ID.. i.^¥ ' 9. I S [iXftTffnTfili'i w.n.Mjiijriu JiniiiiVriiii lUiillilDu THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES 6^ ITALIAN LYRISTS OF TO-DAY ITALIAN LYRISTS OF TO-DAY TRANSLATIONS FROM CON- TEMPORARY ITALIAN POETRY WITH BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES BY G. A. GREENE LONDON : ELKIN MATHEWS AND JOHN LANE, VIGO ST. NEW YORK : MACMILLAN AND COMPANY 1 893 Edinburgh : T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty. ?9 CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION ix GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO I Dedication to Canto Novo . 7 Evening in May 7 ' falce di luna calante ' 8 ' The humming rhymes ' 9 ' By Treccati marsh ' . lO Four Sonnets n ' Beneath the white full-moon ' 14 Two Sonnets 14 Prelude to Intermezzo di Rime i6 Sadness of a Night in Spring 17 ALESSANDRO ARNABOLDI ' 19 Rhamses II. 23 ALFREDO BACCELLI 25 The Birth of Fire 29 VITTORIO BETTELONI 31 ' When we were Young ' 35 ERSILIO BICCI 37 Contempt 40 ARRIGO BOITO 41 From Fa Is toff . 45 ALINDA BONACCI-BRUNAMONTI 47 The Clock-tower • SO g- ^- ?, ,■ .. .--^ VI CONTENTS TAGE LUIGI CAPUANA 51 Sub Umbra .... S5 Cameo ..... 57 Passio Domini Nostri 57 'Istantanea' (Paternoster) . 60 GIOSUE CARDUCCI 61 Sonnet ..... 69 In an Album 69 Rome ..... 70 To the Sonnet : i. . 71 To the Sonnet 11. 72 Pantheism .... 72 In the Square of San Petronio at I 3ologr la 73 Ruit Hora 74 To the Statue of Victory 76 Snowfall 78 On Monte Mario 78 GIUSEPPE CHIARINI 81 Prelude to Lacrymce 8s EDMONDO DE AMICIS , 87 War .... 90 Snowfall .... 90 SEVERING FERRARI 93 Bordatirii .... 97 AUGUSTO FERRERO 99 The Striking of the Hours . 102 Then .... 102 Twilight-Dream 103 UGO FLERES 105 Quatrains 108 ANTONIO FOGAZZARO . 109 ' Now in the vesper shades ' "3 Evening .... 113 In St. Mark's at Venice 118 CONTENTS FERDINANDO FONTANA To the Statue of Moliere . RENATO FUCINI (TANFUCIO NERI) Epigram ..... DOMENICO GNOLI . Glory ARTURO GRAF The Depth and End Birds of Passage Mors Regina Water-lily The Lonely Fir-tree The Bell . COUNTESS LARA (EVELINE CATTERMOLE MANCINl) . In the Evening The Churchyard GIOVANNI MARRADI Florentine Memories GUIDO MAZZONI . ' Well, well I know ' ' Now Night spreads out her starry veil ' DOMENICO MILELLI Verses to Arrigo Boito ADA NEGRI . Thou askest ? . ENRICO NENCIONI To a Nightingale St. Simeon Stylites VU PAGE 119 122 123 126 127 137 139 140 140 141 143 146 146 149 iSS 159 159 161 164 167 170 171 174 174 via CONTENTS ENRICO PANZACCHI Dreaming To Pietro Cossa Pisa An Unseen Singer Far away . Nocturne GIOVANNI PASCOLI The Wedding . The Banquet The Poet . ARMANDO PEROTTI Sonnet RICCARDO PITTERI Sonnet The Pen and the Papei Patience . MARIO RAPISARDI Torment . 'LORENZO STECCHETTI' (OLINDO GUERRINl) Prelude . ' When the leaves fall ' Sonnet ' Lady, I fain would die ' G. TARGIONI-TOZZETTI and G Chorus of Women ANNIE VIVANTI White Violets . The Dead Child ANTONIO ZARDO . The Daisy MENASCI 177 180 182 182 183 184 185 187 191 192 192 193 197 199 202 202 203 205 209 2H 217 217 218 218 219 222 223 226 226 229 232 INTRODUCTION The years between i860 and 1870 saw the making of the Italian nation ; but they seemed ahuost to look on at the death-throes of Italian literature. Never had letters in general, and poetry in especial, sunk to so low an ebb. It was not that there were no authors, but that those there were wrote but little, were founding no school and heading no onward movement ; and, above all, that no one read their works — no one, that is, save the select few who in all ages, throughout the darkest hours of gloom and depression, tend and keep alive the sacred lamp of art. How long ago that period of literary darkness seems to be, to the Italian of to-day ! ' Who re- members now,' asks Carducci, writing in 1880, 'the Italian poetry of ten or eleven years since?' Yet there were poets in the land, some who still continued their song, and others who rested on laurels won long years before. In 1870, Manzoni was yet alive : Prati, whom Carducci calls the only true and richly poetic author of the second generation of the Italian Romanticists, was still writing: Aleardi was at the X INTRODUCTION summit of his fame : the abate Zanella, Terenzio Mamiani, Niccolo Tommaseo, and many more, had not yet passed away, and of these not a few were still carrying on the great traditions of Italian poetry. Whence, then, came that depression of the poetic art, and of literature in general, which marked the period of which I am speaking ? Briefly, it may be ascribed to two causes : one political, one literary. The literature of Italy in our century has been largely political. From 1815 to 1870 the entire in- tellect of the nation, almost without exception, either threw itself with fervour into the national movement, or was in sympathy with it. Except where despair reigned, the function of intellect and the purpose of literature became indeed the preparation of Italians for the new Italy. It is difficult to mention more than one or two writers of eminence in the hostile camp ; though, on the other hand, there were many divisions in the army of liberation. And it is pro- bable that at first, for all their intellectual predomi- nance, those who firmly believed in the re-arising of Italy were a minority so far as mere numbers were concerned. They had to educate the nation ; they had to inspire it with hope and enthusiasm; they had to point out the paths which might lead to free- dom. Theirs it was, too, to combat the disintegrat- INTRODUCTION XI ing tendencies which showed themselves in every province, and gradually to substitute national aspira- tions towards union for local discontent, for local jealousies and mutual suspicion, for the rash and futile efforts of Tuscan or Sicilian to secure for his own province some form of precarious and even dangerous autonomy. And, finally, it was their mission to proclaim the wrongs and the aspirations of Italy to the world at large. What wonder, when literature was thus absolutely and fervently devoting itself to a political cause, that it should, so to speak, lose sight of itself; that it should cease to recur to the primary fountains of inspiration ; that it should become, in some aspects, little more than the handmaid of politics ; and that, finally, it should sink exhausted and almost mori- bund, on the day when the national hopes and struggles were crowned with success ? For fifty years and more the poets of Italy had raised the song of liberty, only to find, now that freedom was at last attained, that they had lost the power to sing of aught else. This, however, is only one aspect of the matter. Poetry can never absolutely cease to have an atmo- sphere of its own. Italian literature had become largely political, but it had not become mere pam- phleteering ; it was literature still, and had even been Xll INTRODUCTION a great literary movement. If, tlicrefore, it had decayed and was neglected, so much so as to be in danger of being forgotten, there must have been an inward as well as an outward cause for the deterioration. In a superficial view, it is impossible to dissociate literature from politics during those years of the making of Italy; yet, in the abstract, it may be practicable to consider them separately. Viewed, therefore, from an entirely literary stand- point, the time had come when, as constantly occurs in the history of letters, a reforming and, on the whole, a fruitful and beneficent movement loses its vitality, and, after having at first overthrown older conventional methods, becomes in its turn a conven- tion and a deadening paralysis. Now, in the Italy of i860 to 1870 this was the case with Romanticism. I have not here to write the history of Italian Romanticism. Inaugurated by such men as Man- zoni, Berchet, and Silvio Pellico, it was part of the great Romantic movement which informed all the great literatures of Europe with new life. In Italy the impulse came chiefly from Germany, but Roman- ticism assumed here those peculiar aspects which the history of the times required. It did — without doubt — great and excellent work. It cast aside certain so- called classical forms and conventions, and sought INTRODUCTION XIU inspiration in the Middle Ages; and therefore it appealed to the great spirit of mediaeval literature, to Faith : and the Inni Sacri of Manzoni were its consecration. But that was when the century was young, and times changed with the rapidity which is characteristic of the age. First, the Catholic litera- ture of Italy was discredited by the policy of the Vatican. When Pius ix. executed his famous volte face (not without some reason, or at least some excuse), Gioberti's dream — a great and splendid dream — of a confederated Italy under an enlightened and progressive Papacy, vanished to take its place among the forgotten Utopias. Henceforth, intellect, on the whole, arrayed itself against the Papacy ; but in so doing it lost touch with the Faith which had been one of its chief inspirations. In the next place, while the Romantic movement, originally one of hope, was beginning to pine away in discouragement and disillusion, it was no longer compelled to make any great effort to sustain itself against the healthy rivalry of contending schools. The ' Puristi ' had been absorbed : Giusti was dead and had left no successor ; and in Leopardi the older classical movement had, long since, to a great extent lost itself in despair. That writers so eminent as these had left no school was in itself a fatal sign. They had, it is true, an abundance of followers without xiv INTRODUCTION vitality ; Manzoni, too, had his, for Italy was tor- mented with imitations of the * Catholic ' poetry. Such a one ' Icopardeggiava ' ; such another held aloft the battered standard of ' Manzonianism.' Thus, amid all this imitation, among all these mimicries — insufficiently redeemed by the nobler work of the few who, overwhelmed in the common neglect, found no listeners — Romanticism in its second generation (with which alone we have here to do) was dying, and threatened to involve in its ruin that literary spirit from which it was then supposed to be inseparable. Sentiment had become sentimen- tality, and the public would have none of it. Italian authors ceased to be read ; even Prati and Aleardi were afraid to risk the publication of a volume. The third-rate produce of French literature alone found a sale : the people — rumour, or perhaps scandal, says even one of the Popes — read Paul de Kock. And now we come to the inevitable revolt. Was it likely, under the circumstances, to be moderate, gradual, plausible, and conciliatory ? What was necessary was a thorough, a far-spreading reaction. It must be anti-Catholic, which in Italy means anti-Christian ; it must be anti-Romantic, which in the Italy of to-day can only be classical — that is. Pagan; it must be anti-ascetic, anti-con- ventional : it must demand freedom for mind and INTRODUCTION XV for art, now that freedom in the political sphere had been attained. Hence the ' Veristi,' the realists of Italy ; hence Car- ducci's Hymn to Satati ; hence Praga and Stecchetti. We may not sympathise with the first ostensible aims of the school ; we need not yield unqualified admiration to its ' satanic ' or its ' fleshly ' work (splen- did though it be in form, eloquence, and vigour) ; yet we may recognise, reluctantly perhaps, that the revulsion was inevitable ; we must admit that it has saved literature in Italy (and without literature the Faith itself cannot everywhere survive) ; and finally, if we have any observation and any appreciative faculty, it must be apparent to us that the movement has dowered Italian poetry with new and rich re- sources ; that, without abandoning the modern stand- point, it has gone back to the primal sources, to the fountains of the language, to the beauty and purity of the classics, to love of nature, to a free and spon- taneous expression of passion and emotion. These in themselves are great things ; and, what is infinitely more, what is infinitely better, they open the way to a greater future. For the violence of in- surrection passes away ; its results remain ; and if the revolt has been against corruption and decay, those results cannot but be for good. And already the period of storm and stress draws to its conclusion. XVI INTRODUCTION It has made room for the development of genius, and to Italy, of old and always, genius has never long been lacking. This, then, is in itself one reason why the Italian poetry of to-day is. interesting to the student. What the Third Italy is likely to do, in any sphere, is a problem worthy of the deepest consideration. The First gave to Europe law, civilisation, order, religion — forms of necessary subjection : the Second, besides restoring classical antiquity and the classic traditions, gave us art and literature, summoned like Lazarus from the dead ; it endowed us with municipal organi- sation and intellectual independence — forms of neces- sary freedom. The Third cannot hope to accomplish as much as its predecessors, for its sphere is neces- sarily more limited ; but it is Italy still, it is Italy again ; let us keep it in view. And literature may perhaps be the voice by which it will speak. Yet this is not the only point of view from which it is worth our while to observe what, in the field of poetry, is being done in Italy to-day. It is an era of fertile and, in many respects, already of remarkable production. During the ten years (1860-1870) of which I am speaking, the movement had already begun, and had taken two or three varying directions before it settled into deeper channels. I will touch first, and briefly. INTRODUCTION Xvii upon the more violent form of reaction. Emilio Praga, now so long dead (1875) that he does not enter into the plan of this volmiie, had published his Penombre^ in which, as in his later utterances, he took up the attitude of an extreme Bohemian, almost of a literary Nihilist. Stecchetti is his near- est modern analogue : with this difference, however, that Stecchetti visibly poses as more Bohemian — more licentious, in fact — than he is : while Praga was in deadly earnest. Theirs is the louder and more aggressive cry of armed revolution : there were gentler voices besides, as well as a more enduring and deeper influence. To the chorus of the milder spirits belongs another innovator, Vittorio Betteloni, whose In Frimavera was published in 1869, and who was, as Carducci has said, the first, or at least one of the first, to emerge from the currents of Romanticism. He dis- carded the conventions of the day, and proved that poetry could be written without them ; that is his merit, his great service to literature. Yet Betteloni was not a master ; his style, being a reaction against set forms, comes perilously near the commonplace. He was a standard-bearer in the revolutionary army ; he was not destined to become its leader. It was inevitable that the revolt against Romanticism in Italy should take the form of Classicism. b Xviii INTRODUCTION For many years past, young students of poetry had perceived the necessity for such a movement. At Florence, Chiarini, Nencioni, and Carducci were the chief members of a group of rising young men who assumed, or who accepted, the significant title of gli amici pedanti. The name, too, of their short- lived periodical, II Poliziano, suggested a return, not to the dassicisti of the end of the last century, but directly to those of the Renascence, and with them to Greek and Roman antiquity. The move- ment had perhaps been premature (we have gone back for a moment to the years ending in i860); at any rate, the leaders were as yet too young to have any great influence. The group broke up; its members, however, continued their studies and pursued their old aims. Carducci began his 'cold bath of erudition,' and Nencioni threw himself into those foreign studies, especially in English literature, as a result of which he has taken the foremost place among Italian critics, and has widened the horizon of Italian letters. From i860 to 1870, the powers of the young generation were maturing. Besides those we have mentioned, Arnaboldi, Capuana, and Gnoli were silently freeing themselves from the old bondage, and Carducci had already spoken. The period of his Juvenilia was over, and in 1867 he threw down INTRODUCTION XIX the gauntlet in the famous Hymn to Satan. The new movement was to be aggressive and remorselessly destructive : Romanticism was to be attacked in its strongholds ; its spirit as much as its style, its faith as well as its forms, were to be overthrown and uprooted : there were to be no half-measures. The Levia Gravia followed in 1868; the Decennalia (1860-1870), rapidly accumulating, were to be pub- lished in 1 87 1. And with the Giambi ed Epodi (written between 1867 and 1872), the Nuove Foesie (1873), and the Odi barbare (1877), the classical movement was at its height. At the same time, the more ungovernable spirits were following in the foot- steps of Praga ; and since the critics would not listen to Olindo Guerrini, a bold manoeuvre forced them, in 1877, to hear the voice of 'Lorenzo Stecchetti.' I need not enter into the long and envenomed controversies of those years. The * Pagans,' the ' Veristi ' or ' Elzevirians,' as they were called from the little yellow-backed volumes in which the pub- lisher Zanichelli of Bologna introduced them to the world, won the day. Now the heat of the battle is over, and the young generation is abandoning the violent methods by which it had to be fought. , Literature is recovering its equanimity ; and poetry,/ while extending its sphere, has regained its popularity! and is deepening the impression it has made. \ XX INTRODUCTION It will have been observed that there were two wings to the onward movement, Carducci being the chief representative of one, and (latterly) Stecchetti of the other. Both are ' Pagan ' in the sense that they both assume an attitude entirely hostile to Christi- anity as well as to Romanticism ; but Stecchetti's is chiefly a foreign, Carducci's more especially a classical inspiration. The former, moreover, affects a Bohemian cynicism, and uses of set purpose the weapons of derision ; he wishes to shock as well as to offend; he makes ostentatious display of sensual- ism, and does not shrink from blasphemy. Carducci has better taste and far greater dignity ; his is the grand style. Even his youthful outburst, the Hymn to Satafi, rightly understood, is not irreverent vitu- peration. Satan is no Semitic spirit of evil : he is the classical revolt, the spirit of freedom, the Titans re-arising, the unbound Prometheus. Only, for an anti-Catholic movement, Prometheus would not serve. The Church was to be attacked in the name of liberty and reason ; and hence ' Salute, o Satana, O ribellione, O forza vindice Delia ragione ! ' And now that the work of destruction is over, and that of reconstruction well advanced, it is time to INTRODUCTION Xxi ask, what are the more permanent aims and tendencies of the new school ? If I have understood them aright, they may be summed up as the union of the modern spirit with the purity and beauty of classical form and inspiration ; a return to nature and to the love of nature, and a new appeal to the forgotten resources of the language. When we in England have sometimes been com- pelled to free ourselves from certain outworn con- ventions, the innovators, intolerant of Latinisms, have returned to the Saxon origins of our tongue. In Italy, a movement in its essence the same necessarily takes the opposite direction; the revolt is against the ' Gothic,' the return is to classical antiquity. Whether the movement, in this sense, has gone too far — whether Carducci's language be so overladen with classical words and allusions as to be, at times, to the ordi- nary mind somewhat obscure and involved — it is perhaps difficult for us to judge. But here, incident- ally, an interesting question arises — that of the neo- classical forms. For Carducci and his followers have emphasised their ' paganism' by what is not so much a revival of classical metres as a creation of analogous forms of verse founded upon the actual materials and methods of the modern language. And the resulting Odi barbare have been so much discussed, and so often misapprehended, that it may not be out of place XXll INTRODUCTION to give a short account of them, even though this should necessitate some httle technical detail. The Odi barbare, says Carducci, are so termed ' because they would so sound to the ears and judg- ment of the Greeks and Romans, although I have wished to compose them in the metrical forms belong- ing to the lyrical poetry of those nations ; and because they will, too truly, so sound to very many Italians, although they are composed and harmonised in Italian verses and accents.' The two clauses of this sentence, quoted from Carducci's note to the volume of 1877, lay down the conditions which he has considered essential to the revival of classical forms in modern Italian. That language has no quantity, and Carducci makes no attempt to revive it, as had been done, without much success, by Leon Battista Alberti,by Tolomei, and more recently by Tommaseo. He follows rather the example which had been set him by Chiabrera ; and, reading the verse of Horace and Catullus irrespective of quantity and rhythmical accent, but according to its natural grammatical accent, he attempts to reproduce the metrical effect by a combination of recognised Italian metres. To make this point clear, I cannot do better than quote the words of one of Carducci's most distin- guished disciples, Guido Mazzoni, to whose courtesy I am indebted for them. ' We have no quantity ; INTRODUCTION XXUl but we can render in Italian verse the sound of Latin verses, as it appears to strike our '"'■ barbarous'''' ears. That is to say : since we, when reading Horace, hear in his Odes our own five-syllable, seven-syllable, nine- syllable, and hendecasyllabic metres, so we can con- struct, by means of these metres, strophes which apparently correspond to his. For instance : 'Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume,' sounds to our Italian ears as though it were com- posed of two qiiinarii [five-syllable lines], the first simple, the second sdriicciolo [having an additional syllable forming a dactylic ending] ; and therefore for * Eheu fugaces, | Postume, Postume,' Carducci writes \Alla Stazione^ in the first Odibarbare'\ 