Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection
before we separate, one among the multitude of mine, as coming the
nearest to the poetry of yours, and as having been not totally useless
to me. Often have I reflected on it; sometimes with pensiveness, with
sadness never.
_Boccaccio._ Then, Francesco, if you had with you as copious a choice
of dreams as clustered on the elm-trees where the Sibyl led Aeneas,
this, in preference to the whole swarm of them, is the queen dream for
me.
_Petrarca._ When I was younger I was fond of wandering in solitary
places, and never was afraid of slumbering in woods and grottoes.
Among the chief pleasures of my life, and among the commonest of my
occupations, was the bringing before me such heroes and heroines of
antiquity, such poets and sages, such of the prosperous and the
unfortunate, as most interested me by their courage, their wisdom,
their eloquence, or their adventures. Engaging them in the
conversation best suited to their characters, I knew perfectly their
manners, their steps, their voices: and often did I moisten with my
tears the models I had been forming of the less happy.
_Boccaccio._ Great is the privilege of entering into the studies of
the intellectual; great is that of conversing with the guides of
nations, the movers of the mass, the regulators of the unruly will,
stiff, in its impurity and rust, against the finger of the Almighty
Power that formed it: but give me, Francesco, give me rather the
creature to sympathize with; apportion me the sufferings to assuage.
Ah, gentle soul! thou wilt never send them over to another; they have
better hopes from thee.
_Petrarca._ We both alike feel the sorrows of those around us. He who
suppresses or allays them in another, breaks many thorns off his own;
and future years will never harden fresh ones.
My occupation was not always in making the politician talk politics,
the orator toss his torch among the populace, the philosopher run down
from philosophy to cover the retreat or the advances of his sect; but
sometimes in devising how such characters must act and discourse, on
subjects far remote from the beaten track of their career. In like
manner the philologist, and again the dialectician, were not indulged
in the review and parade of their trained bands, but, at times,
brought forward to show in what manner and in what degree external
habits had influenced the conformation of the internal man. It was far
from unprofitable to set passing events before past actors, and to
record the decisions of those whose interests and passions are
unconcerned in them.
_Boccaccio._ This is surely no easy matter. The thoughts are in fact
your own, however you distribute them.
_Petrarca._ All cannot be my own; if you mean by _thoughts_ the
opinions and principles I should be the most desirous to inculcate.
Some favourite ones perhaps may obtrude too prominently, but otherwise
no misbehaviour is permitted them: reprehension and rebuke are always
ready, and the offence is punished on the spot.
_Boccaccio._ Certainly you thus throw open, to its full extent, the
range of poetry and invention; which cannot but be very limited and
sterile, unless where we find displayed much diversity of character as
disseminated by nature, much peculiarity of sentiment as arising from
position, marked with unerring skill through every shade and
gradation; and finally and chiefly, much intertexture and intensity of
passion. You thus convey to us more largely and expeditiously the
stores of your understanding and imagination, than you ever could by
sonnets or canzonets, or sinewless and sapless allegories.
But weightier works are less captivating. If you had published any
such as you mention, you must have waited for their acceptance. Not
only the fame of Marcellus, but every other,
Crescit occulto velut arbor aevo;
and that which makes the greatest vernal shoot is apt to make the
least autumnal. Authors in general who have met celebrity at starting,
have already had their reward; always their utmost due, and often much
beyond it. We cannot hope for both celebrity and fame: supremely
fortunate are the few who are allowed the liberty of choice between
them. We two prefer the strength that springs from exercise and toil,
acquiring it gradually and slowly: we leave to others the earlier
blessing of that sleep which follows enjoyment. How many at first
sight are enthusiastic in their favour! Of these how large a portion
come away empty-handed and discontented! like idlers who visit the
seacoast, fill their pockets with pebbles bright from the passing
wave, and carry them off with rapture. After a short examination at
home, every streak seems faint and dull, and the whole contexture
coarse, uneven, and gritty: first one is thrown away, then another;
and before the week's end the store is gone, of things so shining and
wonderful.
_Petrarca._ Allegory, which you named with sonnets and canzonets, had
few attractions for me, believing it to be the delight in general of
idle, frivolous, inexcursive minds, in whose mansions there is neither
hall nor portal to receive the loftier of the Passions. A stranger to
the Affections, she holds a low station among the handmaidens of
Poetry, being fit for little but an apparition in a mask. I had
reflected for some time on this subject, when, wearied with the length
of my walk over the mountains, and finding a soft old molehill,
covered with grey grass, by the wayside, I laid my head upon it and
slept. I cannot tell how long it was before a species of dream or
vision came over me.
Two beautiful youths appeared beside me; each was winged; but the
wings were hanging down, and seemed ill adapted to flight. One of
them, whose voice was the softest I ever heard, looking at me
frequently, said to the other:
'He is under my guardianship for the present: do not awaken him with
that feather.'
