FROM THE ITALIAN OF PETRARCH.
The soft west wind, returning, brings again
Its lovely family of herbs and flowers;
Progne's gay notes, and Philomela's strain
Vary the dance of spring-tide's rosy hours;
And joyously o'er every field and plain,
Glows the bright smile that greets them from above,
And the warm spirit of reviving love
Breathes in the air and murmurs from the main.
But tears and sorrowing sighs, which gushingly
Pour from the secret chambers of my heart,
Are all that spring returning brings to me;
And in the modest smile, or glance of art,
The song of birds, the bloom of heath and tree,
A desert's rugged tract and savage forms I see.
Translation of G. W. GREENE.
FRANCESCO PETRARCA, 1804-1374.
HE morning song of Bellman, commencing, "Up, Amaryllis !" is one of the most celebrated of the lyrical poems of Sweden. We are told that nothing can exceed the enthusiasm with which it is sung in that country by high and low, old and young, alike. The translation inserted in the ensuing pages has been taken from the interesting work of the Howitts, on the "Literature of Northern Europe."
But who the melodies of morn can tell?
The wild brook babbling down the mountain side;
The lowing herd, the sheepfold's simple bell;
The pipe of early shepherd dim descried
In the lone valley; echoing far and wide
The clamorous horn along the cliffs above;
The hollow murmur of the ocean tide;
The hum of bees, the linnet's lay of love,
And the full choir that wakes the universal grove
The cottage curs at early pilgrim bark;
Crown'd with her pail the tripping milk-maid sings;
The whistling plowman stalks afield; and hark!
Down the rough slope the ponderous wagon rings;
Through rustling corn the hare, astonish'd, springs;
Slow tolls the village clock the drowsy hour-
The partridge bursts away on whirring wings;
Deep mourns the turtle in sequester'd bower,
And shrill lark carols clear from her aërial tour.
JAMES BEATTIE, 1735-1803.
MORNING WALK.
The morning hath not lost her virgin blush,
Nor step, but mine, soil'd the earth's tinsel'd robe.
How full of Heaven this solitude appears-
This healthful comfort of the happy swain,
Who from his hard but peaceful bed roused up,
In morning's exercise saluted is
By a full choir of feather'd choristers,
Wedding their notes to the enamor'd air!
There Nature, in her unaffected dress,
Plaited with valleys, and emboss'd with hills,
Enlaced with silver streams, and fring'd with woods,
Sits lovely in her native russet.
WILLIAM CHAMBERLAYNE, 1619-1689.
BEFORE SUNRISE, IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNL
Hast thou a charm to stay the morning star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald, awful head, O sovran Blanc!
The Arne and Aveyron at thy base
Rove ceaselessly; but thou, most awful form!
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines
How silently! Around thee and above,
Deep in the air and dark, substantial, black-
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!
O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,
Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer,
I worshiped the Invisible alone.
Yet like some sweet, beguiling melody,
So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,
Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought,
Yea, with my life, and life's own secret joy;
Till the dilating soul, enrapt, transfused
Into the mighty vision passing-there,
As in her natural form, swelled vast to heaven!
Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks, and secret ecstasy! Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Grim vales and icy cliffs all join my hymn.
Thou first and chief, sole sovran of the vale!
O struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky, or when they sink,
Companion of the morning-star, and of the dawn.
Co-herald wake, O wake, and utter praise!
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?
And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad!
Who called you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks,
Forever shattered, and the same forever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,
Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, Unceasing thunder, and eternal foam?
And who commanded (and the silence came),
Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?
Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain-
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!
Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven,
Beneath the keen, full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?
God! Let the torrent, like a shout of nations,
Answer, and let the ice-plains echo God!
God sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice!
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!
Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal pool!
Ye wild goats, sporting round the eagle's nest !
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the elements !
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!
Thou too, hoar mount! with the sky-pointing peaks,
Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene
Into the depths of clouds, that vail thy breast-
Thou too, again, stupendous mountain! thou
That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow traveling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemed, like a vapory cloud,
To rise before me-rise, O ever rise
Rise like a cloud of incense from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit, throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God!
Wish'd morning's come; and now upon the plains
And distant mountains, where they feed their flocks,
The happy shepherds leave their homely huts,
And with their pipes proclaim the new-born day!
The lusty swain comes with his well-fill'd stoup
Of healthful viands, which, when hunger calls,
With much content and appetite he eats,
To follow in the field his daily toil,
And dress the grateful glebe that yields him fruits.
The beasts, that under the warm hedges slept,
And weather'd out the cold, bleak night, are up,
And, looking toward the neighboring pastures, raise
Their voice, and bid their fellow-brutes good-morrow!
The cheerful birds, too, on the tops of trees,
Assemble all in choirs, and with their notes
Salute and welcome up the rising sun.
|