NOTHING the greatest artist can conceive
That every marble block doth not confine
Within itself; and only its design
The hand that follows intellect can achieve.
The ill I flee, the good that I believe, 5
In thee, fair lady, lofty and divine,
Thus hidden lie; and so that death be mine,
Art of desired success doth me bereave.
Love is not guilty, then, nor thy fair face,
Nor fortune, cruelty, nor great disdain, 10
Of my disgrace, nor chance nor destiny,
If in thy heart both death and love find place
At the same time, and if my humble brain,
Burning, can nothing draw but death from thee.
II.
Fire
NOT without fire can any workman mould
The iron to his preconceived design,
Nor can the artist without fire refine
And purify from all its dross the gold;
Nor can revive the phœnix, we are told, 5
Except by fire. Hence, if such death be mine,
I hope to rise again with the divine,
Whom death augments, and time cannot make old.
O sweet, sweet death! O fortunate fire that burns
Within me still to renovate my days, 10
Though I am almost numbered with the dead!
If by its nature unto heaven returns
This element, me, kindled in its blaze,
Will it bear upward when my life is fled.
III.
Youth and Age
OH give me back the days when loose and free
To my blind passion were the curb and rein,
Oh give me back the angelic face again,
With which all virtue buried seems to be!
Oh give my panting footsteps back to me, 5
That are in age so slow and fraught with pain,
And fire and moisture in the heart and brain,
If thou wouldst have me burn and weep for thee!
If it be true thou livest alone, Amor,
On the sweet-bitter tears of human hearts, 10
In an old man thou canst not wake desire;
Souls that have almost reached the other shore
Of a diviner love should feel the darts,
And be as tinder to a holier fire.
IV.
Old Age
THE COURSE of my long life hath reached at last,
In fragile bark o’er a tempestuous sea,
The common harbor, where must rendered be
Account of all the actions of the past.
The impassioned phantasy, that, vague and vast, 5
Made art an idol and a king to me,
Was an illusion, and but vanity
Were the desires that lured me and harassed.
The dreams of love, that were so sweet of yore,
What are they now, when two deaths may be mine, — 10
One sure, and one forecasting its alarms?
Painting and sculpture satisfy no more
The soul now turning to the Love Divine,
That oped, to embrace us, on the cross its arms.
V.
To Vittoria Colonna
LADY, how can it chance — yet this we see
In long experience — that will longer last
A living image carved from quarries vast
Than its own maker, who dies presently?
Cause yieldeth to effect if this so be, 5
And even Nature is by Art surpassed;
This know I, who to Art have given the past,
But see that Time is breaking faith with me.
Perhaps on both of us long life can I
Either in color or in stone bestow, 10
By now portraying each in look and mien;
So that a thousand years after we die,
How fair thou wast, and I how full of woe,
And wherefore I so loved thee, may be seen.
VI.
To Vittoria Colonna
WHEN the prime mover of my many sighs
Heaven took through death from out her earthly place,
Nature, that never made so fair a face,
Remained ashamed, and tears were in all eyes.
O fate, unheeding my impassioned cries! 5
O hopes fallacious! O thou spirit of grace,
Where art thou now? Earth holds in its embrace
Thy lovely limbs, thy holy thoughts the skies.
Vainly did cruel death attempt to stay
The rumor of thy virtuous renown. 10
That Lethe’s waters could not wash away!
A thousand leaves, since he hath stricken thee down,
Speak of thee, nor to thee could Heaven convey,
Except through death, a refuge and a crown.
VII.
Dante
WHAT should be said, of him cannot be said;
By too great splendor is his name attended;
To blame is easier those who him offended,
Than reach the faintest glory round him shed.
This man descended to the doomed and dead 5
For our instruction; then to God ascended;
Heaven opened wide to him its portals splendid,
Who from his country’s, closed against him, fled.
Ungrateful land! To its own prejudice
Nurse of his fortunes; and this showeth well 10
That the most perfect most of grief shall see.
Among a thousand proofs let one suffice,
That as his exile hath no parallel,
Ne’er walked the earth a greater man than he.
VIII.
Canzone
AH me! ah me! when thinking of the years,
The vanished years, alas, I do not find
Among them all one day that was my own!