Methought, hearing the whisper, I saw something like the feather on an
arrow; and then the arrow itself; the whole of it, even to the point;
although he carried it in such a manner that it was difficult at first
to discover more than a palm's length of it: the rest of the shaft,
and the whole of the barb, was behind his ankles.
'This feather never awakens any one,' replied he, rather petulantly;
'but it brings more of confident security, and more of cherished
dreams, than you without me are capable of imparting.'
'Be it so!' answered the gentler ... 'none is less inclined to quarrel
or dispute than I am. Many whom you have wounded grievously, call upon
me for succour. But so little am I disposed to thwart you, it is
seldom I venture to do more for them than to whisper a few words of
comfort in passing. How many reproaches on these occasions have been
cast upon me for indifference and infidelity! Nearly as many, and
nearly in the same terms, as upon you!'
'Odd enough that we, O Sleep! should be thought so alike,' said Love,
contemptuously. 'Yonder is he who bears a nearer resemblance to you:
the dullest have observed it.' I fancied I turned my eyes to where he
was pointing, and saw at a distance the figure he designated.
Meanwhile the contention went on uninterruptedly. Sleep was slow in
asserting his power or his benefits. Love recapitulated them; but only
that he might assert his own above them. Suddenly he called on me to
decide, and to choose my patron. Under the influence, first of the
one, then of the other, I sprang from repose to rapture, I alighted
from rapture on repose ... and knew not which was sweetest. Love was
very angry with me, and declared he would cross me throughout the
whole of my existence. Whatever I might on other occasions have
thought of his veracity, I now felt too surely the conviction that he
would keep his word. At last, before the close of the altercation, the
third Genius had advanced, and stood near us. I cannot tell how I knew
him, but I knew him to be the Genius of Death. Breathless as I was at
beholding him, I soon became familiar with his features. First they
seemed only calm; presently they grew contemplative; and lastly
beautiful: those of the Graces themselves are less regular, less
harmonious, less composed. Love glanced at him unsteadily, with a
countenance in which there was somewhat of anxiety, somewhat of
disdain; and cried: 'Go away! go away! nothing that thou touchest,
lives.'
'Say rather, child!' replied the advancing form, and advancing grew
loftier and statelier, 'say rather that nothing of beautiful or of
glorious lives its own true life until my wing hath passed over it.'
Love pouted, and rumpled and bent down with his forefinger the stiff
short feathers on his arrow-head; but replied not. Although he frowned
worse than ever, and at me, I dreaded him less and less, and scarcely
looked toward him. The milder and calmer Genius, the third, in
proportion as I took courage to contemplate him, regarded me with more
and more complacency. He held neither flower nor arrow, as the others
did; but, throwing back the clusters of dark curls that overshadowed
his countenance, he presented to me his hand, openly and benignly. I
shrank on looking at him so near, and yet I sighed to love him. He
smiled, not without an expression of pity, at perceiving my
diffidence, my timidity: for I remembered how soft was the hand of
Sleep, how warm and entrancing was Love's. By degrees, I became
ashamed of my ingratitude; and turning my face away, I held out my
arms, and felt my neck within his. Composure strewed and allayed all
the throbbings of my bosom; the coolness of freshest morning breathed
around: the heavens seemed to open above me; while the beautiful cheek
of my deliverer rested on my head. I would now have looked for those
others; but knowing my intention by my gesture, he said,
consolatorily:
'Sleep is on his way to the Earth, where many are calling him; but it
is not to these he hastens; for every call only makes him fly farther
off. Sedately and gravely as he looks, he is nearly as capricious and
volatile as the more arrogant and ferocious one.'
'And Love!' said I, 'whither is he departed? If not too late, I would
propitiate and appease him.'
'He who cannot follow me, he who cannot overtake and pass me,' said
the Genius, 'is unworthy of the name, the most glorious in earth or
heaven. Look up! Love is yonder, and ready to receive thee.'
I looked: the earth was under me: I saw only the clear blue sky, and
something brighter above it.
POEMS
I
She I love (alas in vain!)
Floats before my slumbering eyes:
When she comes she lulls my pain,
When she goes what pangs arise!
Thou whom love, whom memory flies,
Gentle Sleep! prolong thy reign!
If even thus she soothe my sighs,
Never let me wake again!
II
Pleasure! why thus desert the heart
In its spring-tide?
I could have seen her, I could part,
And but have sigh'd!
O'er every youthful charm to stray,
To gaze, to touch....
Pleasure! why take so much away,
Or give so much?
III
Past ruin'd Ilion Helen lives,
Alcestis rises from the shades;
Verse calls them forth; 'tis verse that gives
Immortal youth to mortal maids.
Soon shall Oblivion's deepening veil
Hide all the peopled hills you see,
The gay, the proud, while lovers hail
These many summers you and me.
IV
Ianthe! you are call'd to cross the sea!
A path forbidden _me_!
Remember, while the Sun his blessing sheds
Upon the mountain-heads,
How often we have watcht him laying down
His brow, and dropt our own
Against each other's, and how faint and short
And sliding the support!