'Oh quei fanali | come s'inseguono.' How does this theory work out in practice? It may be interesting to some readers if I give one or two examples. And first a word upon Carducci's elegiacs. He has to face the fact that few Italian words have the accent on the last syllable. Therefore he boldly introduces pentameters with the accent on the ante- penultimate ; and Chiarini, his apologist (in / critici italiatii e il metro delle Odi barbare), justifies him XXIV INTRODUCTION in so doing by the frequent example of Propertius, TibuUus, and Catullus. I have not attempted to reproduce this peculiarity (and he takes further liberties) in my version of San Feironto, because in our tongue there is no such necessity as that which Carducci had to consider, and the intro- duction of such an ending would in English be entirely artificial. In Nevkafa, which I have also endeavoured to translate, he has followed his models more closely. Now let us take the alcaic metre. In Carducci, the first and second lines have a caesura after the fifth syllable : the first two syllables vary, but the third must be short, the fourth long, the fifth short (I use the words short and long for convenience sake, to represent unaccented and accented syllables). In the second division, again, the essential rule is that the last three syllables shall constitute what we call a dactyl. So we have ' Or wert thou, cloiid-borne, | guiding the eagles, when Before the surging | Marsian soldiery.' The third line is of nine syllables, usually thus accented : ' Thy splendour irradiate dazzled ' ; and the fourth line, a decasyllabic, admits of three INTRODUCTION XXV variations, of which the following is that employed in this ode : ' The tumiiltuous Parthian onset,' the anapaestic rush of which (however feebly rendered in my translation) fitly closes a verse which has in Italian a genuine and ringing melody. One more example. The ' barbaric ' sapphic has been pronounced by Professor Mommsen (who has admirably translated some of Carducci's odes) a comparative failure : curiously enough, it has never- theless been in Italy the most popular of the new forms. Here the caesura is once more placed after the fifth syllable. The third is short, the fourth long, the fifth again short. In the second division, the last three syllables are, as before, short, long, and short. As to the fourth Hne, it may be as in Latin a dactyl and a trochee, or the accents of the first two syllables may be inverted. Thus we have, not without variety : * Between the verses | pensively arising, Mine be the laughter | of the joyous vintage, And mine the rosebuds | fugitive, in winter Flow'ring to perish.' I have given the examples in English, because the XXVI INTRODUCTION frequent elisions of the Italian render it somewhat difificult for a foreigner at once to catch the scansion ; but when this slight obstacle is once overcome, the melody of the verse can only be fully appreciated by the study of the original. But in all this, the classical scholar may ask, what has become of the Latin prosody ? The answer is, that the rules of Latin or Greek prosody have no place in Italian : a new prosody, so to speak, adapted to a non-quantitative language, has been substituted for them ; the accents have been dislodged, and new Sapphics and alcaics have appeared, which are good Italian metres. But again, are they now the Sapphics and alcaics we knew ? or are ' these lame hexameters the strong-wing'd music of Homer ' ? No, they are not ; they do not pretend to be ; that is the very essence of the matter ; but what they are is this : in a language in which it is impossible to write alcaics, sapphics, or elegiacs absolutely identical with those of antiquity (save, perhaps, occasionally as a tour de force), these are the metres which, natural to the lan- guage, create an impression almost exactly the same as that of the ancient metres. And is this really so ? Are they Italian metres — not the pedantic experi- ments of scholars ? That is a question for the ear, for the ear that understands Italian and is not seeking for classical echoes ; and, put to this test, the answer, INTRODUCTION XXVU I think, will be almost always affirmative. In the words of Professor Trezza, ' they do not sound like reminiscences of defunct forms : they sound like a living new creation.' And that it is so is proved, to my mind, by the fact that they have taken root and flourished. Meeting at first with violent opposition, they have become popular, and the language will not willingly let them die. Carducci and his apologists admit the success of the Germans and the English (especially Mr. Swin- burne and Mr. Robinson Ellis) in pursuing another method : what they maintain is, that such successes, however brilliant, do not nationalise and modernise the ancient metres, and that in Italian far less success is attainable by such means. Of this last they are the best judges. I have endeavoured, in my trans- lations, to reproduce the Italian method : if the ' barbaric ' metres in this volume shock the scholar, let me at least say that I have not written classical, but Italian sapphics and alcaics ; that in the original they possess a charm of their own, and that I have merely endeavoured to enable Englishmen not deeply versed in Italian poetry to know something of the new methods. It is perhaps fair to add that in certain of their essays Carducci and his school have attempted, not without success, to reproduce even the ictus of their XXVlll INTRODUCTION Tyatin models ; but I have chosen rather to illustrate their usual and more characteristic practice. As the leader of a great school, and as the in- ventor (practically speaking) of new forms, Carducci has made exceptional demands upon my space. But for this I should have much to say concerning other poets of the time who stand in the foremost ranks. In the elder generation, the first place, in my opinion, belongs to Enrico Panzacchi, one of the most original and charming writers of Italy ; and I am not without hope that he may become as familiar to the English public as he well deserves to be. Two others who must be singled out for special notice are Antonio Fogazzaro, perhaps more widely admired as a novelist, but a poet, also, of rare and exquisite feeling, excelling chiefly as a meditative student of nature ; and Arturo Graf, whose sombre and power- ful Muse, though somewhat unequal in achievement, gives him a high position among the pessimistic poets of modern Europe. To the rising generation, to the young men of brilliant promise and in some cases already of excel- lent performance, belong Giovanni Marradi, Guido Mazzoni, Severino Ferrari, Giovanni Pascoli, and others. For the position and merits of these I must refer the reader to the notices by which I have pre- faced my attempts to render some small portion of INTRODUCTION XXIX their work. But first of them all in point of fame, and, so far, of achievement, stands the 'marvellous boy ' Gabriele d'Annunzio, who, combining in some degree the influences of Carducci and Stecchetti, has none the less struck out what is, broadly speaking, a new path of his own. He is still very young, and has perhaps the largest dower of poetical genius vouch- safed to any living European of his time and of his years ; but he has run, and is still running, the risk of squandering his literary capital. That his astonishing successes should have left him unspoiled was doubt- less not to be expected. He is the most interesting phenomenon of the Italian literature of the day ; but so far, to my mind, his earlier work still remains his best, and his future is in his own hands. If he is able to add judgment, experience, and observation to the vigour, eloquence and consummate artistic skill which he already possesses, his will be one of the greatest names of the age ; at present he is in danger of becoming a young man ' d'un bien beau passe.' Before concluding, I must not omit to say that in Italy considerable difference may be observed between the writers of one province and those of another : a fact easily explained by the slightest reference to history. Signor Raffaello Barbiera, himself a poet, has pointed out some chief points of XXX INTRODUCTION difference, which I rapidly sum up, premising that he is speaking of the century at large rather than of the present generation. The Venetians, then, have an expansive and brilliant note ; while the Lombards are more prone to reflection and to brooding over the eternal tears of mankind. The Piedmontese have usually been noted for their fervour of patriotic and liberal enthusiasm. The Neapolitans, again, burn with the fire of extemporisation, and sing of their flaming mountain and of their sunlit seas ; while the Sicilians, though passionately attached to their beautiful island, are yet wont to philosophise concerning Nature in general, and are filled with a revolutionary spirit : it was they who began the great European movement of 1848, and they have under their eyes to-day the miseries attendant on convict labour. The Tuscans, Emilians, and Romans must be classed together, for they inherit the majestic traditions of Rome and the ancient purity of the language : to them naturally belongs the literary movement of the day. After these observations, it may be interesting to classify the authors quoted in this volume according to their birth. The Venetians are Betteloni, Boito, Fogazzaro, and Zardo ; the Lombards, Arnaboldi, Fontana, Ada Negri. De Amicis, Graf, and Ferrero are Piedmontese by birth or residence; Milelli, INTRODUCTION XXxi d'Annunzio, and Perotti, Neapolitans; Capuana, Rapisardi, and Fleres are Sicilians; while to the Central contingent belong Carducci, Chiarini, Nen- cioni, Gnoli, Panzacchi, Stecchetti, Mazzoni, Marradi, Pascoli, and Baccelli. The few who remain over may be variously distributed. In the present volume I have not adopted this method of classification, because I believe that these distinctions are now tending to disappear, and there- fore the arrangement would be in some respects misleading. Moreover, differences such as there are, are more apparent to a native than to a foreigner, especially when the latter has only a very scanty sample of the work of each writer before him ; and finally, a study based upon the distinction as to provinces should take especial note of the abundant and interesting literature in dialect which has been produced in Italy of recent years ; and this I have been unable to do. A poem in dialect owes its chief piquancy to the relation which that dialect bears to the literary language : it must therefore remain untranslated, or else, in order to produce an analogous though not identical effect, it must be rendered in a dialect. The translator, moreover, must be familiar with the original patois, and to such familiarity I can only in one or two instances lay claim. XXXU INTRODUCTION The translations included in this volume have been accumulating for some years, and are from writers all of them living at the time, the intention of the translator being that of giving some slight idea of the present condition and the present aspects and methods of Italian lyrical verse. In almost every case the attempt has been made exactly to reproduce the metre of the original poem. To this rule the exceptions are few and, I believe, unimpor- tant ; but it may be well to point them out. The frequent recurrence of the sonnet form, so especially Italian, will be observed. I have almost everywhere exactly followed the original disposition of the rhymes, though in one of Countess Lara's an altera- tion has been made in this respect. In one or two lines of irregular verse I have rejected the so-called sdrucciolo rhyme (rhymeless dactylic endings) as on the whole unmusical to the English ear ; though I have attempted to reproduce this peculiar effect elsewhere, and especially in Arnc^boldi's 'Rhamses ii.' In Fogazzaro's ' Evening ' I have taken some slight and necessary liberties for the sake of interpreting the spirit of the poem in a corresponding English form ; and some slight alterations have been made in the loose structure of Capuana's 'Semirhythms.' Elsewhere, no change has been allowed to vary the original metre, a strict adherence to which is to my INTRODUCTION XXXUl ear essential. The severity of this rule has, perhaps necessarily, resulted in the exclusion of certain poems which I should have much desired to have included in this volume. When, for instance, as in Carducci's Hymn to Satan, the lines are very short, the movement rapid and dependent upon an un-English form, that of the sdrucciolo endings, accurate reproduction of both sense and metre becomes almost an impossibihty. I have endeavoured sincerely and sympathetically to reproduce in each version the spirit of the poem treated and the idiosyncrasy of the writer as in that poem represented. I have also attempted to transfer into our tongue not only the form, but also some slight echo of the peculiarities of melody which belong to the originals. In this I cannot hope to have been often successful ; but I have treated my subject reverently, and if I have anywhere been a traduttore-traditore, it is not because I have commonly avoided difficulties by means of an excessive recourse to paraphrase. And on the other hand, some few of the faults which may justly be laid to my charge by the lover of English verse are due to my endeavour to acclimatise in English certain impalpable elements of Italian poetry, such as the frequent employment of vowel- elision. c XXXIV INTRODUCTION I regret that the necessary limitations of space, among other reasons, have not permitted me to include in this collection several living poets whom I should have much desired to have quoted : for it must not be supposed that thirty-four names go near to exhaust the list of those who are worthy of mention. The age, as I have said, is one of fertile production ; and as many of the writers here repre- sented have hitherto been unknown in England, I trust I shall be pardoned for my omissions. Similar considerations have in some cases greatly limited the space available for a single author, who may in consequence be perhaps somewhat unfairly represented. Finally, I have to thank the greater number of the authors of whom I have treated in this volume for the very courteous and prompt response which they have made to my request for information to be embodied in the biographical notices. In some cases where such response was not forthcoming, I have been made aware that the fault was to be ascribed to uncertain addresses or other accidental circumstances. I have, of course, in every case also consulted such other authoritative sources of infor- mation as were open to me ; but so far as one or two very recent works are concerned — for I have tried to bring my view of contemporary Italian INTRODUCTION XXXV poetry up to the earlier months of the current year — there have naturally been special difificulties. In general, I cannot hope to have altogether avoided making certain slips and mistakes, though I have done my best to reduce the possibilities of error. It may be noted that I have uniformly omitted the customary courteous prefix to the writers' names — a course which has been adopted, not from want of respect, but because the constant repetition would in English have proved intolerably awkward. I am indebted to many friends here and in Italy for help and for suggestions by which I have been able to profit ; and among these I should wish to mention my friend Carlo Placci, the author of Un Furto, for his kind encouragement and assistance. GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO V GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO This singularly brilliafit and successful yoimg poet was born in 1864 07i the yacht ^ Irene, ^ o?t the waters of that Adriatic whose surges often seem to echo in his verse. That was not far from Pescara in the Abruzzi. He was edticated chiefly at Prato, and, having a natural ificlina- tionfor art, was taught that of painting, his chief models being Fra Filippo Lippi, Ghirlandajo, and Botticelli. This preraphaelite influence he believes to have had its effect upon his poetry, thotigh his colouring is more Venetian than Florentifte, at least in his earlier work As a boy at school, he hated poetry, a7id, being set to write fifty-two lines on the subject of the Thermopylce, succeeded after much effort in producing three. One day — it was in 1878 — Carducci's ''Odi barbare' fell into his hands ; he read them, and the next day he was a poet. In 1879, being then in his sixteenth year, he published '■Primo Vere ' {Chieti, Ricci), with the motto, '' Mihi, Musis et paucis atnicis.' It was, of course, pure Carducci: but of singular promise. In the '' Fanfidla delta Doinenica^ Giuseppe Chiarini gave the book high praise, and proclaimed dAnnunzio an ^ enfant prodige.'' That day he woke up to find himself fimoits. In 1 880 he wefit to Rome, where among the contributors to the ^Cronaca Bizantina^ published by Sommaruga {paper and publisher are now, alas ! both memories), he came itistantly to the front. Nay more, he became, in 4 GABRTELE D'ANNUNZIO some degree, the head of a school the characteristics of which, to use his own words, were the abttse of colour, the employment of unusual expressions, and a great auda- city in erotic description. His ''hi Memoriam ' {Pistoia, Niccolai) had appeared in 1 880. To his period of ''stor7n and stress'' belongs the ''Canto Novo'' {the new school do not write '• 7niovo''), published by Sommaruga, Rome 1882. But the ''erotic'' impidse reached its climax in 1883, by the publication of the ''Intermezzo di Rime ' {Rome, Som- maruga), which was, for good and sufficient reasons, violently attacked on the score of morality, hi the fierce controversy which followed, Chiarini, Panzacchi, atid Nenciofii took part. So far, d'Annu?Jzio''s career, considering his extreme youth, had been perhaps the most amazing series of triumphant successes that the last half -century has known in any country. IVhat wonder if his head threat- ened to turn ? And I have 7iot mentioned his prose work, ''Terra Vcrgitie,^ published at that time. Still little more than a boy, he was already in the foremost ranks of the writers of his time. He left Rome, and returned to his native mottntaitis and sea, where he recovered the ettcrgies which had been e?ida}7gered by excessive adulation. There he wrote, in prose and verse, the ^Libro delle Vergini,^ 'San Pan- taleone,' a7id 'Isaotta Guttadatuv.' To the violent revolutiojiist and realist in verse, suc- ceeded the fnodern novelist with his analytical subtleties. ^Piacere' belongs to this period: in it, however, he con- tinues to speak 7vith that frankness to which it is permis- sible to give another name. It was followed by ' Giovanni Episcopo; the 'Trionfo delta Morte,' and '■ L Innocent e,' the last of which must be to many minds a crowning offence. It is a novel of the mode7-n Fre7ich school, a GABRIELE d'aNNUNZIO 5 horror of realism. Yei in verse his latest impulses are against realism. The essence of poetry, he believes, is 7nystery, a7id the poet should give to ma7ikind the record of tilings that they have never seen. '' I hold^ he writes, ' that the poetry of the future will have all the tnystery a?td all the suggestiveftess of great music J And again : ' In lyric poetry the essential element is not the word: it is the music; it is fiot the word as letter, but the word as sound and rhythm.^ And once more, ' the verse is everything.^ Tliese are the doctrines which he is about to proclaitn to the world in his forthcoining volume, to whicJi he has given the delightful title of'Margaritce ante porcos.^ Meanwhile, he has written his ' L'Isotteo e la Chimera ' {Milan, Treves, 1890) a7id the ^ Elegie Ro7/ia7ie'' {Bologna, Za/iichelli, 1892). U An7iU7izio is a gemdne ad/nirer of English poetry. He has for Shelley, in especial, a kind of religious worship, a7id after hi7n he holds Keats, Ten7tyson, and Swi7iburne i7i high honour. These predilectio7is will perhaps, to so77ie extent, prepare English readers for the characte7-istic develop77ie7tts of his genius. To our 7ni7ids, he suggests Swinburne 7/iore tha?t a7iy other of our poets. He began, as I have said, as a Carduccia7i j but the erotic a7td^-pass 77ie the word — licentious influence of Stecchetti soo7i 7/iade itself felt i7i his verse. Iti other words, he has aba7idoned the ab/iost purely Italia7t and Latin paths of Carducci for the modern Fre7tch move- metit, in Italy always a 7iatural and generally a fatal te7idency. But zV? his earlier work, with all its faults, there is a savour of the salt sea, a breath of 77iountain air, which is lacki7ig i7i what he wrote in the i7itoxicatioti of his Roman triu7nphs. The rapid rise of d^Annutizio is, I repeat, 07ie of the 6 GABRIELE DANNUNZIO most astounding phenomena of the century. He is not yet thirty years of age, and he stands second in rank, first in quantity of recent exccllctit production, afuong the writers of Italy. And this iti a country where, twenty-five years ago, there 7vas absolutely tio demand for, and no market for poetry ! GABRIELE D 'a N N U N Z I O 7 DEDICATION TO E. Z. O MAIDEN Strange with great and wandering eyes Mysterious, bright and deep as the sea is deep, Fair maid, 'tis not for me to immortahse That smile which in my songs I cannot keep ! And yet the rhymes of love that munnuring rise Like the hum of a hive afar, and onward sweep. Swarming the circle's bounds where magic lies. Lull thee, white witch, into a dreamy sleep : And while thou see'st, in delicate shades forlorn Of mournful eve, the hill-top's outline flee, Where whiffs of perfume o'er the wave are borne, Thou dreamest of a skiff that sailing free Enters the harbour's mouth by the breeze of morn, 'Mid opal surges of the violet sea. {Caufo Novo.) EVENING IN MAY Now in the Mayday twilight O'er the bright skies pearl-coloured clouds float through the emerald spaces. While on the shore the wavelets Lightly take hands, rise and subside, dance like ena- moured naiads. 