Fallacious hopes, desires of the unknown,
Lamenting, loving, burning, and in tears, 5
(For human passions all have stirred my mind,)
Have held me, now I feel and know, confined
Both from the true and good still far away.
I perish day by day;
The sunshine fails, the shadows grow more dreary, 10
And I am near to fall, infirm and weary.
The Nature of Love
By Guido Guinizelli
To noble heart Love doth for shelter fly,
As seeks the bird the forest’s leafy shade;
Love was not felt till noble heart beat high,
Nor before love the noble heart was made.
Soon as the sun’s broad flame 5
Was formed, so soon the clear light filled the air;
Yet was not till he came:
So love springs up in noble breasts, and there
Has its appointed space,
As heat in the bright flames finds its allotted place. 10
Kindles in noble heart the fire of love,
As hidden virtue in the precious stone:
This virtue comes not from the stars above,
Till round it the ennobling sun has shone;
But when his powerful blaze 15
Has drawn forth what was vile, the stars impart
Strange virtue in their rays;
And thus when Nature doth create the heart
Noble and pure and high,
Like virtue from the star, love comes from woman’s eye. 20
From the Portuguese.
Song: If thou art sleeping, maiden
By Gil Vicente
IF thou art sleeping, maiden,
Awake, and open thy door.
‘T is the break of day, and we must away,
O’er meadow, and mount, and moor.
Wait not to find thy slippers, 5
But come with thy naked feet:
We shall have to pass through the dewy grass,
And waters wide and fleet.
From Eastern Sources.
>
The Fugitive
A Tartar Song
I
“HE is gone to the desert land!
I can see the shining mane
Of his horse on the distant plain,
As he rides with his Kossak band!
“Come back, rebellious one! 5
Let thy proud heart relent;
Come back to my tall, white tent,
Come back, my only son!
“Thy hand in freedom shall
Cast thy hawks, when morning breaks, 10
On the swans of the Seven Lakes,
On the lakes of Karajal.
“I will give thee leave to stray
And pasture thy hunting steeds
In the long grass and the reeds 15
Of the meadows of Karaday.
“I will give thee my coat of mail,
Of softest leather made,
With choicest steel inlaid;
Will not all this prevail?” 20
II
“This hand no longer shall
Cast my hawks, when morning breaks,
On the swans of the Seven Lakes,
On the lakes of Karajal.
“I will no longer stray 25
And pasture my hunting steeds
In the long grass and the reeds
Of the meadows of Karaday.
“Though thou give me thy coat of mail,
Of softest leather made, 30
With choicest steel inlaid,
All this cannot prevail.
“What right hast thou, O Khan,
To me, who am mine own,
Who am slave to God alone, 35
And not to any man?
“God will appoint the day
When I again shall be
By the blue, shallow sea,
Where the steel-bright sturgeons play. 40
“God, who doth care for me,
In the barren wilderness,
On unknown hills, no less
Will my companion be.
“When I wander lonely and lost 45
In the wind; when I watch at night
Like a hungry wolf, and am white
And covered with hoar-frost;
“Yea, wheresoever I be,
In the yellow desert sands, 50
In mountains or unknown lands,
Allah will care for me!”
III
Then Sobra, the old, old man, —
Three hundred and sixty years
Had he lived in this land of tears, 55
Bowed down and said, “O Khan!
“If you bid me, I will speak.
There’s no sap in dry grass,
No marrow in dry bones! Alas,
The mind of old men is weak! 60
“I am old, I am very old:
I have seen the primeval man,
I have seen the great Genghis Khan,
Arrayed in his robes of gold.
“What I say to you is the truth; 65
And I say to you, O Khan,
Pursue not the star-white man,
Pursue not the beautiful youth.
“Him the Almighty made,
And brought him forth of the light 70
At the verge and end of the night,
When men on the mountain prayed.
“He was born at the break of day,
When abroad the angels walk;
He hath listened to their talk, 75
And he knoweth what they say
“Gifted with Allah’s grace,
Like the moon of Ramazan
When it shines in the skies, O Khan,
Is the light of his beautiful face. 80
“When first on earth he trod,
The first words that he said
Were these, as he stood and prayed,
‘There is no God but God!’
