that seemed eager for release, And faintly sang my own funereal chant.
Who can remember you without a sigh,
O first approach of youth, O happy days, Sweet, inexpressible, when one so ravisht First sees love smile on him from maiden's eyes; When all things, emulous, appear to smile And envy sleeps or, pitiful, is mute;
When, to his new-found guest (unwonted wonder!) The World holds forth almost a helping hand, Excuses faults, makes holiday, bows low,
And shows he would receive and hail him lord? Fleet days, that vanish like the lightning's gleam,
Who can be truly ignorant of sorrow
For whom this radiant season is no more- If youth, alas for youth, if youth be spent?
O Nerina! of thee haply I hear
These haunts no longer speak? Faded perhaps Out of my mind art thou? Where art thou gone, Sweetest, that nothing but remembrances
I find of thee? Alas, this natal earth
Shall see thee not again. That little window
Where thou wert wont to talk with me, and where Glitters the starlight sadly glimmering now,
Is desolate. Where art thou that I hear Thy voice no more resounding as of old When every distant accent from thy lips
That reached me urged the warm blood to my cheek? Fled is that time. Thy days, so sweet to me, Are past. Thou'rt gone. And others tread the earth, And have their dwelling mid these fragrant hills. Brief was thy stay, and like a dream thy life, To which thou cam'st as in some jocund measure, With lightsome step, joy shining from thy brow, While in thine eyes hope undiminished beamed- The light of youth-when they were quenched by Fate And low thou liest. Ah Nerina! yet reigns The old love in my heart; and if at times I go where others meet in festal guise, Then to myself I say: O Nerina,
No more dost thou adorn thee for the dance! Thou com'st not now where others gaily meet. If May return and lovers with glad voices Go carrying sweet boughs to their loves again, I say: Nerina mine, for thee no more Returns the spring; returns not gentle love. With every sunny day, each fair hillside I gaze on, every pleasure that I feel,
I say: Nerina is not glad, she sees
No smiling meadows, heeds not the light air. Alas! thou art gone, thou, my eternal sigh,*
Art gone from me, and, with all pleasant thought, Each dear emotion, every tender joy,
Sorrow, or sad sweet pleading of the heart, Mingles the sharpness of that memory.'
The utterance of so much sorrow seems for a short space to have banished the cloud of melancholy from Leopardi's mind. His next effusions-the following little
Cf. Pope,Essay on Man,' Ep. IV:
'That something still which prompts th' eternal sigh, For which we bear to live, or dare to die.'
idyl, and the longer piece from which the succeeding excerpt is taken-belong to a very different class, and remind us of our own Crabbe in closeness and tenderness of observation. They give a pleasing picture of peasant life, and harvest or vintage festivals, a century ago. We may imagine Nerina to have been the young girl bringing flowers, gathered in the fields on her way home, for the next day's fête. They are perhaps the least sad, the brightest and pleasantest, to be found in the 'Canti,' and it is fortunate they fall within the period under review.
'The Village Saturday.
(Composed Sept. 29, 1829).
Comes now the cottage maiden
From the meadows, while the evening shadows fall, Her basket trimly laden at her side;
In her hand are posies,
Violets and roses,
For tomorrow is the village festival,
And with them she will deck her breast and hair. Sits spinning on the stair
The aged crone, good neighbours near attending; Her face is to the side where sets the sun.
They hear her tell how she
Could brisk and merry be
In her young time, when, upon festal days, She too adorned herself with flowers at eve, And tript it gaily with the friends she had, As young companions, in that age more fair. Meanwhile the dusky air
Grows darker still, and soon
The sky puts on a robe of deeper blue;
Their shadows now the roofs and hills renew
Beneath the rising moon.
The merry bell rings out Glad presage for tomorrow; Respite from daily sorrow May with that sound begin.
The boys with whoop and shout
The welcome signal greet,
Come capering through the street,
And make a joyful din.
Home to his frugal meal the labourer goes
Whistling, and thinks but of the day's repose,
« PreviousContinue » |