8 GABRIELE d'aNNUNZIO Never a sail is seen there ; Butwith gay song swallows afar fleetly wing o'er the waters, Stretched in long lines of shadow : Sharp and acute odours of tar come on the freshening breezes. Ah ! and the happy children, Whom the sun first smiled on, whom first burned the malignant south wind, Down the long sands are racing ; Laughter and shouts mingle afar as of a band of seagulls. Vesper of Maytime ending ! Now in my heart sweetly the rhymes buzz like a swarm- ing beehive ; Vesper, to thee made sacred. Bend to my yoke, quivering still, leaping, the sapphic verses, Bend to my yoke, quiescent ! Beautiful girls, sunburnt and bright, magical songs are singing— Now that the lunar crescent Rises o'er hills Samnite afar, set the loud echoes ringing ! (Canto Novo, i. 14.) 'O FALCE DI LUNA CALANTE' O SICKLE of moonlight declining That shinest o'er waters deserted, O sickle of silver, what harvest of visions Is waving down here, thy mild lustre beneath ! GABRIELE d'aNNUNZIO ( Ephemeral breathing of foHage, Of flowers, of waves from the forest, Goes forth to the ocean ; no cry and no singing, No sound through the infinite silences goes. Oppressed with its loves and its pleasures, The life of the world lies in slumber ; O sickle declining, what harvest of visions Is waving down here, thy mild lustre beneath ! (Canio Novo, ii. lo.) SONNET The humming rhymes swarm in my sleepy brain Here where the sunbeams fierce, remorseless, beat, Unceasing, like some jewelled glittering train Of emerald scarabs with foul food replete. Here with parched, eager lips I seek to gain A little shade where drooping branches meet : In front the Adrian sea, a silent plain. Glares, all one dazzle of terrific heat. The sea-mews vanish far beneath the glow Malignant, motionless, of torrid day, Without a cry, in white lines quivering ong ; And now and then, as salt sea-breezes blow, Like voices of men shipwrecked far away. Quiver and shake the weary wings of song. [Canto Novo, iii. i.) 10 GABRIELE d'aNNUNZIO BY TRECCATI MARSH Here by Treccati marsh in circle stand The crooked trees with broken boughs outspread, Seeming fantastic shapes, in grim command Over the croaking frogs a shadowing dread. The sun through ensanguined mists sends out brand That strikes maHgnant sparks from waters dead, While up from the putrid scum an exiled band Of vampire bats before the sun are fled. A boy with wild grey eyes sees far away Across the southern sky, with vague unease, In wedge-shaped flight, the wild-ducks flit and stray- O who will give him back the Illyrian breeze Fresh on the wrinkling waves in nights of May, And pungent sea-weed smells o'er scented seas ? II There comes from far across the slumbrous air A melancholy song on the winds astray : There is in it the cry of an anguished care. And the wan desire no earthly hope can stay : GABRIELE d'aNNUNZIO II There is the shmy cold of the sei-pent's lair, That round the reeds entwined awaits its prey, And the fevered shudder which in his death-despair Glides through the sick man's veins, like a snake, away. Breathless he listens ; then with a sudden pain He lays his pale face down ; as the pulses beat, He feels the choking blood to his hot throat fly — O for a breath of air from the breezy main To cool his weary lungs in the summer heat, One breath alone, and then — and then to die ! {Canto Novo, iii. 5.) FOUR SONNETS He was a love-child. In his gloomy eye Burned flames of desperate hatred, prompt to glow, Like lurid gleams of sunset from the sky Fallen in foul waters of a ditch below ; Pale, lean he was : his red hair stood up high Over his head deformed and marked with woe, And his misshapen body made awry As if from stone hewn by an axe's blow. And yet — ! None knew his heart-beats in the night. None saw his burning tears, none heard him weep Tears breaking his poor heart, in youth's despite, li GABRIELE d'aNNUNZIO When o'er the deck broke from the odorous deep Vast waves of perfume 'neath the full moonlight, And nought was heard save long-drawn breaths of sleep. II Ah, none ! She passes o'er the sands of gold, Singing a song, and with the sunlight crowned ; Given to the Loves her ample breasts unfold, Given to the winds her tresses flow unbound. Joyous with youth her honest eyes and bold. Blue like the tropic skies, seek all around Fancies and dreams, while to the heavens out-rolled O'er the opal sea her joyous songs resound. He breathless, quivering with passions vain, Crouched in the boat along the swaying keel. Holds in his hands his temples filled with pain — * See to the nets ! ' the skipper's orders peal, As he kicks him where he lies. And o'er the main Her jocund songs arise, rebound and wheel. Ill The song said : ' Sea-weeds ! flowers o' the ample sea ! Down in the waters green the mermaids dwell In gardens coralline, where mansions be. Built for fair maids who love their sweethearts well.' GABRIELE DANNUNZIO I3 The song said : ' Flower of may on the hawthorn tree ! There is a grotto made of many a shell, Deep in the waters blue, a home of glee Built for fair maids who love's sweet story tell.' And Rufus thought to himself : ' I am a cur ! For me there is no smile for dear love's sake. And never a kiss for me ! I am a cur ! ' Up ! draw the bridle tight ! I work and ache ; My blood I sell for bread, while none demur : Yet — if one day the worn-out cord should break ? ' IV The murderer climbed the cliff with hurrying feet, With pale and anxious face, with aching head. Like a wild beast struck mad in the summer heat, Grasping the guilty knife still dripping red. The angry sea-gulls in battalions fleet Raised o'er the crags their clamorous shout, and fled ; And the death-cry shook far off a lugger's sheet As he hurled himself to the wave that onward sped. Far echoed o'er the golden sands the sound Of human labour : mournful and unblest, Voices of women surged along the ground ; And tossed upon the sea's sublime unrest, On emerald deeps with zones of glory crowned, A corpse turned to the sun its shattered breast. (Canto Novo, iii. 7.) 14 GABRIELE d'aNNUNZIO SONNET Beneath the white full-moon the murmuring seas Send songs of love across the pine-tree glade ; The moonlight filtering through the dome-topped trees Fills with weird life the vast and secret shade ; A fresh salt perfume on the Illyrian breeze From sea-weeds on the rocks is hither swayed, While my sad heart, worn out and ill at ease, A wild poetic longing doth invade. But now more joyous still the love-songs flow O'er waves of silver sea ; from pine to pine A sweet name echoes in the winds that blow, And hovering through yon spaces diamantine, A phantom fair with silent flight and slow Smiles on me from its great-orbed eyes divine. (Canto Novo, iii. ii.) TWO SONNETS At times exhausted by the pains austere Of long night-labours with success uncrowned, I lean my head upon my books, and hear The sea that bellows through the night profound ; GABRIELE d'ANNUNZIO I5 And in the northern wind a sudden fear Destroys each fairest dream my heart has found, When all my sweetest visions disappear, And doubt and cold and the void have hemmed me round : Then think I often of a great ship lost. With shattered keel, in the whirlwind's storm and stress. Alone 'twixt sea and heaven, from land afar : I think of the shipwrecked men that, tempest-tossed. Helpless and hopeless in their last distress. Despairing cling to the last remaining spar. II Again ! again ! on the remaining mast Like a living bunch of fruit on the tempest swayed, The shipwrecked men upon the whirlwind cast Utter their desperate cries and shout for aid. In vain ! in vain ! The black hull sinks at last, A horrid bier, by vain hopes undelayed. Deep in the roaring waves where, dense and vast, A bank of sea- weed lurks in silent shade. The cuttlefish shall watch with hungry eyes, With horrible eyes, with yellowish eyes and grim, That tragic agony of life that dies : l6 GABRIELE d'aNNUNZIO Then, in a play of shadows strange and dim, Entwined around men's bodies serpent-wise. Long tentacles shall seize each human limb. {Canto Novo, iii. 15.) PRELUDE As from corrupted flesh the over-bold Young vines in dense luxuriance rankly grow. And strange weird plants their horrid buds unfold O'er the foul rotting of a corpse below ; As spreading crimson flowers with centred gold Like the fresh blood of recent wounds o'erflow. Where vile enormous chrysalids are rolled In the young leaves, and cruel blossoms blow : E'en so within my heart malignant flowers Of verse swell forth : the leaves in fearful gloom Exhale a sinister scent of human breath. Lured by the radiance of the blood-red bowers, The unconscious hand is stretched to pluck the bloom, And the sharp poison fills the veins with death. (Iniertnezzo di Jiime, i. ) GABRIELE D'aNNUNZIO 17 SADNESS OF A NIGHT IN SPRING I Great Mother Earth, moved by the sunht hour, In her inmost mind revolves the things to be. Obscure and terrible is her slumbering power. All shapes wherewith the sacred midnight teems Form but one Shape immense which none may see. Composed in peace, the mighty Mother dreams. Silent, the stars divine brood o'er her sleep. She breathes the breath of worlds, the breath of all : And through the night I hear her bosom deep With long-drawn sighs suspire and rise and fall. II Since o'er the hills the moon her light hath spent, The stars are raining down, immortal tears, Through the profound and humid night intent. Slow, silent tears, of sorrow a silent rain, The stars rain through the ether. From what spheres ? What hidden eyes are grieving for our pain ? For human hearts what pity from above ? Pity for us from the unbounded heaven ! E'en thou, perchance, our far-off secret love Tears so divinely sweet hast never given. B l8 GABRIELE d'aNNUNZIO III Within my weary soul tumultuous breath Rises from warring dreams : new pains reveal The vague desires that bear successive sway. Mute are my lips, as though the hand of Death, Passing, had placed thereon its icy seal ; And in the soul the last hope dies away. Vain, vain for me the Dawn's awakening fires ! The flesh is weary, and the soul expires. IV Say, whither tend the stars in chorus slow ? hey pass through vales of shadow to the Day. Soul, join thyself with them where they must go ! The vale of shadows ends with golden gates ; Streams of oblivion muimur by the way, And on the threshold Death refulgent waits ; Waits on the threshold, prompt to ope the door. Soul, follow thou the stars that disappear ! Sweet be it, with their light, to be no more : Sign that the longed-for Day at last is near. (La Chimera.) ALESSANDRO ARNABOLDI ALESSANDRO ARNABOLDI Born at Milan on the \qth December 1827, Arnaboldi was educated at the University of Pavia, where he ob- tained the degree of Doctor of Laws. Although received as aft advocate, he does not practise in the Courts, but entered at an early age into administrative employment, from which, hozvever, being possessed of a competence, lie has long ago retired in order to give himself up to literary ptcrsuits. His first appearance in public as a poet was in 1 847, 071 the occasion of a monument being erected to the poet Parinij but this first essay, thotigh well received, was followed by a silence of many years. In 1 872 he published his earliest volume of collected verse (' Versi,' Milan, Paolo Carrara), which at once placed him among the first writers of the day, and was very highly praised iji the ''Quarterly Review^ for October 1877. -^ translation of his ' Sera dhin primo Novembre ' appeared in Mr. Eugene Lee- Hamilton's ''Poems and Transcripts : ' others have had the peculiar honour of being translated into Czech by the poet faroslaw Vrchlicky. In 1888 were published his ' Nteovi Versi' {Milan, Fratelli Dumolard), which ivere also received with applause; and he is now engaged on a versio7i of Cole- ridge's '■Ancient Mariner.' Unfortunately, his weak eyesight has been a great and serious obstacle to his literary labours. 22 ALESSANDRO ARNABOLDI As might be anticipated from a writer whose style was formed duri?tg a period of literary transition^ Arnaboldi does not belong exclusively to atiy one school. He has not entirely renojatced the Romantic tcndejtcies which were dominant in his youth., and has refused to throw hiniself in with the pronounced naturalism of the more advanced ' veristi,' or even with the neo-paganism of which Carducci is the chief exponc7tt. The new classical influence shows itself in his verse., chiefly in the chiselled perfection of the form : he is more notable., perhaps, for artistic finish than for strength or inspiring passion, hi his poetry., says the eminent critic Giuseppe Chiarini, ''life is a serious thing., and the office of the poet in life is a loftily moral one. . . . Arnaboldi's poetry is often., in its best portions., grave., meditative., and at times almost oratorical J ' and he goes on to speak of a ' sympathetic understandi7ig of nature and humanity ' as the essential quality of his verse. ALESSANDRO ARNABOLDI 23 RHAMSES II Greece as Sesostris honoured thee, Whose soul superb soared once on conquering wings O'er Asia whelmed and desolate, Rhamses, thou greatest of Egyptian kings ! * For thrice ten ages sepulchred, Swathed in protecting bonds, in scented gloom Waiting the resurrection-day. Thy sacred form lay safely in the tomb ; In darkness it was slumbering Profound, while followed down the eternal ways Each Caesar of the decadence, Born ages after thy forgotten days ; Ay, in its glory slumbering Already, ere the grand old warrior-priest Dreamed of a home for Israel Over the Red Sea waves, i' the distant East : And yesterday audaciously Barbarian moderns tore thee from thy rest ; Turbaned Arabian sectaries Unwound the linens from thy kingly breast ; Tomb-breaking and irreverent. They bore thy royal form profanely bare, Numbered and basely ticketed. Into the vile inuseum's vulgar glare ; 24 ALESSANDRO ARNABOLDI Where glances unintelligent Of ignorant tourists scan thee, or the smiles Of knowledge-grubbing scientists, Amid the sacred cats and crocodiles. Ah ! for thy Cushite cavalry To avenge the insults of this Asian horde ! For the chariots irresistible Wherefrom sublime thy heroes swung the sword ! In vain ! in greater majesty Than e'en thine own, hath risen a Power of might, Science, probing the mysteries Of foregone ages with remorseless light ; Nor will she bow in reverence To vanish'd grandeurs of forgotten Time, Over thee too victorious, Thou vaunted glory of the Egyptian prime ! But when thy cycle culminates, What indignation thine, what fierce disdain, WTien at the nod omnipotent Of Phtha Divine thy bones should rise again ! Vainly thy soul re-immigrant Shall seek its former flesh, its home of power ; The whirlwind of humanity Wliat seem'd eternal shatters in an hour. (Nuoz'i Vcrsi, bk. ii.) ALFREDO BACCELLI ALFREDO BACCELLI The son of Giddo Baccelli, a famous Roman doctor and professor {of Florc7iti7ie lineage)^ who was a niember of Parliametit, ajid at one time Minister of Public histruc- tion, Alfredo was born in Rome in 1863, and pursued his studies in the University of that city, where he had a brilliant career, and became Doctor of Laws in 1887 and of Letters in 1888, in both cases with special honours. He is an advocate by profession, and also a distiftguished journalist and man of letters. He has been either editor of , or a principal contributor to, most of the leading literary periodicals, stich as the '' Fanfulla delta Domenica^ ' Natura ed Arte,' and the '' Cronaca Bizantina.' He printed z>z 1881 ati ode to Alfredo Cappellini, but prac- tically made his debut as a poet in 1883 by the publicatio7i of ' Germinal in which, as is usual with the younger generation of Italian poets, the iifluence of Carducci makes itself strongly felt; and in 1885 he chose the ' barbarous ' sapphics as the vehicle for his poem ' Diva Natural which gave rise to an ifiteresting controversy in which Nencioni and Panzacchi took part. In this work Baccelli depicts the eternal struggle between man and nature, and the victories of sciejice, believing that the poetry of the age should be brought into cojiforinity with its scientific spirit. This acrious experiment in scientific poetry somewhat naturally brought upon him the ac- cusation of attetnptitig to revive the horrors {literarily 28 ALFREDO BACCELLI Speaking) of didactic verse — an accusation against which he defended himself with vigour. As a ?natter of fact, there is ift ' Diva Natura ' more poetry than science or didactics. It is divided into five cantos : ^Fire,' ' Waters,^ ' Winds,' ' Rocks^ and ' Man.' ' Sacuntala,' a lyrical drama, followed in 1 888, as well as ' La leggenda del cuore,' the eternal story of love placed in a fantastic mythological framework. A volume ejititled ' Vittime e Ribclli' is announced for publication this aututnn. Baccelli has also made valuable contributions to literary criticism. In ' Diva Natural which so far must be looked upon as his chief title to recognition as a poet, Baccelli has ceased to be an imitator, and has a style of his own. He handles the Italian sapphic with ease and freedom, and has both precision of literary form and wealth of colour. Of Carducci he has retained what indeed constitutes the lasting influence of that master's teaching — the union of classical beauty, elega?tce, and precision with the iftform- ing spirit of what is, somewhat awkwardly, styled 7nodernity. ALFREDO BACCELLI 29 THE BIRTH OF FIRE Still on the rocky cones of towering mountains Gleamed, like a radiant scintillating ocean, The quivering tremor of enormous glaciers Struck by the sunlight. And shapeless monsters from the gloomy forests, Vast forms unsightly, formidable, hairy. Like to uprooted peaks of mountains moving, Heavily wandered. There, terror-stricken, stupefied with torpor, Man in the caverns where the rumorous waters Were hoarsely murmuring, on the ground procum- bent Muttered his prayer. ' Dazzling circle, who thro' vaults of azure Takest thy journey, with revolving glory Wheeling thine ardours, and o'er mountains rising Banishest darkness ; * O King of daylight, gorgeously resplendent ! In whom, as men do in the limpid streamlets. The exalted armies of the gods immortal Mirror their faces ; 30 ALFREDO RACCELLI ' Send but a shaft down from thy crown of glory : Let but one ray fall from thy golden tresses ; O fount of light and life, send us it whirling Swift through the ether ! ' He said, and straightway from the crystal heavens, Through clouds of darkness, phosphorescent lightning Darting contorted, on the shaggy woodlands Burst like a meteor. The yearning forest stretched out arms to meet it, And quivered, shaking in the fierce embraces : So was I born, while thunderclaps proclaimed me Heaven-descended. (Diva Nattira : Canto del Foco.) VITTORIO BETTELONI VITTORIO BETTELONI Vittorio, son of the emzfient poet Cesare Betteloni, was borfi at Verona in 1 840, afid was educated at Como and at the University of Pisa. He is now Professor of Italian Literature and History in the Female College of his native town. After a first attempt, a novel in ' ottava rirna ' entitled '■ LOmbra dello Sposo' (1866), Betteloni published '■In Primavera' {Milan, Treves, 1869), and thereby placed himself among the poets of Italy. In 1880 appeared the ^ Nuovi Versi' {Bologna, Zanichelli), with an apprecia- tive introduction by Carducci. Betteloni has translated the first six cantos of ' Do7i fua?i ' {in ' ottava riina '); Hamerlijig's '■ Ahasver in Romj'' and, in hexameters, Goethe's ' Hermann und Dorothea.^ Betteloni' s work represents one aspect of the transition period. In his yotith. Romanticism, as understood in Italy, had devoured all poetry and left only a conventio7i ; but the study of the Greek and Latin poets, instilled into his mind by his father, ' saved him from Romanticism.' Yet in 1869 the new classical 7novement can hardly be said to have begun, so far as the general public was concerned ; and he was not destined to be its head, nor even to follow closely tipon the lines which it has taken. But he contributed largely to the strength of the revolt against the Romantic school, and his ' Primavera ' gave an impulse to the onward movement, which is perhaps c 34 VITTORIO BETTELONI his most eminent service to literature. Aleardi, also a Veronese, who was a perso?ial friend of Ccsare and a patron of Vittorio Bettcloni, was then otic of the }nost eminent poets of Italy — / should have said the most popular; but poetry, thanks to politics and Romanticism, was not popular at that time. And Aleardi was so much offended by the publication of his young friend'' s volume of verse, that for so7ne time he refused to recognise him. ' In Primavera,' in fact, was at once the sigttal and the first-fruits of a reaction which has now lofig since changed its path and become a triimiphal p7'ogress. Carducci has acknowledged the influetice which Bettelo?ii exercised in his mome7it — a tnotnetit now, perhaps, forgotten. But the promise of '■ Primavera' has hardly been realised. Betteloni has not held his own i7i the struggle. His 77iuse was the first to fling off the trappi7igs of Ro77ian- ticism, but it found no glorious rai77ient to take their place: it has re77iai7ted bare, a7id, I a77i afraid, forsaken. His style wa7its lofti7iess, and it lacks depth; it attaitis ofte7i the si77iplicity of great verse, but oftener still it expresses only the si7npleness of the diurnal co77i77tonplace. VITTORIO BETTELONI 35 'WHEN WE WERE YOUNG' Then slowly was I wont to follow you As a young lover will, content to spy The form beloved, far off, and so to do As to deceive the casual passers-by. And you with cautious and suspectful mien, As if no thought of me had crossed your mind, Now and again, hoping yourself unseen. Would turn your face — not oft — and glance behind ; And yet not very seldom, truth to say. Because you feared lest I should be too slow. Or lest perchance I should mistake the way, Or meet some friend who would not let me go. Then, when you reached the threshold of your home. For one short moment you would pause, and stay ; Quickly around your loving glance would roam, To see if I were near or far away. Then swiftly up the stair your feet would fly, And on the terrace you would pause awhile ; Slow, very slowly would I saunter by ; And then you made me happy with a smile. (In Primavera : Canzoniere del Vetit' anni.) ERSILIO BICCI % ERSILIO BICCI Born at Pisa in 1845, Ersilio Bicci studied at Florence^ whither his family had moved after the events of the year 1849, in which his father had take7i part. Beginiiing life i7t a printer^s office, Bicci subsequently became an employe of the Florentine municipality. Passing., how- ever, into the scholastic profession, he has held posts in various provi7ices of Italy, and since 1890 is Professor of Italian literature in the Licei Dante a?id Toscanelli at Florence. Professor Bicci is one of the oppone?its of the ' Odi Barbare,' believing that Greek and Latin jnetres, how- ever freely treated, are not adapted to the forms and spirit ofmoderit languages. He aims at simplicity, and wishes poetry to be understood by the people generally. Giusti is ojie of his favourite poets, and he is preparing for the press an edition of that poet's works; he has also produced editions of Italian classical authors for the use of schools. The following characteristic piece is take?t from his '' Nuovi Versi' {Lecce, Atnmirato, 1882). 