“And he shall be king of men, 85
For Allah hath heard his prayer,
And the Archangel in the air,
Gabriel, hath said, Amen!”
The Siege of Kazan
BLACK are the moors before Kazan,
And their stagnant waters smell of blood:
I said in my heart, with horse and man,
I will swim across this shallow flood.
Under the feet of Argamack, 5
Like new moons were the shoes he bare,
Silken trappings hung on his back,
In a talisman on his neck, a prayer.
My warriors, thought I, are following me;
But when I looked behind, alas! 10
Not one of all the band could I see,
All had sunk in the black morass!
Where are our shallow fords? and where
The power of Kazan with its fourfold gates?
From the prison windows our maidens fair 15
Talk of us still through the iron grates.
We cannot hear them; for horse and man
Lie buried deep in the dark abyss!
Ah! the black day hath come down on Kazan!
Ah! was ever a grief like this? 20
The Boy and the Brook
DOWN from yon distant mountain height
The brooklet flows through the village street;
A boy comes forth to wash his hands,
Washing, yes, washing, there he stands,
In the water cool and sweet. 5
Brook, from what mountain dost thou come?
O my brooklet cool and sweet!
I come from yon mountain high and cold
Where lieth the new snow on the old,
And melts in the summer heat. 10
Brook, to what river dost thou go?
O my brooklet cool and sweet!
I go to the river there below
Where in bunches the violets grow,
And sun and shadow meet. 15
Brook, to what garden dost thou go?
O my brooklet cool and sweet!
I go to the garden in the vale
Where all night long the nightingale
Her love-song doth repeat. 20
Brook, to what fountain dost thou go?
O my brooklet cool and sweet!
I go to the fountain at whose brink
The maid that loves thee comes to drink,
And whenever she looks therein, 25
I rise to meet her, and kiss her chin,
And my joy is then complete.
To the Stork
WELCOME, O Stork! that dost wing
Thy flight from the far-away!
Thou hast brought us the signs of Spring,
Thou hast made our sad hearts gay.
Descend, O Stork! descend 5
Upon our roof to rest;
In our ash-tree, O my friend,
My darling, make thy nest.
To thee, O Stork, I complain,
O Stork, to thee I impart 10
The thousand sorrows, the pain
And aching of my heart.
When thou away didst go,
Away from this tree of ours,
The withering winds did blow, 15
And dried up all the flowers.
Dark grew the brilliant sky,
Cloudy and dark and drear;
They were breaking the snow on high,
And winter was drawing near. 20
From Varaca’s rocky wall,
From the rock of Varaca unrolled,
The snow came and covered all,
And the green meadow was cold.
O Stork, our garden with snow 25
Was hidden away and lost,
And the rose-trees that in it grow
Were withered by snow and frost.
From the Latin
Virgil’s First Eclogue
MELIBŒUS.
TITYRUS, thou in the shade of a spreading beech tree reclining
Meditatest, with slender pipe, the Muse of the woodlands.
We our country’s bounds and pleasant pastures relinquish,
We our cou
ntry fly; thou, Tityrus, stretched in the shadow,
Teachest the woods to resound with the name of the fair Amaryllis. 5
TITYRUS.
O Melibœus, a god for us this leisure created,
For he will be unto me a god forever; his altar
Oftentimes shall imbue a tender lamb from our sheepfolds.
He, my heifers to wander at large, and myself, as thou seest,
On my rustic reed to play what I will, hath permitted. 10
MELIBŒUS.
Truly I envy not, I marvel rather; on all sides
In all the fields is such trouble. Behold, my goats I am driving,
Heartsick, further away; this one scarce, Tityrus, lead I;
For having here yeaned twins just now among the dense hazels,
Hope of the flock, ah me! on the naked flint she hath left them. 15
Often this evil to me, if my mind had not been insensate,
Oak trees stricken by heaven predicted, as now I remember;
Often the sinister crow from the hollow ilex predicted.
Nevertheless, who this god may be, O Tityrus, tell me.
TITYRUS.
O Melibœus, the city that they call Rome, I imagined, 20
Foolish I! to be like this of ours, where often we shepherds
Wonted are to drive down of our ewes the delicate offspring.
Thus whelps like unto dogs had I known, and kids to their mothers,
Thus to compare great things with small had I been accustomed.
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 145