40 ERSILIOBICCI CONTEMPT When I pass singing, singing on my way, I think not, dream not of her — not indeed ! Burns she with jealousy ? well, well ! she may ; I mind my own affairs, and give no heed. If in my song she fancy that she hears Some note of sadness or some trace of tears, It is my whim — not that my heart is sore ! For as to that, I care for her no more. And if they say I drive the cynic's trade. It is Time's fault, not hers who love betrayed ; Or that I call on Death where'er I rove, What matters that to her ? — Am I her love ? But if I meet her with Luigi, know She to her grave — I to the gallows go. (Ntiovi Versi.) ARRIGO BOITO ARRIGO BOITO This illustrious musician^ known all over the world as the author and composer of" Mefistofele^ was born at Padua in 1842, a7id studied music at the Milan Con- servatoire. This is not the place to speak of the fame which he has acquired in that art, or of the fortunes of his celebrated *■ mystic'' opera. In the field of letters he has had a distinguished career, belojiging to that poetic school which found its chief master in Einilio Praga, who was his personal friend : a school which sought for novelty a7id freedom iii realism pushed to its extrejne, and in strange and cunning expedients of form and language. In collaboration with Praga, he wrote for the theatre ' Le madri galanti^ which met with an unfavourable reception; in 1877, he published a volume of verse entitled ''II Libro dei Versi e Re Or so,' now long out of print; and he has written the librettos of ' La Gioconda ' for PonchielWs music, of '• Ero e Leandro' {under the anagram of *■ Tobia Gorrio ')for Bottesini, of-Qtello ' and ' Ealstafi"' for Verdi, and of his own operas '' M efistofeW and ' Nerone^ the latter of which is eagerly looked for. The strong individuality, the almost perverse ingenuity of diction, the rapid and vigorous metres, and the strange experiments in verse, which, together with eloquence, vivid colouring, and a peculiar terseness of style, have given Boito an unique position among living poets, are at the same time the despair of a would-be translator. 44 ARRIGOBOITO Poetry written in certain of the shorter and quicker lyrical metres of Italian poetry (as those know to their cost who have atteinpted versions of Carduccts '' hino a Satana ') ca?z usually only be rendered into another language by paraphrase^ by very great laxity of transla- tion, or by the abando7iment of the origitial metre. When to the problem of uniting fidelity of translation with the 7)iaintena7ice of a difiiciilt short aird rapid verse, is added that ' curiosity pittoresquc du vocabulaire ' which is itself strange and unfa?niliar even in the original tongue, it is perhaps pardonable for a foreigner to confess himself defeated. To reproduce, for instance, the rhymes ''florido lido ' andf rorido nido^ and at the same time to trans- late the words and keep to the metre, is beyond the possi- bilities of translation J and this is only one instance among many. ARRIGOBOITO 45 SONNET FROM 'FALSTAFF' Fenton Now Song from human lips ecstatic flies Soaring o'er silences of Night in sleep, And seeks with other lips its tryst to keep, Which answer it again in tuneful guise. Alone no more, the joyous voice replies In mystic melodies vibrating deep. While through the enamoured air the concords sweep Of wedded notes returned to re-arise. Then as it sounds once more, still Song is fain To reunite that which must break its tune. Lips long desired, that to my kiss reply ! Of mouth so kissed the fortune shall not wane. Anne [^ithin, far away) Nay, rather it renews as doth the moon. Fenton {moving quickly to meet her) Yet on the meeting lips the song must die. {Falsta , act iii. pt. 2.) ALINDA BONACCI-BRUNAMONTI ALINDA BONACCI-BRUNAMONTI Maria Alinda Bonacci, the most widely known of the poetesses of Italy, was born in 1842 at Perugia, where she has continued to reside since her marriage with Professor Pietro Brunamonti, of that University. Her father, who was also a Perugian professor of distinguished liter- ary ability, gave her an education greatly in advance of that usually conceded to her sex in Italy, or indeed, at that time, elsewhere. At nine years of age she is said to have knoiun a great part of the ''Divina Cotntnedia ' by heart; at eleven she read Virgil with ease, and she has subsequently taught herself Greek. She was only fourteen when her first ^ Raccolta di Versi' saw the light, a7id created no small sensation. These verses were of course somewhat imitative and immature : attother Raccolta, published on the occasion of her marriage, gave proof of her advanced study and poetical power. Meati- while the vicissitudes of the great national struggle for freedom inspired her ' Caftti Nazionali^ which tnay be said to exte7id over the period 1859-1878. A7i enlarged re- issue of her poems appeared in 1875 (' Ca?i/i,^ Florence, Le Monnier), and a new volume was published in 1887 mtder the title of'Nuovi Canti'' {Cittct di Castello, Lapi). Apart from the literary quality displayed in verse often purely classical in form, Signora Brunamonii excels chiefly in the expositio7i of si77iple passion and religious fervour. Bnagination and the love of Natttre, aided and discipli7ied by profoimd sttidy, have co7itributed i7i her to the for7)iatio7i of a poetical rna7i7ier of which perhaps the 77iost striki7ig characteristic is the imion of the patriotic i7npulse with the steadfast light of spiritual faith. D 50 A LIN DA BONACCI BRUNA MONTI THE CLOCK-TOWER Like the drip of slow water descending On the depths of its porphyry bower, The bronze stroke of Time forth is sending Each equal monotonous hour. Of Time the beginning and ending We know not, though Time be our dower. Can we read in its last open pages The thoughts of the sepulchred ages ? Perpetually murmur and quiver The voices of years that have flown ; They recall through the spaces for ever Generations long-linked with our own. So the stars in the midnight that shiver From zones of deep heavens unknown Pass on through the silences shining, Their skein of bright silver untwining. Of all that yet lives, or is dying, The bell can some image retain ; A dirge of dim echoes set flying In the hour when the day 'gins to wane, Recalling lost memories, crying Of hope to the nations in pain, One sound through the centuries pealing One deathless sweet Hope is revealing. [Microcosmo : Voci vespertine. ) LUIGI CAPUANA LUIGI CAPUANA At once novelist, critic, dramatist, poet, and writer of popular tales for the young, Capiiana is best known in the first of these capacities, as the author of '■Profili di Donne^ ''Storia fosca^ and other collections of short stories, but especially for his ''Giacinta^ {187 g), described as a naturalistic novel, which had a great success and was dramatised by the author himself. Born at Mineo, in the provitice of Catania, in the year 1839 {iZth May), Luigi Capuana is chiefly self educated. His earliest attempts in the field of literature were ' Garibaldi^ a dramatic legend in three cantos j a?7d * Vanitas Vanitatuni^ fourteen sonnets, in the last of which he bade farewell to the Muse. This was before 1864, but it was not till 1877 tliat his ttame became widely known ; he was then on the staff of the ' Corriere delta Sera ' of Milan. The greater part of his work is ift prose, but he has had several relapses into verse, among which his parodies of Mario Rapisardi's ''Lucifero ' and ' Giobbe ' may be mentioned. A more serious contribution to poetical literature is his curious volume of ' Semiritmi ' {Milan, Treves, 1888), in which he makes essay of various rhythmical forms which approach the nature of measured prose, and remittd the English reader of Walt Whitman, though without the American author^ s freedom and '■verve! Of these he has himself said : '•In these days when many volumes of verse are picblishedin which there 54 LUIGI CAPUANA is little or no poetry, would it not be at least curious to write a volume of poetical compositions with little or no verse ? ' Of late he has been writing, tmder the title of ''Istan- tatiee' brief moments or bursts of song, which have not yet bec7i collected ittto a volume, but of which his courtesy has allowed me to give a specimen. A new edition of his poems, including many hitherto unpublished, will shortly appear with the title, '■Ritmi e Seniiritmi.^ In a general view of his work, Capuana must be classed among the realistic writers : he has, however, the modern tendency towards psychology, and perhaps that vague mysticism which ift this age sotnctimes takes the place of the dctJiroJicd idealism. But he cannot be said to belong to any one recognised school : least of all in his verse, of which the originality of form is by no means the only merit; for he has great eloquence and descriptive power. In the following versions, I have not always found it easy to reproduce the exact metre, which is, as might be expected from ' semi-rhythms' sotnewhat difficult to ascer- tain; but I have eftdeavoured to give the metrical effect. LUIGI CAPU AN A 55 SUB UMBRA When I half-close in silences of night The much-imagining eyes that still desire Landscapes for ever green, skies ever clear, I see you once again, retreat unknown, Where in an arch the sacred olives stretched, Rustling in undertones, their ashy boughs. There on a carpet of green grasses, starred With corn-chrysanthemums and daisies white, Fell like a rainshower tremulous flakes of gold : And lighted up with unexpected fire The unstable wings of fireflies, and the sheen Of emerald insects buzzing in the flowers. Fell like a shower, in tremulous flakes of gold, The sunlight through the boughs, and seemed to be Songs of cicalas flaming through the aj^ Divine, Hellenic, the cicalas sang, Deceived by sunlight falling from on high. They who adore the sunburnt stubbly plain : And the green grass, protected by the boughs. The gold chrysanthemums, and daisies white, Astonished, heard the unfamiliar song. 56 LUIGl CAPUANA Oh, cool and calm of that unknown retreat, Where with my love white-garmented I drank, Voluptuous, the joy of being alive ! In generous pulsings to the temples white. Her blood was beating with vibrating rhythm. While roseate splendours shone upon her cheeks. And smiles upon her lips refulgent- red, Smiles in her eyeballs swimming with desire. Vague wishes, unattainable desires. Her sweet speech trembled in her voice, and broke. Like to a prayer arising from the deep Profundities of earth, whereon we two. Like flowers and grass, seemed to be taking root. Absorbing the exuberant overflow Of life, green wave wherein to drown were sweet. Between the spreading branches, clear and bright. The coruscating ether, blue, profound. Stretched boundless, incommensurably far. We, lying on the dewy grass at ease. Without a thought, in the great calm absorbed, Breathed-in the full voluptuous joy of life ; Each for himself, without a kiss, a word, With egoism intense, beneath the weight, The sacred weight, O Nature, of thy breath !— Dream, O my dream ! how far thou art away ! {Semiriimi. ) LUIGI CAPUANA 57 CAMEO Here, near the crystal fountain murmuring lightly, Under the shadowing boughs of laurel and myrtle- blossom, Endymion is sleeping. Stretched on the young grass, fair like a god of Olympus ! Silent around him the lisp of the murmurous foliage ; Nor dare they to shake their wings, the silenced meridian zephyrs: O'er him Diana is gazing Irresolute, leant on her bending bow, and the bosom White of the maiden Goddess is rising, swelling ; While with a sign of her hand she restrains at a dis- tance her faithful Hounds alert for the hunting, Wagging their tails, and gazing upon her intently. {Semiritmi. ) PASSIO DOMINI NOSTRI {Fragment of a Mystery) PILATE'S WIFE I HAVE dreamed an evil dream : I dreamed of a blood-filled sky ; And the veil of the temple Was rent in twain. 58 LUIGI CAPUANA And the sun and the moon went out, And the stars in the heaven went out ; And I heard a voice crying aloud : ' The Most Just is of Pilate condemned.' PILATE My mind is ill at ease : I find no fault in this Nazarene. He is doubtless out of his mind, For he deems himself Son of God. But I will make question of him Again for the last time ; then I will deliver him unto the priests, And wash my hands of him. PILATE'S WIFE Woe, O my lord, to who contemns The fate-foretelling voices of the dreams ! They are the Gods, admonishing us In the twilight hours of morn. Wherefore wash thy hands of him. If that Just One is innocent ? PILATE When I shall have washed my hands of him I shall have nought more to do therewith. LUIGI CAPUANA 59 Woman, leave me in peace ; For I am busied with many matters : And dreams are a thing that is vain, A vanishing mist that flies before the sun. Images, phantoms, escaped From the inmost cells of the brain. They wander about the mind While leason slumbers and sleeps. Or perchance they are vain deceits Of the humours hot and cold. Or whims of perturbing spirits That wander in wastes of the nisrht. '&' But hither the high priest cometh ; Leave me alone with him. Hearest thou not the people without Roaring like a storm-swept sea ? THE JEWS His blood be on us ! on our heads ! On our children's heads, his blood ! Let his blood fall ! his blood 1 Let his blood fall ! PILATE O superstitious people I may the Gods Bend listening ears, and hear ! 6o LUIGI CAPUANA THE JEWS Release unto us Barabbas ! Away with this man ! let him die ! {Seiniritmi.) PATERNOSTER ' Our Father— Ave Mai y ! '—So I pray, As though for me Doubt had no sting at all. What matter though my prayer should lose the way, And find no passage to a listening ear? Ah, it is something, thus for help to call. E'en when one knows that nobody will hear. [Istaniance.) GIOSUE CARDUCCI (ENOTRIO ROMANO) GIOSUE CARDUCCI The future head of the Neo-classical school in Italian poetry was born on the 2jth July 1836 at Valdicastello, near Pietrasanta in Tuscany, of an ancient fatnily de- scended from Francesco Carducci^gojifalonier of Florence. He spent his earlier years ijt the Pisan Mareinma, where his father practised as a physician. Here he learned to appreciate Virgil and the Latin classics generally j and in Italian literature., Dante, Tasso, and others; but he was brought up chiefly iii the Romantic school, and his early favourites were Berchet, Giicsti, and Manzoni, till an overdose of the latter {inflicted as a punishment) caused his first revulsion against the Matizonianism of the day; Giusti, however, was still his predilection. In 1847, at the age of eleven, he wrote his first verses, among which was an eligy o?t a pet owl. In the troubles of 1 849, his father lost his post and migrated to Flore7tce, where Giosue was placed to study at the Scuole Pie. Here he met with Enrico Nencioni, from whom he learned to love Leopardi, Lamartifte, and Victor Hugo. After pursuing his studies at Pisa, Carducci went as teacher of rhetoric to San Miniato, where he made but a short stay, but where his first volume of ''Rime'' appeared ifi 1857. Returning to Florence, he supported himself by giving private lessons and by 64 GIOSUK CARDUCCI writing for the literary periodicals. Here he becatne a prominent member of a compa}tio7iship of young nien who called themselves ' Gli Amici pedanti^ to which Giuseppe Chiarini also belonged, and whose chief aim in literature was that of restoring classical studies and forms to the supremacy from which they had bee ft long displaced by a bastard a7id decaying Romanticism. This spirit of revolt mafiifested itself in their periodical, ' // Poliziano^ which, for all its brilliancy, met the fate destined for those whom the gods love. For soine years he was engaged in pre- parifig editio?is of the Italian classics, such as Al fieri and Giusti, for Barbera the publisher, and was for a short time teaching at Pistoiaj but in i860 he began his long residc?ice at Bologna, on his appointment to the chair of Italian Literature in that University. Here ends the period of his poetical production which is represented in later editions of his works by the ''Juvefiilia,^ written between 1850 aftd i860, so7ne of which are included in the '■Rime,' me7itio7ied above. At Bolog/ia he devoted hi77iself from 1861 to 1867 to the duties of his post and to the classics, wishing, as he has hi77iself said, ''to take a cold bath of e7'uditio7i.' In 1865, however, was published at Pistoia, tinder the now famous pseudo/iym ' Enotrio Ro77tano,' the still more fa77ious Hy77in to Satan {^In7io a Sata7ia'), which had been written, at one sitting, in 1863, i7i brief ' sdrucciolo ' 77ietrc of a7nazing force and vivacity. Satan is i7tvoked as the undyi7ig, unconquerable spirit of freedo7n a7id progress : A te, de /' essere Principio imme7iso, Matet^a e spirito, Raglo7ie e !,enso ;' {To thee, the i77i77icnse Pri7tciple of all Being; i7iattcr and GIOSUE CARDUCCI 65 Spirit, reason and sense); attd the formidable outburst against Christianity, or rather the MedicBval Church, concludes with the lines : ' Salute, Safana, O ribellione, O forza vindice Delia ragione ! Sacri a te salgano GP incensi e i voti ! Hai vinto il Geova De' sacerdoti,' {Hail to thee, O Satan, O rebellion, O avenging force of reason! Sacred to thee let incense and vows arise, for thou hast vanquished the Jehovah of the priests.) The reception which this war-song of Paganism met with at the hands of the clerics and their followers tnay easily be itnagined; and Carducci and his admirers have, since then, somewhat modified, by authorised interpreta- tions, the violence of the attack. Nevertheless, the Hymn to Satan remains the expression of a revolt against the asceticism and mysticism of Christianity, against the authority of the Church, against the obscurantism of the priests. I am not concerned to defend it; I do not even, for all its brilliancy, consider it truly repre- sentative of Carduccfs genius; and with respect to its form, this appears to be the poefs own maturer judgment upon the youthful outburst which made him famous. Yet it is memorable as the first authorita- tive proclamation of that return to Nature \and the love of Nature, here symbolised in Satan, which has become one of the great impulses of the new school, and which has led to the general revival of the classical spirit in Italy, E 66 GIOSUE CARDUCCI At Bologna, Carducci became the most illustrious of a group of notable writers such as are seldom to be found together in a provincial town, and which has included, aynong others, Enrico Panzacchi and Olindo Guerrini, better known as Lorenzo Stecchetti. The ''Levia Gravia^ appeared in 1867, and mark a further progress of his art and of the movement which he had inaugurated. These were followed by the poems now classified as the ^ Decennalia^ (i860- 1870), the '' Nuove Poesie di Enotrio Romano'' {Imola, Galeati, 1873), '^''^d the ' Giambi ed epodi ' {now so called in the edition of 1882: Bologna, Zanichelli). Many of the poems included under these titles have been so variously distributed in different editions as to cause the student soine little perplexity. A general edition of Carducci's works in prose and verse has now been published by Zanichelli of Bologna. Meamvhile the ^Odi barbare'' had appeared (1877), and had given rise to a loftg and fruitful controversy as to the possibility of reviving in Italian the classical metres which Rome had borrowed fro7ii Greece. The chief defettce of the 7iew departure is to be found in Giuseppe Chiarini's volume entitled ^I critici italiani e la metrica delle Odi barbare.^ The ''Nuove Odi barbare'' followed {Bologna, Zanichelli, 1882), attd the 'Terze Odi barbare'' {Bologna, Zanichelli, 1889). Carducci has written mafiy works of criticism and literary history, and in his ' Confessioni e Battaglie ' has giveri us some contributions towards his otvn biography, and soj/ie account of the controversies in which he has at various times been efigaged. Of his political life it is needless to say more than that he began as a fervent Republican and as such was elected to the lower Chamber, but that he has latterly rallied to the defence of the GIOSUE CARDUCCI 67 constitutional monarchy as represented by the House of Savoy. He is now a Setiator of the Kingdom. Strettgth and vigour of co7iception and of expression.^ abundant and facile eloque}rce, power of stcggestion, melody now resonant and ringing, now subtle atid delicate, exquisite finish and beauty of form, a rare mastery of metre, love of external nature and the power of represent- ifig it in its poetical aspects : these are some of the qualities of Carducci's genius. He is a realist of an entirely differe7it school from that of French Zolaismj art artist essentially, not a photographer, his is the worship of the beautiful. His muse is never base, never morbid, and in this respect he differs widely from many who in Italy call themselves ' verisii? He is of the Roman, eve?t of the Hellenic — not of the Fre?ich school. While both he and Stecchetti reject aiid assail Christianity, Carducci does not fi7ui comfort ijt licence : he seeks at once the high levels and the ' large utterance ' of the early gods. He is the Pagan of WordswortJi^s sonnet, realised, and the gods and nymphs live in his verse, a spiritual presence, enabling us to ' Have sight of Proteus risijig from the sea, Or hear old Triton bloiv his wreathed horn,' Freedom and nobility in man's soul, beauty in external nature, arc the informing influences iti his poetry j and the aim of his art is to combine classical purity and perfection of form with the onward movement and the broadened vision of the modern spirit. So he sings in Horatian metres, or rather i7i their natural Italian equivale7its, the death of Maxi77iilian of Mexico i^Mira- mar^), or that of the Pri7ice I/nperial {^ hi Morte di Napoleone Euge7iio'). The faults with which he is often reproached are those belo7igi7ig to a 77iove77ient which 68 GIOSUE CARDUCCI e7nbodies a reaction : tJius Ids Neo-paganisi)i iiinlccs him unjust to Christianity, afid his worsJiip of classic antiquity has sometimes caused him to be ''caviare to the ge7ieral? His vocabulary, truth to tell, seems to be somewhat over- laden with Lati?iisms ; but this is, in Italy, a healthy return to the sources of the laijguagc. GIOSUE CARDUCCl 69 SONNET Alone my vessel passes, mid the cry Of halcyons, on the stormy waters borne, Swept on, by thunder of the billows torn, Beneath the clamours of the lightening sky. All Memories turn to that far shore gone by Their faces wet with tears and sorrow- worn. And all fair Hopes o'erthrown their glance forlorn Cast on the splintered oars that broken lie. Yet at the stern still doth my Genius stand. While to the creaking masts he hearkeneth. And cries o'er sea and sky his loud command : ' Row on ! row on ! O guides of desperate breath, Toward cloudy ports of the forgetful land. Toward whitening breakers of the reefs of death.' {Juvenilia, bk. iii. 36.) IN AN ALBUM Still do I see 'neath memory's pleasant sway Your modest looks, sweet maids, and on each face The smile that doth your down-bent features grace ; And now my mind recalls the earlier day When to me too Love seemed a thing divine ; And with a sigh I see a white dress shine And rustle through the flowers in the pale moonlight While murmurs sweet I breathe to the air of night. 7o GIOSUK CARDUCCI When the poor pilgrim, in a valley deep, Fearful of lonely night on a stony road. Lifts his tired eyes to the hill o'er which he strode An hour gone by, and sees its summits keep The splendour of the sun's departing ray, He thinks of when began his weary way, And of the springtime in his happy home, And the evening fire that welcomed those that roam. For the sun, the green sward and the amorous wind. For the sweet harmonies through the world dispersed. The sore heart sighs ; but me the winds accursed Hurl back where living loves and hatred blind Rage for a thousand years ; from the tomb rebound Accents of fiery wrath, and the trumpets' sound. Ah ! hear them not, sweet maids, but pure and gay. Pluck ye the fleeting rose while yet 'tis day. {Levia Gravia, i. 2.) ROME Once with thy locks upon the wind outspread, Breast bare, and sea-blue eyes afire for war. Thou didst the chariot urge ; — before thee far Panic and fear with panting breath had fled : The shadows of the helm upon thine head, Like the fierce dazzle of an iron star, Outran the winds ; behind thy swift-wheeled car Hovered the dust of trampled empires dead. GIOSUE CARDUCCI 71 Great Rome ! the nations vanquished by thy fame Saw thus thine image in their ancient fears : To-day thy regal locks a mitre's shame Dishonours ; in thy hand bedewed with tears The beads of prayer !— O once more with thy name Affright the world and free the wearied years ! {Levia Gravia, ii. 28.) TO THE SONNET Brief and most ample song ! thee, light as dreams, His thoughts in better worlds which earth o'ertower, Hath Dante loved ; and thee mid flowers a flower Hath Petrarch gathered by the running streams : Thee too did oft with epic strength endower Imprisoned Tasso ; thee that hand redeems Which strove with marble till full-souled it beams. For thee he shaped with slow and mightier power. That ^schylus by Avon born again Made thee, Art's pilgrim on an alien shore, His hidden utterance of hidden pain : The Anglian, Lusian Virgils loved thy strain. But Bavius, mouthing verse with pompous roar, Hates thee, O Sonnet : I but love thee more. [Levia Gravia, xxi. ) 72 GIOSUE CARDUCCI II From Dante's lips the Sonnet soared divine On angels' wings through azure air and gold ; On Petrarch's 'twas the speech of hearts that pine, A stream from heaven in murmuring verse outrolled. The Mantuan nectar and the Venusine, To Tibur granted by the Muse of old, Torquato gave ; a dart, a fiery sign, Alfieri hurled it 'gainst the tyrant's hold. The nightingale in Ugo's sweetest lays Beneath the Ionian cypress made it ring, Acanthus-blossomed, o'er his native bays ; And I, not sixth, but last, as joy I bring. Tears, perfume, wrath, and Art, in lonely days Its fame recall, as to the tombs I sing. (Rime Nuove, ii. ) PANTHEISM I TOLD it not, O vigilant stars, to you ; To thee, all-seeing sun, I made no moan ; Her name, the flower of all things fair and true, Was echoed in my silent heart alone. GIOSUE CARDUCCI 73 Yet now my secret star tells unto star, Through the brown night, to some vague sphery tune ; The great sun smiles at it, when, sinking far, He whispers love to the white and rising moon. On shadowy hills, on shores where life is gay, Each bush repeats it to each flower that blows ; The flitting birds sing, ' Poet grim and grey. At last Love's honeyed dreams thy spirit knows.' I told it not, yet heaven and earth repeat The name beloved in sounds divine that swell, And mid the acacia-blossom's perfume sweet MuiTnurs the Spirit of All — ' She loves thee well.' {Rime Nuove, xxv. ) IN THE SQUARE OF SAN PETRONIO AT BOLOGNA ON A WINTER'S EVENING Rises in frost of winter, gloomy and towered, Bologna, While the mountain above smiles in the glimmer of snow. This is the tranquil hour when the sun that is dying saluteth Towers and fane to thee, sainted Petronius, raised. Towers whose summits were touched by wings of the ages that vanished, And of the solemn fane pinnacles lofty and lone. 74 GIOSUE CARDUCCI Cold, adamantine, the heavens are a-gleam with dazzHng splendour ; All the air like a veil, silver, diaphanous lies Over the fonun lightly, blending with colour the masses Dark, which the weaponed hand once of our ancestors built. Up on the lofty heights the sun as it sinketh, delaying. Pierces with languid smile violet mists of the night. Which in the old grey stone, in the dusky vermilion brickwork, Seems to waken anew souls of the ages that passed, So that a mournful desire in the frosty air is awakened — Ah ! for the roseate Mays, warm in the perfume of eve. When the beautiful maidens danced in the open places. And with the conquered kings triumphing consuls returned. So do the joyful Muses turn to the resonant metre Trembling with vain desire, seeking the beauty antique. (Odi barbare.) RUIT HORA O NOW so long-desired, thou verdurous solitude. Far from all rumour of mankind ! Hither wc come companioned by two friends divine. By wine and love, O Lydia. GIOSUE CARDUCCl 75 Ah, see how laughs in sparkling goblets crystalline Lyaeus, god eternal-young ! How in thy dazzling eyes, resplendent Lydia, Love triumphs and unbinds himself ! Low down the sun peeps in beneath the trellised vine, And rosily reflected gleams Within my glass ; golden it shines, and tremulous, Among thy tresses, Lydia. Among thy raven tresses, O white Lydia, One pale-hued rose is languishing ; Softly upon my heart a sudden sadness falls, Falls to restrain Love's rising fires. Tell me, wherefore beneath the flaming sunset-sky Mysterious lamentations moan Up from the sea below ? Lydia, what songs are they Yon pines unto each other sing ? See with what deep desire yon darkening hills out- stretch Their summits to the sinking sun : The shadow grows, and wraps them round ; they seem to ask The last sweet kiss, O Lydia. I seek thy kisses when the shade envelops me, Lyaeus, thou who givest joy ; I seek thy loving eyes, resplendent Lydia, When great Hyperion falls. 76 Giosuii: carducci Now falls, now falls the imminent hour. O roseate lips, Unclose : O blossom of the soul, O flower of all desire, open thy petals wide : Beloved arms, unclose yourselves. {Odi barbare.) TO THE STATUE OF VICTORY IN THE RUINS OF THE TEMPLE OF VESPASIAN AT BRESCIA Olympian maiden, did once thy favouring Wings shake o'er down-bent helms of the peltastas. Who, leaning their knees to their bucklers. Were awaiting with lances extended ? Or wert thou, cloud-borne, guiding the eagles, when, Before the surging Marsian soldiery. Thy splendour irradiate dazzled The tumultous Parthian onset ? With folded pinions, thou stand'st magnificent. Thy proud foot trampling on foemen helmeted ; The name of what conquering captain Dost thou write on the resonant clipeus ? An archon's glory, who over tyranny The laws of freedom mightily magnified ? A consul's, who widened the empire, And the dread of Rome mighty in battle ? GIOSUE CARDUCCI 77 Could I but hear thee, as once in majesty, Through Alpine tempests, call to the centuries : 'O nations ! here Italy standeth, Her renown and her birthright avenging ! ' But meanwhile Lydia, the flow'rets gathering Which drear October spreads like a memory O'er ruins of Roman refulgence, At thy feet lays a garland in homage. And asks thee, ' Virgin, entombed and slumbering, Long ages silent, what wert thou dreaming of? Didst hear, when the horse of the Teuton Trod the ground o'er thy forehead Hellenic?' ' I heard,' she answers, godlike and lightening Mid echoed thunders : ' Glory of Greece am I, And strength of the conquering Latium, That shall last in my bronze through the ages. ' The lapsing ages passed like the sinister Twelve vultures bearing empire to Romulus : — Then rose I, to Italy thund'ring, " Re-arisen are thy gods and thy heroes ! " ' And proud and joyful Brescia welcomed me, Brescia the mighty, Brescia iron-armed, O lion of Italy ! Brescia Steeped in blood of barbarian foemen.' [Odi barbare.) 78 GlOSUfc CARDUCCI SNOWFALL Slowly flutters the snow from ash-coloured heavens in silence ; Sound or tumult of life rises not up from the town ; Not of herbseller the cry, nor rumorous rattle of wagons, Not love's passionate song joyous in musical youth. But, from the belfry swaying, hoarsely the hours thro' the evening Moan like sighs from a world far from the light of our day. Wandering song-birds beat at my tarnished window panes ; friendly Spirits returning are they, seeking and calling for me. Soon, O beloved ones, soon— be calm, heart ever un- daunted — Soon to the silence I come, soon in the shades to repose. (^Nuove Odl barbare.') ON MONTE MARIO Cypresses solemn stand on Monte Mario ; Luminous, quiet is the air around them ; They watch the Tiber through the misty meadows Wandering voiceless. GIOSUE CARDUCCI 79 They gaze beneath them where, a silent city, Rome Hes extended : like a giant shepherd, O'er flocks unnumbered vigilant and watchful, Rises St. Peter's. Friends, on the summit of the sunlit mountain Mix we the white wine, scintillating brightly In mirrored sunshine ; smile, O lovely maidens : Death comes to-morrow. Lalage, touch not in the scented copses The boasted laurel that is called eternal. Lest it should lose there, in thy chestnut tresses. Half of its splendour. Between the verses pensively arising. Mine be the laughter of the joyous vintage. And mine the rosebuds fugitive, in winter Flowering to perish. We die to-morrow, as the lost and loved ones Yesterday perished ; out of all men's mem'ries And all men's loving, shadow-like and fleeting' We too shall vanish. Yes, we must die, friends ; and the earth, unceasing Still in its labour, round the sun revolving. Shall ev'ry instant send out lives in thousands, Sparks evanescent ; 8o GIOSUE CARDUCCI Lives which in new loves passionate shall quiver, Lives which in new wars conquering shall triumph, And unto Gods new sing in grander chorus Hymns of the future. Nations unborn yet ! in whose hands the beacon Shall blaze resplendent, which from ours has fallen, Ye too shall vanish, luminous battalions, Into the endless. Farewell, thou mother. Earth, of my brief musings. And of my spirit fugitive ! How much thou, yEons-long whirling, round the sun shalt carry Glory and sorrow ! Till the day comes, when, on the chilled equator, Following vainly heat that is expiring. Of Man's exhausted race survive one only Man, and one woman. Who stand forsaken on the ruin'd mountains, Mid the dead forests, pale, with glassy eyeballs. Watching the sun's orb o'er the fearful icefields Sink for the last time. ( Tersie Odi ba,rbare, ) GIUSEPPE CHIARINI GIUSEPPE CHIARINI A Tuscan, born at Arezso in 1833, Giuseppe Chiarini was educated partly in that city and partly at Florence^ where he was long associated with Carducci, who became his lifelong friejid. From i860 to 1867 he held a Secretaryship at the Mitiistry of Public Instruction. In 1866 he founded, at Florence, the '■Ateneo Italiano,' a liter- ary periodical which had a brilliant but brief existence. After this he was for many years at Leghorn as President of the Liceo and of other institutions for public instruc- tion; and since 1884 he has been President of the Liceo Umberto I" and Lectut'er in Modern Literatures at the University of Rome. CJiiariniis one of the first critics of Italy, and is deeply versed in the literature of his own and of other countries. He has published '■Pocsie^ includi?tg many tra?tslations from Heine a?id from the English {Leghorn, Vigo, 1874) ; '/« Memoriam'' {Imola, Galeati, 1875); LacrymcB^ {Bologna, Zanichelli, 1879-80); '' Esperimenti i?ietrici' {the same publisher, 1882) ; aftd, ajnong other tr'ansla- tiotts, Heine's '' Atta Troll.^ Of his critical works the best k}tow7i is his memorable defence of Carducci entitled ' Sopra i critici italia7ii e la metrica delle Odi barbare ' {Bologna, Zanichelli, 1878). As a poet, Chiarini excels in the expression of pathos and emotion. His ^ Lacrymce'' is a small volume of verses composed to alleviate Ids own doinestic sorrows in 84 GIUSKPPE CHIAKINI the premature loss of two of Jiis children. It has achieved a great repiiiation z« Italy, though to an Ejiglish reader that free expression of pain which is most natural in a Southern is apt to appear tindignifed. TJie fault, or at least the inisfortuiie, is ours. But CJiiarini as a poet has had the ill-luck to be overweighted by inevitable con- trasts a7id comparisons. His conipanion in youth, Car- ducci, has outgrow7i and overshadowed him; and when he has essayed the exprcssio?t of the sorrows of home- life, the comparison with Tennysoiis ' In Memoriam ' cannot be avoided, a/id the result is, from our -point of view, u7ifavourable. But ''Lacrymcs^ though lacking the dignity, depth, philosophy, and faith of our gj-catest elegy, has notable merits of its own, aiid is the voice of a simple sorroiv fully and artistically expressed. And we E?iglish- inen should be grateful to Gitiseppe Chiarini for what he has dofie to spread the k?iozuledge of our literature (as well as that of Germany) tJirougJiout Ids 7iative land. GIUSEPPE CHIARINI 85 PRELUDE TO ' LACRYM^ ' The shining stars pass ever, They pass through the ether deep, Pass into the endless sleep Where one day all must lie. But none hath seen them ever, By ardent flame destroyed, Fall from the lofty void And ruining down the sky. Yet for the stars in heaven No father's heart hath spoken, No father's heart is broken To see them fade and die. (Lacrymis.) EDMONDO DE AMICIS EDMONDO DE AMICIS Bom in 1846 at Oneglia, and of Genoese descent^ Edmondo De Anitas -was educated for the military profession^ and was a siib-licutenant when the war of 1866 bj-oke out. He was present at the disastrous battle of Ctistoza i7i that year; in the following we find hi?n at Florence editing the '■Italia Militare^ itt which his famous '•Bozzetti delta Vita militare ' first appeared — sketches which made his na))ie, and wJiicJi have enjoyed an enormoiis sale. After the deliverance of Rome in 1870, De Amicis considered his military duties accomplished., and., retiriirg from the army, gave himself entirely to literature. His books of travel, such as ^Spagna,' '•Marocco^ '■Qlanda^ and ' Co- stantinopoli, \irc familiar wherever the ItaliaJt language is spoken J but he has also achieved success in fiction, and his ''Romance of a Schoolmaster^ has been recently trans- lated into English by Mrs. M. A. Craig (1892). Almost all his work is in prose j but it cojitains so much evidence of poetic feeling and pathos that no one was ast07iished by the publication of a volume of verse (' Versi^ Milan, Treves, fourth edition, 1882), which, however, cofisists almost entirely of sonnets. Without being a great poet, he has attained considerable mastery over this peculiarly Italiait form. There is an almost horrible, but eloque7tt, realism, -mifigled with ghastly humour, in the series entitled ''GuerraJ His greatest success, how- ever, is attained in quiet and meditative descriptio?is of sce?tery. go EDMONDO DE AMICIS WAR From all the summits of the hills on high, In battle-smoke the armed and furious bands, Shaking with rage their fierce ensanguined hands. Send forth of conquest the tremendous cry. The insolent trumpet-blast rings up to the sky ; Beneath the dying sun each face expands. While the bronzed victor thunders o'er the lands His ultimate insults to the foes that fly, Down on the fugitives o'er all the lea, An avalanche of red remorseless swords Ruining falls with a delirious glee. And stamps in blood, and rends, and slays outright. Pierces and breaks the miserable hordes O' the vanquished, whelmed in infamy of flight. [Poesie : La Guerra, x.) SNOWFALL {Near Ley den) O'ER mournful lands and bare, without a sound Gently in broadening flakes descends the snow ; In velvet layers, beneath its pallid glow, Silent, immaculate, all earth is bound. EDMONDO DE AMICIS 9I It hides behind its veil all things around, Houses and bridges, and the waters slow ; Fills ditches; whitens the great ships below ; Endless, continual, covering the ground. Here through the white veil o'er the hills, on high The windmills with a lofty mien severe Stretch out their frozen arms into the sky ; And far away, o'er plains of densest white, Old Leyden rises black, in curves austere — Continual, endless snowfall infinite. {Poesie : Ricordi di Olanda.) SEVERING FERRARI SEVERING FERRARI Born in 1856 at Alberino i?t the province of Bologna, on the Reno, Ferrari was at school at Bologna fro)n 1865 to 1870, and was apparently not entirely a inodel scholar. There he met with Ugo Brilli aitd Giova?i?ii Pascoli. Passing some years later into the Istituto di Studi Superiori at Florence, he became a fervent Cardiiccian, and with Giovanni Marradi aiid others formed the literary ' cenacle ' known as the ' Collar di.^ Besides publishing the ephemeral periodical, '/ Nnovi Goliardi,' each of this group blossomed into verse of his ow7i. Ferrari began in 1876 with a small volume printed by Zanichelli of Bologna : in 1 884 he published '// Mago ' — the magician is his friend Ugo Brilli — a7td in 1885 the first collection of '■Bordatini'' {Ancona, Morelli), which was followed by a ''Secoftdo Libro dei Bordatini'' {Florence, Ademollo, 1886). A more complete edition of his 'Versi' appeared in 1892 {Modena, Sarasino). As Ferrari gradually delivered himself from the in- fluences which make for imitation only, he took for his special study the popular poetry and poetical forms of the thirtee7ith, fotirteenth, and fifteenth cent7iries. Hence the ''Bordatiiii : ' the name, fantastically selected, means rough stuffs ifiwoveit z>z various colours. They are short sketches, itnprcssions, and outcries in brief verse, like the Tuscan ''rispetti' and ^ storttelli.' A favourite for t/z of his is the ' romafielle ' of four hendecasy liable lifies g6 SEVERING FERRARI rhyming abbe : these he has sometimes grouped into series making one poem. These rapid attd limited forms necessarily lead to brevity, emphasis, a7id perhaps ob- scurity ; the ofte thing to be avoided is epigram, for the form is essentially popular. Ferrari has proved that these ancient metres have retained their vitality, though doubtless there is some little affectation, some slight artificiality in his work. Elsezuhere they show much freshtiess and origifiality. They have been praised by Carducci, who says of 07ie {the first among those 7vhich I have endeavoured to translate) that it is a '' ballatina'' of which Petrarch himself, were he to live again to-day, would not be ashamed. At the end of the volume of ^Vcrsi^ recently published there is a fine series of sonnets o?i the beautiful Gulf of Spezia {Ferrari, given up to the profession of teacJnng, was long so employed in that town) in one of which occurs an allicsion which is worth quoting: ' Mentre Tetide piangc aiicor il desti?io Del giovinetto Shelley die in lei dorme, Distratto dietro a ten suo sogno divino. ' The death of our great poet has rarely been so well, so classically simg. SEVERING FERRARI 97 Of the splendid sun a ray- Fell on my heart, and will not thence away. While o'er thy work half-done Thou guidedst with thy hand, my heart's desire, The needle running through the web with speed, A golden ray the sun Athwart thy tresses interwove ; and fire Blazed all around : my heart began to bleed : — ' A goddess this indeed ! She must return to heaven : she cannot stay.' [Bordatini, vi.) The white snow laughs upon the mountain height : It asks the sun for a brief and tender ray ; And, in the sunset, dreams of the moon's delight. Yet in so fervent a kiss it melts away, And warmly clings to the plants in dew, that glows Gemming the leaves beneath the ardent day. And so thy warmer heart, mid all thy snows. Quickens upon thy lips a flowering rose. [Bordatini , viii.) G AUGUSTO FERRERO AUGUSTO FERRERO Born in 1 866 at Bologna, but of Piedmontese extraction, Angus to Ferrero, at the age of seventeen, gave his first promise of future literary distinction by carrying off the gold medal in a natio7ial competition on a patriotic sub- ject, open to all students in the ^Licei,^ on which occasion Carducci was one of the judges. Educated for the profes- sion of the lata, Ferrero soo7i abatidotied it for jourtialism, afid is now on the staff of the ''Gazzetta Piemontese' of Turin. His only volume of poetry is ''Nostalgic d'Atnore ' {Turin, Roux e Co., 1893), one of the latest additions to Italian poetical literature. The influence of Carducci is less apparetit itt Ferrero than in most versifiers of the day, and that of the Gallicising schools is refreshi?7gly absent. The formalist and somewhat artificial tendeticies which constitute the chief danger of the Nco-latin movement, and of which d'Annu?isio, with all his excellejice, is the chief exponetit, have bee?i avoided; more obvious is Ferrero' s indebtedness to the Nature-spirit and the simpler forms of Fogazzard s poetry. In the delitteatioft of pure and peaceful home-life, Ferrero is doubtless to some extent influenced by his English models, Wordsworth, Shelley, Longfellow, and Tennyson, S07ne of whose poems he has translated. I02 AUGUSTO FERRERO THE STRIKING OF THE HOURS I WOKE up in the night, alone, with a shock To hear the sudden striking of a clock. And O the moonless night ! the darkling night ! What chill, what panic did my heart affright ! No voice o' the street, no sound of the ocean's roar : A blind abyss, the dark room yawned before. By the cold horror of the void o'erthrown, Terror of silence, dread of the unknown Fell leaden on my soul. Thereafter, drear, The slow hours struck once more : I seemed to hear In the infinite gloom some god-like voice of power, Proclaim the striking of my latest hour. {Nostalgic d' A more, xxix. ) THEN The old men tell of the green years gone by : (There— the cigar is lighted once again) : They tell of arms, of hopes and loves gone by. The cat by the fire looks on and lists amain. AUGUSTO FERRERO IO3 The women's thoughts are wandering, following fleet The mournful wind that moans along the street. The old men tell o' the years that had an end, Of many a beauty gone, and many a friend And while they speak, the wild wind bursts in a shout : (There — once again the spent cigar's gone out) . [Nostalgie d'Amore, 1.) TWILIGHT DREAM ' Mother, three little heads I see, and a light : One fair, one dark, and one like the chestnut's stain.'- O poetry of the evening, pure and bright. The only poetry sweet and never vain, Would that I too might see that quiet glow From yonder corner, whence a child may know The three loved faces shadowed in a light ! O poetry of the evening, pure and bright, The only poetry sweet and never vain, O sisters, mother mine ! seen ne'er again . {Nostalgic cTAmore, li.) UGO FLERES UGO FLERES Born in 1857 at Messina, Ugo Fleres studied there till his family sent him to learn painting at Naples, where he energetically iteglected that art in favour of literature. Passing on to Rome at the age of seventeen, he has lived the life of a ' newspaper-man ' who dreams of art and has to practise journalism. But he did not dream only : he wrote very abuttdantly — tragedies, comedies, translatiojts without end. Yet, of all this fertile production, very little has seen the light: partly because he is his own severest critic, partly because, as he says himself, he ' writes ir. floods, and publishers are few.'' Nevertheless, i)t 1881, the publisher Sommaruga {who, believing in literature, ended in bankruptcy) prevailed upon him to give his ' Versi' to the world. Since then several ro7nances and other volumes have appeared bearing his tiame. His ' Don fuan ' — an original work and not a translation — and his ' Giovinezza del Cid' have been long expected: of the latter a fragment appears in his volume entitled '' Sacellum ; Nuovi Versi' {Catania, Giannotta, 1889). Fleres excels in brief, epigrammatic verse. He has trattslated a few quatrains from Omar Khayyam, and something of the spirit of that poet {at least as we kttow him in England) may be discerned in ''La Collana' (' Sacellum '), a * necklace ' from which I have detached two or three lifiks. lo8 UGO FLERES QUATRAINS Fools the cicalas are — 'tis long agreed ; How wise the ant, is known to every one. But is it so? Is foresight worth indeed More than long singing in the summer sun ? Hath Faith expired? — Its image hath not fled : In our ancestral blood it lingers yet. When once the Book of Mystery thou hast read, Its pages thou canst tear, but not forget. I AM a book open 'neath mine own eyes ; I gaze therein and find my sense unstrung. Again I gaze, perplexed — to realise The liook is written in an unknown tongue. (SacellvM : La Collana.) ANTONIO FOGAZZARO ANTONIO FOGAZZARO One of the most distinguished and /nost popular novelists of contemporary Italy, author of ' Malo7nbra,' ''Daniele Cor t is,' '// Mistero del Poeta^ ^Fedele,' and other volumes of stories. Born at Viccnza in 1842, Fogazzaro' s earlier studies were carried out zmder the direction of the eminent priest-poet, the Abbe Zanella, after which he became Doctor of Laws at the University of Turin in 1861. Although he is best known by his 7iovels, he began as a poet; and he has not only produced admirable work in that sphere, but has exercised an important and beneficent infltcence on the poetical literaticre of his day. His romance in verse, *■ Miranda' {Florence, Le Mottnicr, iZ'jd), was followed in 1876 by a more important volume, ^Valsolda,' which was republished in an enlarged form as ' Valsolda: Poesia dispersa' {Turin, Casatiova, 1886). Another of his contributiofts to the treasury of the Muses is ' Pro- fumo, poesie' {Milan, 1881). According to the geographical distribution of authors, usually the most essential and instructive i?t the Italy of the nineteenth century, Fogazzaro is called a Venetian. In this case the classification is misleading. The Venetian spirit sparkles like sunlight on the sea : it is brilliant, of many facets, restless, iii continual aspiration ajid revolt. Fogazzaro is of the Lake school. The inland waters with their yearly interchange of stmshine and mist; the heights of Monte Generoso, where columbine and jonquil 112 ANTONIO I'OGAZZARO grow in wild abundaiice j the melody of streams as they flow and their thunder as tJieyfall; — such are the penetrat- ing influences which have inspired his Northern muse. The sentiment of external Nature is at once vivified and made mystical in him by the ever-suggested prese7tce of an ideal which is above and beyond Nature, but of which Nature is the mirror. To this mental attitude necessarily corresponds a poetical style dominated by the search for refined expression, and an instinctive revulsion from the loud and vulgar methods of certaiti schools. But when Fogazzaro is face to face with the ugly in life, he can in a masterly 7vay employ his acquired delicacy of touch so as to illustrate it without offence. Readers of George MereditfCs ^ Diana of the Cross- ways ' will remember the bells on Lake Lugano : Fogaz- zaro has treated the same subject, very differently, in the piece entitled ^Evetiittg.'' ANTONIO FOGAZZARO I13 Now in the vesper shades my vacant room Looms larger to mine eyes through gathering gloom. Beyond, the lake appears in misty Hght, Like a deserted, boundless sea at night. Could I sail out upon this desert sea I Sail out alone, sail out afar and free ; And, when the vanishing shores are lost to view, Yield to my thoughts and to the waters blue ! Then phantoms would i' the open sea appear Which still the heart conceals with jealous fear. I seated aft, they to the fore would rise, Each silent, gazing in the other's eyes. {Valsolda, iv.) EVENING THE BELLS OF ORIA Westward the sky o'ergloometh. The hour of darkness cometh. From spirits of evil, From Death and the Devil, Keep us, O Lord, night and day 1 Come, let us pray. 114 ANTONIO FOGAZZARO THE BELLS OF OSTENO O'er waters waste we too must sound, From lonely shores where echoes bound, Our voice profound. From spirits of evil, From Death and the Devil, Keep us, O Lord, night and day ! Come, let us pray. THE BELLS OF FURL'X We too, remote and high, From the dark mountains cry : Hear us, O Lord ! From spirits of evil, From Death and the Devil, Keep us, O Lord, night and day I Come, let us pray. Echoes from the Valleys Let us pray I ALL THE BELIES The light is born and dies, Enduring never : Sunset follows sunrise For ever ; ANTONIO FOGAZZARO II5 All things, O Lord All-wise ! Save Thine eternity, Are vanity. Echoes from the Valleys Vanity I ALL THE BELLS Come, let us pray and weep, From the heights and from the deep, For the living, for them that sleep. For so much sin unknown, and so much pain. Have mercy. Lord ! All suffering and pain. That does not pray to Thee ; All error that in vain Does not give way to Thee ; All love that must complain, Yet yields no sway to Thee, Pardon, O Holy One ! Echoes f 7-01)1 the Valleys O Holy One ! ALL THE BELLS Pray we, and toll the bell For the dead beneath the loam, Whom Earth hath gathered home Il6 ANTONIO FOGAZZARO Guilty or guiltless, as vain men opine. Thou, Mystery Divine ! Alone canst tell. Echoes from the Valleys Alone canst tell ! ALL THE BELLS Let US pray for the immense Pain of the universe. That lives its life intense, Loves, suffers Thine adverse Inscrutable decrees. Peace to the wave, to the hill These voices, too, be still : O beat o' the bronze, be still 1 Peace ! Echoes from the Valleys Peace ! THE WAVE Dost thou sleep, fair shore That the waters adore ? With quivering breath My pain lingereth As I sing, as I weep ; And my love is asleep ! ANTONIO FOGAZZARO II7 One accent alone, One murmur, one moan. One sigh — only this — As thy pebbles I kiss. Be silent, O deep ! The stars as they smile Fall in love for awhile With my mirror serene : In my bosom bright Vesper reflected is seen. Silence and sleep ! One accent alone, One murmur, one moan. One sigh — only this One kiss. THE WATERFALL OF RESCIA My waves have no peace ; My waves do not cease — They murmur and roar Through silences lonely On a desolate shore. The silent waves hear ; The dark mountains hear ; They list, and hear only My murmurs austere. {Valsolda, xix. Il8 ANTONIO FOGAZZARO IN ST. MARK'S AT VENICE Cold is my soul like thee, O glorious fane ! And thy mosaics' mingled shadow and gold Are like the shapes that I in fancy mould Mid tomb-like silence of my heart's domain, Where love lies buried, love that shone in vain, Like thy gemmed treasure, useless and untold ; And to the hoped Ideal, the Faith I hold, One lamp lifts up a light that ne'er shall wane. Yet sometimes thro' thy gate that moaning opes Sunlight comes in, whiffs o' the salt lagoon, Sad silent forms that linger for awhile ; And so to me, at times, come sunlit hopes. Quick fever-fits of life that vanish soon. Or a sweet, tender face that stays to smile. {Poesia dispersa, ii.) FERDINANDO FONTANA FERDINANDO FONTANA Born at Milan in 1850, Ferdinando Fontana has had an adventurous and variegated existence. He has been able- bodied seatnaft, assistant in a shop, and reader of proofs to a daily paper ; and he has travelled a great deal — usually in search of work. Indefatigable, energetic^ versatile, the list of his contributions to periodical and even to pertnaftent literature is a lo7ig 07ie. He has published, a7nong other works, ' Poesie e Novelle in Versij ' ''Nuove Poesie^ {Bologtta, Zatiichelli, 1882); ^Poesie Vecchie e Nuove'' {Milan, Galli, 1892); besides '• Bambatm^ a volume of verse in the Milanese dialect; many works of biography and criticism; several prose drainas, of which ^ La Statoa del sur Incioda'' {i?t dialect) has had an enormous success; and the librettos for more than fifty operas. He is now his own ptiblisher. He is about to produce a drama entitled '' Nabucco,' and is writi?tg ' Dra7natic Poetns.' Fontana's local reputation was first made by ''11 Rebecchino'' (1875), on the demolition of the old houses which formerly surroufided Milaft Cathedral. He is a vivacious, bizarre, tinrestrained, and somewhat revolu- tionary writer of not inconsiderable originality: in politics a republican. 122 KERDINANDO FONTANA TO THE STATUE OF MOLIERE If I have read aright thy features gay, Whose delicate irony marks some mad conceit, Thou, seated here in bronze, art glad to-day, Poet, to take thy place where cross-roads meet. And noting how the worn-out farce holds sway O'er all these crowds, who do thee honour meet, Meseems I hear thee cry, ' Ah, human clay ! Could I resume my work left incomplete ! ' Well were it for the world again to writhe 'Neath the correction of thy lashes blithe ! For, knowing thee locked up within the vault. The new Tartufifes return to the assault, While on the stage conventions re-arise, And stilted Tragedy weighs down our eyes. (Nuove Poesie : Parigi.) RENATO FUCINI (tanfucio neri) RENATO FUCINI ' Tanfucio Neri,' the a7iagraviinaHc ■pseudoiiyvi U7ider which Signor Fucini has acquired perhaps the greatest share ofre?70wn accorded in our day to any Italian writer in dialect, is a household word ift Tuscany and a fiatne held in esteem over all Italy. He was born in 1 843 at Mo7tterotondo in the Tuscan Mareinma, and studied at the U7iiversity of Pisa, a city the dialect of which he has 7!iade the chosen vehicle of his best work. After havi77g been for twelve years a7i e7igi7ieer at Florence, he devoted hi777self, when it ceased to be the capital, to the profession of teaching, a7id was for S07ne years at Pistoiaj he was sub- sequently appointed bispector of Schools, a7td 7iow resides at E7npoli. He has published the followi7ig books, which have passed through 77ia7iy editions : — ' Poesie [di Neri Ta7ifucio] in ver7iacolo pisano'' {Bracali, Pistoia) ; '• Napoli a occhio nudo' {Le Mo7i7iier, Florence); '■ Le Veglie di Neri' {Hoepli, Mila7i). U7ifortimately for the ptiblic, his present occupations do 7iot afford hi/n 7iiuch leisure for literary production. 126 RE NATO FUCINI EPIGRAM Clodius the banker, seven times or more Bankrupt, and each time richer than before, Although he could escape, and save his fleece From Public Prosecutor and police. Could not avoid indeed Men's justice fierce and rude, Prompt ill things to resent : They have sent him with speed — — ' Good ! To penal servitude ? ' — No ! into Parliament. i DOMENICO GNOLI DOMENICO GNOLI Domenico Gnoit, son of Count Tommaso Gnoli of Ferrara was born in Rome in 1839, studied classics at the Collegia Roniano, took his degree in law at the University and was recei%>ed advocate. Bi 1870 he published his first volume of verse under the pseudo7iym {rendered necessary by political reasons) of^Dario Gaddi,' and the same year he was nominated to a chair of Italian Literature in one of the newly founded ' licei,^ whence he was called to become Professor of Italian Literature at Turin. Since then he has returned to Ro7ne, where he is Prefect of the National Library ' Vittorio Emmanuele,^ and fotmder (1888) and editor of the ^Archivio Storico deW Arte.' Meanwhile he had published in 1879 '^"•5" ''Odi Tiberine,' a?id in 1885 the 'Nuove Odi Tiberine j' and had trans- lated Goethe's '•Lieder' and '■Rmnische Elegien;'' while in prose his '■Gli amori di Volfango Goethe,' his '■Studi lettcrari' and ' Vittoria Accorainboni' — a subject familiar to Elizabethan students — originally contributed to the ' Nuova Antologia,' placed hitn among the first critical writers of Italy. A Roman influence or te7idency may thus be observed even in the titles of his works; and although much of this predilection for the Eternal City has found its scope in historical research., especially in connection with the Romaji Art of the Renaissance, it is also the dominatit 7iote i/i his poetry. In his youth, i7ideed, he belo7iged to a group I 130 DOMENICO GNOLI of writers to wliom was givert the tiame of Rojnnn school, and which, coining before the time when the great imptclse of the Neo-lati7i writers had revivified the classical memories never long dormant in Italy, sought to raise into new life the poetical forms of the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. Later influences have enlarged his views and brought him more closely into touch with modern life, without depriving him of his classic elegance of form and style. His verse, sometimes patriotic in the choice of subjects, and often tinged with the melancholy of glorious memories, gives proof also of much power in expressittg the sentiment of external nature and that of the home aj^edions. DOMENICO GNOLI 131 GLORY And thus to die ! But one day in my gloom Death came and mocked me : — ' Doth a dead man hear?' Vain ! vain ! No hymn of praise resounding clear Can pierce the sombre deafness of the tomb. Posthumous Fame runs on, yet none resume The vacant saddle ; and the cavalier Enjoys no more the impetuous career, Valiant in vain, prone in the dust of doom. The blackened lava which dread Death pours down Presses with equal weight on brows left bare, And those that wore with pride the laureate crown. Earth, pious mother, doth alike requite Her every son ; there is no envy there, In that equality of endless night. {Nuove Odi Tilerine.) ARTURO GRAF ARTURO GRAF The S07t of a Genua}! father and of aft Italian mother, Artiiro Graf was born in Athens in 1848. Of his early years, some were ^passed at Trieste, some in Roiimania : afterwards, though almost entirely self-taught, he entered the University of Naples, where he studied law. After three or four more years in Roumania, he became in 1874 private tutor in the University of Rome, and in 1876 we7it on to that of Turift, first as Professor of the Romance La7iguages, and since 1882 as Professor of Italian Literature. His poetical works are '■Poesie^ {Braila, 1874) ; '■Poesie e Novelle' {Rome, Loescher, 1876); '■Medusa' {Turin, Loescher, iB>%o),which has passed through three editions. A 7iew volume, ''Dopo il tramo7ifo^ will probably have see7i the light {if 07ie 7nay tise the phrase in this connectio7t) whe7t these li7ies are printed. So far, it is i7t the third book of ^Medusa ' that Grafs genius has fou7id its highest expressio7i. Whe7t at its best, his poetry is a7/W7tg the 7itost re7narkable of the day. He is, in lyrical verse, the Webster of 7}toder7i Italy : ' his ter- rible a7idfu7iereal Muse is Deaths To his Northc7'n blood, to his Southern birth, to his cos77iopolita7i t7-ai7ii7ig, Graf owes, perhaps, the special characteristics of his poetry. His is, i7i his own words, a Norther7i Muse bor7i on Italian soil. The 7iiists a7id s7iows of the North have give7i him a sot/ibre 7iiela7icholy which has bcc7i dccpe7ied by his studies till it has becoi7ie scientific pessi})iis7)i : yet he re7nai7is a7i Athe7iia7i, and at the sa7ne ti7ne a7t Italian. 136 ARTURO GRAF Miss Helen Zimmern has admirably expressed it {^Black- wood^ March 1892) : ''Northern sadness aitd an attraction to twilight effects^ with southern intejisityy with the plastic precision of Greece and the sense of colour of sunny Italy. Precision, indeed, of image and expression is, in his opinioji, of the essence of poetry : he wishes the reader fully and clearly to understand his meaftitig. The ''symbolists,' therefore, are his natural aversion. With all his gloom, the gloom of one who has no faith and ever laments its irremediable loss, Graf is one of the most entirely origiiial writers of modern Italy, and belongs to none of the schools. Of the Neo-classical, he has only the careful form and finish, and in this respect he has some- times achieved perfection. The first critics of Italy have admitted as much; though it is not likely that he will ever be popular. Dometiico Gnoli has said of his best works that they are ''poems cast in steely and Nencioni speaks of his '' acqueforti indimenticabiliJ ARTURO GRAF 137 THE DEPTH AND END Upon my poisoned lips all vain delight Has died for ever : hopes that might have been, And pious falsehoods flourishing unseen Within my heart, have killed my heart outright. In vain the rose takes fire on branches green. In vain a sweet face beams with love and light, In vain o'er conquered skies the sun is bright ; The depth and end of all things I have seen. The end and depth, the Never and For ever ; And in my bitter cup, O sacred Death, Living, I drank the drops that souls dissever. The fall of worlds in ruined space I see ; I hear the bells of Time with failing breath Ring hours and years through void eternity. (Medusa, bk. iii.) BIRDS OF PASSAGE A LONELY rock into the lonely skies Lifts its slate-coloured, bare and rugged head, Where, far below, the emerald wave outspread Surges with gurgling sound, and falls and dies. 138 ARTURO GRAF I, from the peak where lost in thought I stand, Gaze on the ocean's boundless soHtude, And the ashy heaven, by which the waters rude As if by a dome of lead are overspanned. Westward a spear of fire, from heaven downthrown, Pierces a depth of cloud yet undescried, Skirts the horizon's edge, and opens wide A path of light into a world unknown. One dark and lonely sail, afar from shore, Looms like a dream amid the fiery seas ; Moveless it seems — and now by slow degrees Fades on the lengthening sea, and is no more. Beneath the clouds that brood like a grey despair, Passes a flock of birds, broad-winged and white — Passes aloft with steadfast sideward flight. With silent wings that flap the silent air. — ' Aerial voyagers ! O ye that go Wheeling your flight athwart the vault sublime. What are ye ? and to what undreamt-of clime Wing ye your weary way, that none can know ? — ' We are thy thoughts— thy thoughts in woe and glee ; Thy hopes we are — the dreams that thou hast known ; From thy forsaken heart we all have flown. And thou our fleeting wings no more shalt see.' ARTURO GRAF 139 They pass to seek that unimagined shore : Westward they fly — I hear their cry afar Faint like the death-song of a fallen star, ' Thou seest us for ever never more.' {Medusa, bk. iii. MORS REGINA Foam-girt amid the ocean's thunderous call, A mountain measureless is heaped on high, Black in the whiteness of the dazzling sky, And built of fallen cities, wall o'er wall. On the steep summit where the sunbeams fall, A glorious fane doth to the Sun reply From dome of opal where the eagles fly ; And adamantine columns gird the hall. Round is the Temple, each way open wide ; And in the midst a lofty Throne designed, With gloomy purple hung on every side. There on the throne, aloft in splendid space, Sits Death, a crowned queen : while all mankind Lie prone around and watch her changeless face. {Medusa, bk. iii.) 140 ARTURO GRAF WATER-LILY A FRAGRANT morning in the early year ; A sky as if of silk, serene and bright ; Up on the hill the ancient pinewood, dight With mourning foliage, taciturn, severe ; And on the hill-top where, remote from light The wood is densest in its shades austere, Enclosed in narrow bounds, an open sphere Of clear enchanted waters greets the sight. There, lonely, lulled on the transparent deep, A silver water-lily meets the gleam Of sunlight piercing through the outer shade, Like a dream of love arising out of sleep. Which to the radiance of a thought supreme Opes in the virgin soul of some pure maid. {Medusa, bk. iii.) THE LONELY FIR-TREE Up on the granite heights, funereal foliage wearing, A solitary fir his head erect and daring Points like a javelin to the vault immense ; Alone upon the Alpine peak that upward soareth. Where with infuriate voice the tramontana roareth O'er silent fields, with icy breath intense. ARTURO GRAF 141 Beneath, chaotic rocks in ruinous heaps confounded, Precipitous cHffs, abysms with gloomy depths un- sounded. Wind-shattered woods where trees uprooted he ; Above, the ether's luminous arc, a boundless heaven, And cloudlets white o'er violet depths of ether driven. And the sun resplendent in the violet sky. Far in the plains the fir-tree from his lonely mountain Sees fertile hills below, fair plains and many a fountain, Hai-vests, and pastures where the tulips blow ; He sees as in a dream, the north wind through him wailing. Gathers his sombre foliage close, and stands unfailing, Mute and superb, o'er heights of Alpine snow. {Medusa, bk. iii.) THE BELL Beneath a jasper sky, in the profound Silence, which holds o'er lonely fields its sway, Clangs out afar with weary, plaintive sound A church-bell mourning for the dying day. Fevered with agony, it seems to bound From depths of heaven, a mystic voice astray ; A voice it seems to be from worlds unfound, So weak and thin its tone, so far away. 142 ARTUROGRAF The sun has fallen, and through the silent air Whence, slowly fading, light and day pass o'er, The weary voice laments and weeps for aid. Long, long it calls in anguish and despair, In vain it calls the God that is no more. The perished Faith, the Hope that was betrayed. {^Medusa, bk. iii. ) COUNTESS LARA (EVELINE CATTERMOLE-MANCINI) COUNTESS LARA (EVELINE CATTERMOLE-MANCINl) ' Countess Lam ' is tJie pseiidojiym under which one of the most distinguisJied as well as the most cosmopolitan poetesses of contemporary Italy veils an idetitity which has long been an ope?i secret. Miss Eveli?ie Cattermole was dorn in 1858 at Caft7tes, of a7t English father and a Russian mother, and received much of her education in Fratice; but of the five languages which she speaks, Italiait must be cojisidered to be esse?itially her own, if 7iot exactly her native, tongue, since it is that in which her geiiius finds its natural expression. She is afreqtient contributor to literary and other periodicals, such as the ' Capitan Fracassa^ and the ''Piccolo ' of Naples. Her first volume, entitled ''Versi' {Rome, Sommaruga, 1883) won for her a foremost place among the poets of the day : sijtce then it has been followed by ''E ancora versi ' {Florence, Oscar Sersale, 1886). ''Countess Lara'' writes with much elegance and grace ; she has also a great facility of expression in a certain sphere. Her representation of humatt life, usually from a womaiis poiiit of view, is generally effected by the terse and rapid expression of instantaneous emotions and impressions J hence her natural predilection {natural especially to one who writes in Italian) for the sonnet. K 146 COUNTESS LARA IN THE EVENING I SIT alone and watch the cinders glare, Or hear the pine-logs crackling sharp and low. I wait him still ; he went not long ago, Humming a tune, his cigarette aflare. He was called out by some most grave affair : His friends, on cards intent, would have it so ; Or some new singer's style he fain would know, Who with false graces mars a grand old air. And for such things as these he stays away. Till midnight passes, and, at one, the bell Booms from the neighbouring church its single flight ; Then gaily he returns, and half in play Kisses me lightly, asks if I am well. And never dreams that I have wept all night. ( Versi : hitimita. ) THE CHURCHYARD Superb, the sun resplendently Over the churchyard glows ; The birds in leafage green their loves declare, And the intoxicant air Warms the young sap of violet and rose. COUNTESS LARA I47 But cold, cold are the sepulchres 'Neath the sun's warmest ray : He who for ever sleeps may not awake, Though all bright Nature make Harmonious festival of accents gay. And I ? Doth youth irradiate My soul ? Not for mine ears The songs of love wherein I have no part : A sepulchre is mine heart. Crowned with a cross where no one hath shed tears. ( Versi : /n/imifd.) GIOVANNI MARRADI GIOVANNI MARRADI Among the poets who have arisen since the wars of deliverance ended with the taking of Rome in 1870, Giova7t7ii Marradi holds a fore7nost post. Born at Leg- horn in 1852, he was approaching matthood when that event took place., which has allowed a new gefteration to pursue the study of art and literature without the sound of the trumpet echoijig ever in their ears. He studied at the University of Pisa and subsequently at the Istituto di Studi Superiori i)i Florence., where itt iSyy, in C07tju7tc- tion with Guido Biagi a7td Severino Ferrari., he founded the brilliant but ephe7/ieral literary periodical I Nuovi Goliardi^ fro77i which this talented and ingenious group of young poets for a ti77ie took their na7ne. The ^Goliardi ' were soo7i dispersed, a7id Marradi bega7i a disti7iguished literary career by the publicatio7i of the ''Ca7izoni 77wderne di G. M. Labronio,^ the pseudony77i which he had adopted in his 7iewspaper. Si/ice the7t he has to a certai7t degree withdrawn hi77iself fro77i the world, refusi7tg to e7tter into any literary coterie or to engage i7i pole77iical discussions. His sicb sequent volu77ies were ^Poesie' {Turi7t, 1887); ''Ricordi lirici'' {Ro/7ie, So/ii7/iaruga, 1884) ; *• Fantasie marine'' (1881) ; and '■Nuovi Ca7iti' {Milan, Treves Brothers, 1891). A co77iplete edition of his poe77is is in preparation, and will be issued by the publishers last na7/ied. Like the rest of the Carduccia7is, Marradi is at once classical and 7)ioder7i ; but he has a tu7ieful, sugges- tive and har77ionious note of his own. 152 GIOVANNI MARRADI FLORENTINE MEMORIES On heights and towers beats the sunlight sheer, The spring-tide sun that glares on marbles white Where Brunellesco's dome sublime, austere, Lifts its Olympic mass in sunshine bright. In the violet-scented air, slender and clear, The marvellous bell-tower soars divinely slight, And mid the perfume of the wheat-fields near The open windows flame i' the sunset-light. Well mayst thou smile o'er Art's antique domain, Italian May ! o'er San Giovanni's square, And o'er that hallowed and triumphant fane, Where an artist-race, in youth strong-limbed and fair, Heard their immortal Poet's noblest strain. And taking arms, destroyed the tyrant's lair. II Dost thou remember? Down the steep incline From Fiesole we came in that pale hour Of night fantastic, while a vague, divine Sadness spread o'er our weaiy hearts its power. GIOVANNI MARRADI 153 Like an aerial and gigantic pine Girt with the stars and with the mists that lour, Lonely and lofty soared through the argentine Sweet calm of night, St. Mary of the Flower. All else we saw fade fast and disappear In that vast solitude which lay around. As in a sea of mist, now veiled, now clear ; Where, mid all voices that through night resound, Thy voice arose and echoed far and near, Mingling with them its musical wave of sound. GUIDO MAZZONI GUIDO MAZZONI One of the most eminent of the yoimger poets who have formed their taste and style tender the influence of Carducci, whose pupil he was at Bologna. Bor?i at Florence in 1859, he studied at Pisa before proceeding to the northerft iiniversity. He has taught Italian literature at various Government institutions^ and was appoiiztcd Professor at the University of Padua i7i 1887. He is m.arried to a daughter of Giuseppe Chiarini. His first volume^ ^Poesie' {Sommaruga, Rome., 1882), received the high hojtour of being introdttced to the ptiblic in a preface by Carducci ; it speedily ran through two editions., and was followed by '' Nuove Poesie'' (1886, Molina., Rome). A new edition of all his verses appeared in 1 89 1 {Za?iichelli, Bologna). The same publisher will shortly issue a volume of poems entitled ''Voci delta vita.' Professor Mazzoni is a warm admirer of English poetry; a7id ftot long ago Sig?tor Bo7tghi, writing in tJie ''Academy^ spoke of his work as giving proof of the influence of our great writers tipon his poetical style. This criticism is perhaps somewhat exaggerated., and Mazzoni disclaims any conscious imitatio7t. The 7iew school of Italia7i poetry rightly a7id reasonably welco7iies what is excelle7it in other literatures., but it has re7nained disti7ictively national and Italia7i in for7n, 77ianner^ and tende7icy. 158 GUIDO MAZZONI Maszoni is of course a Carducciati, and passes, indeed, for the master's favourite pupil j hut lie is 710 copyist or imitator^ and has formed a style of his own. He has both vigour and elegance in the employment of difficult metres: some of his hexameters are ranked by Carducci as second ojtly to ChiarinVs translations from Theoct'itus. But this delight in form, accompanied in Mazzoni by an apparent predilection for the bizarre and the ' recherche,' sotnetimes results in mechanism and at least the appearance of pedantry. Mazzoni has achieved considerable success in the art of translating 7nusic into poetry; that is, of rendering ifito an art-form which is partly or eveti chiefly repre- sentative, the effects produced upon the individual mind by Ofte in its essence suggestive. Poems of this nature are necessarily the product of an imaginative subjectivity, and it is in subjective poetry that Mazzoni chiefly excels. The best-htowft of these poeins on music is the ^Cori delta Vita^ frotn Beethoven, which have been translated into English by Barofiess Swift, and published in the 'Ladies' Treasury' of March 1889. GUIDO MAZZONI 159 Well, well I know the stars in heaven supreme Are worlds afar from ours, which navigate The boundless seas, and have nor ruth nor hate For man's poor petty race o'er whom they gleam. Yet, grateful self-deceit ! myself I please To think them sweet, consenting maidens fair. Wherefore I rise thro' spaces infinite, When silence holds the depth of starry seas, Up to Polaris from the far-ofif Bear ; And then descend where shines remote and bright. Within her group of deep and tranquil light, Fair Cassiopeia, beautiful, divine. From the great curve of heaven, goddess benign, She smiles on me, as till the morn I dream. II Now Night spreads out her starry veil anew To comfort all the fields with heat consumed : O'er dusky hills around, now re-illumed. Rises heaven's glittering dome of deepest blue. Perpetual harmony sounds deep and low As of a wedding song, where through the sky The silent stars take their refulgent way ; And through the heart of man the current slow l6o GUIDO MAZZONI Of ancient memory runs, as with a sigh He calls to mind his youth's departed day. Wherefore such deep complaint ? shall anger sway This fragile form so swiftly withering ? Life bringeth forth in everlasting spring Upon the eternal stem flowers ever new. (Poesie, bk. iii.) DOMENICO MILELLI DOMENICO MILELLI A Calabrimi poet of versatile and prolific talent, Domenico Milelli was born at Catanzaro in 1841, and was at first destined by Ms parents for the priesthood— a vocation for which he was singularly tm fit ted, if we are to judge by the opC7ily pagan character of his verses, in which reverence for Christiaiiity is conspicuously absent. His natural tendencies were for art and literature, a?td in 1864 he published in Calabria an ode ''to Ugo Foscolo^ which was translated ano7iymotisly into Ettglish, and re-translated into Italian by a writer unacquaiiited with its real origin. The list of his poetical works, inaiiy of which laid themselves open to criticism and attack, is a long one: ^In giovinezza'' (1873); 'Gioconda' and 'Hiemalia' (1874) ; 'Odi Pagane' and 'Povertct' (1879) ; 'Discerpta' (18S1) ; '// rapimento di Elcfta' (1882) ; the ' Cansofiiere,' or Book of Songs {Rome, Sommaruga, 1 884); ' Verde Antico'' {classical translations) appearing in 1885, as well as a book of '■Rime ' tender the pseudo7tym of ^Conte di Lara,' which had a large sale; and he has now several volumes in preparation, iticluding a 'Projneteo.' Of abundant facility, eclectic in his tastes, Milelli belongs to no school exclusively, though the colouring of his verse is that of the Italian south. The va?'ious literary movements of his ti7ne have all left their i7)ipress on his poetry, which is therefore to 7ny 77iind so77iewhat wa7iti7ig in character— a failing for which c07/tpe7isation ca7i hardly be fotmd i7t the somewhat viole7it a7td exag- gerated aggressive7tess which is the essential fault of the 7/iore extrei7ie among the ' Veristi' 164 DOMENICO MILELI, I VERSES TO ARRIGO ROITO From the East the dawn, the roseate dawn was peeping, As through the azure waves my boat was leaping : And the snows that filled the ways My mountain-slopes along Sang : ' Brief are the hours and days, And rough is the road, and long ; ' Sang the snows that filled the ways My mountain-slopes along. From the East the dawn, the roseate dawn was peeping. As through the azure waves my boat was leaping : And the pattering sunlit showers Sang : ' Onward ! have no fear ! Weary not, urge thy powers, For the wished-for goal is near ; ' And the pattering sunlit showers Sang : ' Onward ! have no fear ! ' O'er the water's edge did the mounting sun aspire ; Fire was the glowing sea, and the hills were fire. And under my gliding prow Sang the sea as it broke in spray : ' Look ! for the daylight now From the East takes its winged way ! ' Under my gliding prow Sang the sea as it broke in spray. DOMENICO MILELLl 165 O'er the water's edge did the mounting sun aspire ; Fire was the glowing sea, and the hills were fire. And striking my face awhile, ' Live ! ' spoke the sun to me : ' Bask in the joyous smile Of Earth, that is made for thee ; ' Striking my face awhile, ' Live ! ' spoke the sun to me. Now o'er the slumbrous sea the night was sleeping, As through the darkening waves my boat was leaping ; And the stars spoke forth in song : ' Love is alive ! alive ! And all things fair and strong In his splendour swim and strive ; ' So the stars spoke forth in song : * Love is alive ! alive ! ' Now o'er the slumbrous sea the night was sleeping, As through'the darkening waves my, boat was leaping ; And ' Upward ! ' the snow-girt pyre Of Etna thundered lw high, As it hurled from its cup of fire Cinders and flame to the sky. ' Upward ! ' the snow-girt pyre Of Etna thundered on high. So o'er the slumbrous wave the night is sleeping ; And, looming larger as the sunbeams flee, Sicilian sentinel, her watch is keeping Messina, risen from her sapphire sea. (jCanzoniere, bk. ii.) ADA NEGRI ADA NEGRI The most interesting and original poetical work by a new author which has appeared in the last twelvemonth is ^Fatalitd,' by Ada Negri. I regret that I have been tenable to obtain much information conccrtmtg this striking writer further than what is contained in the preface {by Signora Sofia Bisi Albini) to the volume which, so far, coftsti- tutes her sole contribution to the contemporary literature of Italy. Ada Negri has never seen the sea, the lakes, or the mountains — hardly even a hill—a7id till recently she had 7iever spent one day in a great city. Growing up in poverty, at the age of eighteen she left Lodi to becoiiie schoolmistress at Motta- Visconti. There she has fought the cruel atid une7iding, pauselcss battle of poverty against the remorseless world. She is young, but the struggle has embittered her. In the '■Illustrazione popolare ' and in the '•Corriere delta Sera'' first appeared those verses which are now collected together in 'Fatalitd: Hers is the Lombard voice of revolt, of fierce indignaiio7t, swaying betwee7i alternate hat7'eds a7id disdains. Btit she is strong and strenuous of work and will. In the ope7ii7ig poetn, Misfortu7ie appears to her in a dream, and closes a brief colloquy by war7iing her that 07ily to the7n who suffer a7id, while bleeding, combat to do great things, gloty will c07ne i7i the end. '■Stay, then, with me,' a7tswers the poetess. Ada Negri has force a7id firej she has te7idcr- ness and passio7i; hers is a great protnise. She has recently been proi/ioted to a post at Mila7t. lyo ADA NEGRI THOU ASKEST? Thou askest who I am ? — Child, thou shall hear. I am a strong-winged bird by fate restrained, Condemned to languish in a prison drear. I pine for splendours of the sunlit sphere, And here I beat my wings, in torture chained. My fair child, thou shalt hear. I dream the wedding rites of sylvan flowers In centuried shadows of the woodland vale : I dream the loves of beasts in tropical bowers, Or stretched on torrid sands : the burning showers Of fervent sunlight : fury of the gale : Sunlight, and storms, and flowers. And sometimes, markest thou ? forgetting fear, I struggle, cursing, as through tears I call. The world goes on and laughs, and doth not hear. While, raging for the freedom held so dear, I break my wings against the iron wall, The great world doth not hear ! O who will break these bars wherein I lie ? who will give me light and the boundless day ? Who will unclose the gates that ope to the sky ? 1 must, I will go forth, and singing fly, In the delirious sunlight caught away — Freedom 1 or I shall die. (Falalila.) ENRICO NENCION I ENRICO NENCIONI Bom at Florence in 1840, Enrico Nencioni was educated in that city, where he still resides. In his youth he belofiged to the group of young men of letters who were known as ''gli amid pedanti^ and of which Chiarini and Ottaviano Targioni-Tozzetti were also me?nbers. In 1878 he published his '■Poesie,' but he has as a rule given hitnself up entirely to education and to criticism. Belojiging to the generation which gave Carducci to Italy., Nencioni iti his verse, which was chiefly the product of his earlier years, took part in the revolt agaiftst that Roman- ticism which the great master was finally to overthrow. His poetry is rich aiid harmonious, of rare expressiveness and accurate form, and the slenderness of its volume is a loss to Italian literature. But for this loss there has been a splendid compensation. As a critic, Nenciojii stands at the head of the art. He is the Sainte-Beuve of Italy : and Sainte-Beuve was more — imich more — than Joseph Delorfne, his dead yoking poet-self Among his niany services to litcrattire, that which is most interesting to us is his study of our own moderns. For the Italiait public, he is the discoverer of Browning, of Tennyson, and of Sivinburne. 174 ENRICO NENCIONI TO A NIGHTINGALE O NIGHTINGALE, that in the wood, alone, Pour'st forth such harmony from yonder bower, And to the nearest, saddest star mak'st known Thy secret love in song, thy glorious dower ; I, like to thee, await the quiet hour Which re-illumes the saddened fires o'erthrown, And 'neath the stars my thought, with new-born power. Soars into song, a joy that is mine own : Joy out of infinite sorrow rising pale, Colleagued with hope, and with oblivion. With virtue, mystery, and natural prayer. Ah ! let us keep, harmonious nightingale. This gift of joy, together singing on. Till the sky fills with stars, and Night is fair ! {Poesie.) ST. SIMEON STYLITES I On the white head of the old man divine The sun in torrents falls— the August sun- In the fields the yellow grasses smoke with heat He from his place upon the pillar's height A living statue stands, an iron form. Yet animated by the breath of God, ENRICO NEMCIONI 175 II In Sao-ittarius is the sun. From heaven •■o' Upon the desolate earth, naked and bare Like some poor mendicant's hand, in large white flakes Falls the abundant snow. All things that breathe Seek shelter, and the polar bear alone Wanders — yet still upon the column's height The sacred figure of the old man stands. Ill Now in the unending rain each field becomes A lake, and every furrow is a stream. From the monotonous grey sky pour down, Continuous, the waters obstinate. Drenched, like a solitary tree aloft Still on the fatal column dost thou stand, O King of Saints and Martyrs, Simeon ! IV O Saint, I tremble at the thought of thee. And well I deem the Sun, and all the stars, The wandering birds who now for forty years Have contemplated in the fields of air Thy meagre profile pale, and all the winds Who shook in storms thy venerable beard. White, hoary like the foam o' the sea, and all Nature, have trembled as they looked on thee. {Pocsic.) ENRICO PANZACCHI ^[ ENRICO PANZACCHI Enrico Paiizacchi was bom at Bologna in 1841, and studied at the University of that town, where he becatne Doctor of Laws, and at Pisa, where he took the degree of Doctor of Letters in 1 865. After teaching history at Sassari a7id philosophy at the Liceo of Bologna, he becatne hi 187 1 Professor of the History of the Fine Arts at the Academy of Bologna, of which he is also President. He was for some time the editor of various political and literary periodicals. His poetical works are '■Lyrica ' (Bologna, Zanichelli, 2nd ed. 1878), 'Vecchio Ldcale' {Ravenna, David), '■Racconti e Liriche' {Bologna, Zanichelli, 1882), and ' Nuove Liriche ' {Milan, Fratelli Treves). He has published, moreover, several volumes of criticism and some novels a7id stories, and has produced for the stage a drama C7ititled ' Villa Giiilia' A new edition of his poems, in two volumes, is in preparation {Zanichelli). Panzacchi, who has beejt compared to Coppe'e, is one of the most charming and graceful Italian poets of the day, amoitg whom he holds the seco7td or third place, a7id he has achieved great a7ui merited popularity. His style is origi7ial a7id elega7it, varying greatly fro7n that of 7nost of his co7itempora7-ies ; he C07iibi7ies depth of feeli7tg with a ve7y imusual gift of poetic i7ispiratio7i, a7id deserves a far wider recog/iitio7i in this cou7itry tha7t has yet bee7i accorded to hi77U l8o ENRICO PANZACCHI DREAMING In the air was the scent abiding Of roses withered and dead, As I wandered by Lethe, gliding O'er her songless and silent bed. Far down in the clear cold river I could see while the wave passed by The trees on the green bank shiver Mid the shivering stars of the sky. O'er the night a deep silence weighing Made the world veil its slumbrous head, As the silent waters, swaying, Passed on in their silent bed. Then over the tide out-ringing That slowly swept on to the sea, There came a sweet sound of singing, Borne forth on the breezes to me. 'Twas Ophelia pale, reclining On the widening waters fair. The river-weeds round her, entwining With wild flowers caught in her hair. ENRICO PANZACCHl l8l * On the river-depths cypress-shaded, Where never the sun shall rise, I am borne like a leaf that is faded To a dwelling beyond surmise. ' And nameless and shapeless shadows Glide after, and sweep through the air, Like the mists from the dew-dank meadows That gather and cling in my hair. ' Sweet is oblivion ! the p^ean Is mute, and the requiem rolls ; O come to my depths Lethean, Ye weary-winged, wandering souls ! ' All that life longs for of treasure. And all that love lists of in sleep, Is not worth the Olympian pleasure Of my slumber divine and deep.' So sounded her voice, over-winging The water-ways, echoed on high ; And my soul was chained to her singing Till she and her song passed by. In the air was the perfume, growing Still sweeter, of roses dead ; And the silent waters flowing Passed over her silent head. {Racconti c Lirirhc.) l82 ENRICO PANZACCHI TO PIETRO COSSA The vision of great Rome did ever brood, Piero, within thine eyes ; that vision clear Of haloed head and godlike eyes austere Which made e'en Caesar pause, what time he stood By Rubicon, and feared what heroes fear ; Vision which held the mighty world subdued With fatal sway, and hath e'en now imbued Our bitter age with hopes that reappear : Hopes of reconquered rights and deeds that ring. Making it seem intolerable shame That Rome is now so slight and vile a thing ; Poet ! meseems that Shade of ancient might, That glorious Memory of sovran fame, With thee hath passed into the endless night. {Racconti e Liriche.) PISA Fair Arno, while to me the mournful sound Of vespers floats from all the Pisan bells, And turn by turn my contemplation dwells On silent hills and shores with quiet crowned. ENRICO PANZACCHI 183 My heart with thousand thoughts of glory swells — Thine ancient glories which through Time resound, When thine ensanguined tide ran blood, renowned Through discords of the Tuscan citadels. When I compare those first and loftier days Of souls austere and true, to what I see In this dull age that laughs, disdains, delays ; Better, I cry, thy movement fierce and free, Than this vile tedium of our baser ways, O free and fortunate Thirteenth Century ! (Racconii e Liriche.) AN UNSEEN SINGER Thy voice is borne to me Over the sundering wall so damp and grey ; Through the warm air thy carolling song of glee Soars like a lark to greet the sun of May. Here through the daylight glides A delicate scent that doth the air perfume. Where o'er the wall that me from thee divides An almond-tree sends forth its boughs in bloom. Ne'er have I seen thy face ; I know not whether I am sad or gay ; But in thy song that fills the severing space I listening know thee beautiful as day. 1 84 ENRICO P A N Z A C C H I Were I that almond-tree, Transformed one hour by some enchanter's ring, My fairest blossoms I would shower o'er thee, To grace thy lovely head while thou shouldst sing. [Racco?!ii e Liric/ic.) FAR AWAY Thou wandering roamest still from place to place, Far, very far from me — I sit alone beside the old fireplace, And talk to it of thee. And while thou wanderest so in lands remote. My sighs pursue thee, Dear ; Thy voice upon the nightly breeze afloat From far I seem to hear : I hear thy voice that cries, ' O fatherland ! O dear love far away ! How fate renews thy wounds with heavy hand, While dreams my heart o'ersway ! ' Hoarsely the winter blows upon my face. Whilst here I dream of thee — Thou wandering roamest still from place to place. Far, very far from me. (Racronfi c l.irichc. ) ENRICO PANZACCHI 185 NOCTURNE Sweet are the meadows near With scent of mint and broom. The sky's resplendent gloom Shines o'er the highway clear. And the fond hearts' loving doom Arrests my footsteps here — Dost thou know that 'neath thy room I am at thy window, Dear? And my kisses of furtive love, Hast thou felt them, sent from hence To thy tranced sleep above, Passing from lips to heart With an infinite saddened sense Of love's desirous smart ? GIOVANNI PASCOLI GIOVANNI PASCOLI Although many of his poems have long been current among his friends^ and occasionally givcjt to the public, it was not till 1892 that Giovaiini Pascoli published a volume of verse i^Myricce^ Leghorn, Giusti) : poems which, he says, at-e merely ivindfalls : he has not as yet cared to gather fruit from the tree. He disclaims all ambitio7ij he is in no haste to be famous. Yet he was already sufficiently well k7iown, as a poet who had influenced others of his generation, so that his book %vas eagerly looked for by the initiated. On the whole, it has not disappointed expectation. If these be indeed windfalls, we have much to look for when he thinks fit to give tis the ripened fruit. Giovanni Pascoli was born at S. Mauro in Romagna, not far from Rimini, on the closing day of the year 1855 ; a7id he passed his early youth in the coimtry, whence he drew his accurate and loving observation of nature. He lost his parents at an early age — a tragedy which has to some extent overshadowed his life : his father was, without apparent cause or reason, murdered on the high road by assassins whose identity remains even now a mystery J and his mother died soon after of a broken heart. He was educated at Urbino, at Rimini, at Florence, and at the University of Bologna, where, still young, he won an entrance scholarship. There, for some time, he studied nothing — except literature, and Car ducci especially. I go GIOVANNI PASCOLI Severino Ferrari was of his friends, and Guido Maszoni has wriitoi the pleasant and lazy literary reco7'd of those times. It was difficult to induce him to publish anything., though he was the recognised head of a group of yowig poets., afid he refused a favourable offer from the well- known ' elzcviria7i ' publisher Zanichelli. Nevertheless, pieces of his crept into '/ Nuovi Goliardi ' a7id the ' Cro- naca Bizantina.^ At last he took his degree, in 1881, a?id he is now Professor of Greek and Latin literature in the royal Liceo at Leghorn. PascolVs work is one of many which prove that, in such cases as are worthy of notice, the school of Cardticci leaves full freedom for each disciple to follow his own bent. He 7'esembles Ferrari, for instance, only in the studied brevity of his expression in song. But Ferrari writes short songs because he has bound himself to certain models : Pascoli, because he loves to realise in verse the impression of a moment, hi this art he is almost a }naster. When he has given in ten or twelve terse and pregnant lifies the effect of a sunset-scene, the result is that we all see it, miles thence and years afterwards ; and this, in its limited sphere, is surely a triumph. For, since this is done, it is {necessarily) accomplished by purely artistic means. One does not at midday see a sunset because it is described well or even eloquently j one sees it because it is fitly and suggestively described. But there is more than this in Pascoli : the '■funda- mental brainwork' is not wanting when he chooses to employ it. And over and above the artistic capacity of representation, he has a rare knowledge and observation of external natu7-c. GIOVANNI PASCOLI 191 THE WEDDING Old Madam Frog gave wife to her son one day. Now since the Httle tadpoles cannot sing, She begged a neighbouring songster for his lay. He sang : the jocund ballad by-and-bye Seemed like a melody of stars that ring A-tinkle-tinkle in the evening sky. The bell-like song made sweet the wasted wold And the black forests vague with mists of gold : T16 TIO TLO TIO TIO TIO TIO TIO TOpOTOpQTOpOTOpOTi^ TOpOTOpOTOpOTOpoKlXlXl^ And now 'tis night : still in a dawn of snow Like a sparkling fount upsprings the ringing rhyme. But when the Frog inquired, ' What do I owe ? ' Two or three little snails, to eat your fill ? Or parsley, or a sprig of odorous thyme ? Or — well ! a kiss or two ? — or what you will ? ' ' Oh, nothing for his song the Nightingale Accepts in barter,' so the singer spoke : ' He has it free ; his song is not for sale : Hear it : 'tis all he asks : and do not croak. Then in the moonlight every bull-frog cried. Croaking his best : ' What insolence ! what pride ! ' (Myrices.) 192 GIOVANNI PASCOLI THE BANQUET Guest at Life's banquet, rise ! 'tis eventide. Let thou the wine-cups shine in roseate eve ; No more desirous, yet unsatisfied, The banquet leave. And tho' with golden hght the lamps may gleam While thyme and roses scatter scent the while, Tho' round the board thou mark'st as in a dream The dear ones smile, Rise thou ! and — Sadly doth the night invade The banquet-chamber whence all light hath passed ; O sad it is to wander in the shade Alone, and last. (A/y rices. ) THE POET ' Roses to the garden, swallows to their eaves I ' He speaks, and the air to his melodious glee Rustles with wings o'er flowering shrubs withdrawn. The wise might do aught else : naught else will he ; Enough are the songful skies, the scented lawn ; He hurls his music to his native dawn. And crowns fair heads with flowers and laurel leaves. (A/yrucs.) ARMANDO PEROTTI N ARMANDO PEROTTI Annatido Perotti is a Southern by birth, and first saw the light at Bari in 1865 ; he is therefore otte of the younger poets of the day. Educated at the University of Rome, he took his degree as Doctor of Laws in 1886, but has devoted himself to literature, journalism, and educa- tion. His sowtets ' Sul Trasimeno ' first appeared in 1887 ; att eftlarged edition of his poetry is the ''Libro dei Canti' {Trani, Vecchi, 1890). Perotti has a gift of flowing and easy versification, by means of which he expresses that mystical sympathy for Nature which is one of the great qiialities of recent Italian verse. With Man, too, he has a sy7npathy often acute and clothed in elegant form. At tiines he insists loudly upon the dignity of the poefs mission, as i?t these lines, somewhat freely rendered: 'Ah, let the poets dream ! we live by dreams indeed; Then let us dream, unstirred. The poet stands in need Of all things that are useless to the vulgar herd. The poet calls the dreams, holds them, and makes them live. And what a work sublime, O phantoms fugitive, Is that of shaping you into immortal rhyme!' 196 ARMANDO PEROTTI But he returns often to earth and to otir common humanity, which reasserts itself in ''In mezzo al mar\' 'Amidsi of the sea is a?t island Ftill of roses in flower : 'Tis said, in that fair bower Love hath tto efitrafice ever. * Thither, alone, with the slender Book of my sojigs, oversea, Full oft were I fain to flee — But, ah! I can leave Thee fiever!' ARMANDO PEROTTI 197 SONNET Tragic, erect where sands o'er waters rise, A woman stretches out her white arms bare ; The wet wind beats upon her face and hair With sling-Hke sound, and, hissing, onward flies. Through the dark depths of night o'er sea and skies No human voice, no trace of man is there ; To tears and threats and to the voice of prayer The infernal laughter of the wave replies. A crowd of weeping women on their knees Send hymns unto the Lord who hears no more ; No prayer to God's bright skies its way hath won The mother, midmost of the rolling seas, Shouts her fierce cry into the whirlwind's roar : ' Give me my son ! give, give me back my son ! ' {II Libra del Canti : Sul Trasimeno, viii. ) RICCARDO PITTERI RICCARDO PITTERI Born in 1853 ^^ Trieste^ Riccardo Pitteri studied at the Univej'sities of Trieste and of Gratz. He is the author of'B02io^{i2>']d>); '■Prime ittcertezze ^ {i%%o) ; '■In Cam- pagna' (1889, Trieste, Caprin) ; ^Versi' (1884, Bologna, Zajiichelli) ; 'Sistiliano' (1885) ; 'LArte' (1887) ; 'Tibul- /iana' (IBS';/) ; '■Fiabe'' (1890); '■Reminiscenze di Scuola'' (1891) ; ''Cristoforo Colombo'' and ''Nel Golfo di Trieste'' (1892). In the ' Tibulliana ' and '■Sistiliano ' the classical element predomiftates, and it reappears at times iti the rest of his work; in such cases the language and style, necessarily, do not widely differ from those of the Carducciati school. But elsewhere, as for instattce in his ''Fables'' and in much of his last volume, Pitteri gives evidence of possess- ing a distinct and melodious, if not a very powerful, note of his owfz. Here, and even in some of his earlier verse, he is more or less in revolt against the classicism of the modern style: his poems respond in their simple language, in their neat and elegant Italian forms, to the deinands of those who complaift that they have to turn to their dictionaries in order to understand Carduccis 'Torccsi urC evia su^l nevoso Edone,' or who are weary of realism. 202 RICCARDO PITTERI Flow on, my songs ! let your harmonious rhyme Like mountain waters sparkHng fall in spray ; Let green leaves shake in joyous pantomime, And pleasant maidens dance along the way. Flow on, my songs ! I, like the cricket, chime Deafened by mine own noise. At times, to play The fool, is wise : the pistil fades in time. And the enamoured pollen floats away. So e'en the drunkard flings to the breeze his song Hoarsely, besotted, blinded by the sheen Of lucent stars, as he slips in mire along. Flow on, my rhymes ! in the ancient faith serene, Laughter of verse leaps up to the starry throng ; Deep in the breast laments the heart unseen. ( Versi, i, i. ) THE PEN AND THE PAPER {Preface to a volume of verse) The pen, from work averse. Thought, ' If I spoil the sheet, Or faulty are the feet. My time is lost — and worse. RICCARDO PITTERI 203 But the paper white and terse, With utterance indiscreet, Asked, sneering bitter-sweet, ' Well ? how about that verse ? ' And the pen, in conscious pride, Said, ' Here is the verse, full-hatched ! ' And straight began to glide. So, under no decree Save of caprice, it scratched The lines which now you see. (Fiabe, Prologue.) PATIENCE Still increasing. Ebbing, turning. With unceasing Equal shock. Doth the ocean, Crushing, churning. Slow in motion, Grind the rock ; Still rapacious. Rising, fuming. With tenacious Strong command 204 RICCARDO PITTERI Breaks and shatters, Fierce, consuming. Till she scatters It in sand. (Nel Golfo di Trieste.) MARIO RAPISARDI MARIO RAPISARDI Essentially a Sicilian poef, Mario Rapisardi has placed himself latterly in violent opposition to the literary move- ments of Northern and Central Italy, afid apparently poses as the head of a Sicilian school. Born at Catatiia ijt 1843, he ptirsued his studies in that city, where he has bec7i since 1875 Professor of Italian Literature in the University. His first notable work was '■ Palingenesi'^ {Florence, Le Monnicr, 1868), in which he looked forward to a new religious ideal : it was followed in 1872 by a volume of verse entitled ^Ricordanze' {Pisa, Nistri) ; but his great effort was ' Lucifero ' {Mila?t, Brigola, iSyy) which was violently attacked, by some on account of its anti-Christian tone, by others because of its open or scarcely veiled perso7ial attacks and criticisms. One of these latter drew him into a polemical controversy with Carditcci, out of which he cannot be said to have emerged victoriously. It was followed by ''Giustizia^ a vohime of Socialist verses, aftd ift 1884 by '■Giobbe^ in which the patriarch stands for suffering hutnanity. It was extensively parodied and ridiculed, especially in '■Giobbe, Serena Concezione di Marco Balossardi,' which is attributed by rumour to Olindo Guerrini (^ Stecchetti'') and Corrado Ricci. In 1887 appeared his ^Poesie Religiose? He has also published translations from Cattdlus and Lucretius, besides other verse. A selection from his poetry, made and corrected by himself, was published some years ago^ 2o8 MARIO RAPISARDI Rapisardi has eloquence and facility^ together with the fire and indignant vigour whicJi, o?te looks for in a Sicilian poet, and which cannot well be lacking in a revolutionary and socialistic writer. He is apt, however, to become rhetorical aftd verbose; and when he attacked what he chose to call {very incorrectly) the ''Bologna school,^ he assumed a role for which he was iwfittcd. I do not care to re-write the unprofitable record of these literary controversies ; suffice it to say that Professor Rapisardi has many admirers, who are possibly justified in escrib- ing to his verse certain qualities which give it a value of its own. MARIO RAPISARDI 209 TORMENT I KNOW a cavern hidden from the sun, Which looks down on the sea from masses grey. Above, a shaggy hill towers o'er the bay. And o'er the hill the clouded sky is dun. Within, dread skeleton forms peer one by one ; Without, a band of crows conceals the day ; And a great Sphinx in dull oblivion. White, rigid, moveless, bears its lofty sway. There war the tawny waves and winds irate ; And as their threatening cries and moans are heard, The Dead crowd in on every side, and wait. And there my thoughts o'er-proud, and sovereign Fate, Striving to make it speak one single word, Have bound my undaunted heart, and closed the gate, ( Versi scelti. ) O LORENZO STECCHETTI (OLINDO GUERRINI) LORENZO STECCHETTI (OLINDO GUERRINl) Olindo Guerrini was born in 1845 at Forli^ of a Ravenna family^ and was educated at the Municipal College of Ravenna, at the Natiotial College of Turin, and at the University of Bologna, of which he ultimately became librarian. He has written several prose works of cHticism and bibliography, and brought out many editions of Italian authors. It was i?t 1877 l^^^l ^^^ published, in a small volume entitled'' Postuma^ the scattered verses left by his lamented cousin Lorenzo Stecchetti, prefacing them by an obituary notice. Their mothers were sisters, they had studied together and grown up inseparable compajtions; and when Lorenzo fell into a consionption, and died at the age of tJiirty, Guerrini was inconsolable. In a few eloquent and pathetic pages he dwells oft the progress of the fatal disease, and with words of touching simplicity describes the death-bed scenes. Fully resigned to his lot, and refusifig the consolations of religion, Lorenzo Stecchetti passed quietly away with the word ''Finis'' upon his lips. ''He is buried in the graveyard of his native village, under the fifth cypress o?t the left-hafid side as you go in. The tombstone bears o?tly the names and dates. He left all his property to charitable institutions.'' 214 LORENZO STECCHETTl TJic book Jiad an znsfanfatteotes, an enormous success j ajtd, for all I knozv, enthusiastic pilgrims may have thronged to Fiuma?ia to see that tombstone under the fifth cypress on the left. I can7iot say whether they found it J but all the world hnows to-day that 7io such person as Lorenzo SteccJietti ever existed. I am not going to discuss the ethics of this little piece of ' supercherie ' ,• but I may observe in passing that it was not original. Sainte-Bcuvc., for ittstatzce, had had recourse to it. Guerrini, writing in 1877, ^>^^y have read M. Hippolyte Babou's remarks on the publication of the '■Pohies de Joseph Delorme'' {Crepet, ''Les Poetes Fran<^ais^ iiol. iv., 1863) : ' Oct ait tin malade, un mort ! ses cJiants intcrrompus n^dtaic7it que le vague e'cho iVune voix (Toutre-tombe; il avait vdcu dans PobscuritJ . . . un ami venait de recucillir les tristes reliques . . . Mais pendant qiion psalmodiait le " de Profundis" stir le ccrcucil enif^ouvcrt, on s'apcr^ut que le cercueil e'tait vide, que le mort e'tait ressuscite', quHl assistait cl ses propres fundrailles, et meme quHl en avait trhs-largement payc les frais. Mise en schie savante dhin talent modest e ct fier qui jouait au moribond pour conquerir sans danger le droit de vivre I ' The last sentence I have quoted {save for the word '' modeste') is the explanation, perhaps the Justification, of Guc^-rinPs litcraty trick. His gCTieration had refused to listen to him alii'c: therefore he killed himself in a metaplior, and lived in very fact to see ^Postuma ' run through many editions (/ hai>e the seventeenth before me). More than that : it founded a school. In Italy, literary controversy rims ever ifito extremes. I shall not do more than touch upon the furious and embittered civil war to which the publication of'Postuma'' gave rise : let those who care for such amenities read LORENZO STECCHETTI 215 Guerrini's '•Nova Polemical ivJiich, like its predecessor^ is to be purchased of Zanichelli of Bologna for the sian of tenpence sterling. They will not find a copy at the British Muscicm. '■Stecchetti and Praga, with many others,^ wrote the late Dr. Francis Hueffer in the ''Fortnightly Review^ of April 188; {an article reprinted in ''Italiati and other Studies,^ Elliot Stock, 1883), '■ represe?tf, as it were, the extreme left of the " Veristi." They are Bohemiajis by profession, and irreconcilable enemies to litcra?y pro- prieties? He points out, in another passage, that they had been most savagely attacked by the ''respectable'' critics, and thai ' their natural retort was the assumption of an exaggerated cynicism and Bohemianism.^ This at least is the case wth Stecchetti. Stecchetti {the pseudonym is too well established to be replaced by tVe name of the real author) and his school are part of the general revolt agaiftst M anzonian- ism. Notwithsta7ding the undoubted gettius of the author of the worldfamed 'Promessi Sposi^ the tendencies of the Romanticists in geieral, aftd Alanzoni's sacred hymns in especial, were in direct opposition to the taste of the time. 1 he result was tha* poetry ceased to be, or at least that the public ceased tc read it. There had to be a itew departure; hence tht ^Veristi.' Among the realists, Car- ducci has sought mspiration in Greece a?td Rame; Stecchetti studitd Byron, Musset, and Heine, attd threw himself into the mnlern French movement. He has the exquisite workiianship, the eager and yet patient love of his art, the kauty and delicacy of form, which he has learnt from /is great models. Afid he has made poetry popular. His faults are the faults of youth, and those of revolt: yet he has not proceeled to conquer them. Perhaps there 2l6 LORENZO STECCHETTI is no DioraUty in matters of art: but that is not the questio>i. That the classic Muse should go naked i?:ay be strictly proper : but Stecchetti s Muse is not naked. She is, on the contrary, attired in a modern, suggestive, and ^ d^colletP costume ; she is rouged and perfumed, and ogles one froin behind the coquettish oscillaticns of her faft. And as to the attitude that this school hcs taken up against Christianity (/ am not speaking of Stecchetti alone but of his imitators), it is not convindng. Their creed seems to be, ' There is ?io God, and He is the cause of all the evil in the worlds That ?nay be the ,ogic of beings who live in space of four dimensions: lere it sounds insincere. Now, insincerity is not of true art. Stecchetti has produced beautiful verse, and he has helped largely to give new life to Itilian literature. Appealing to a wider public than Cardtcci, he has had a more instant and general effect. Yet it is not probable that he will have an enduri?tg ififluena. The success of ^PostU7na' was followed by aflood of Slecchettists, but the heads that are now emerging are not tiose of his literary descendants. The oiiward mo7>cjnent nust have its eddies and its whirlpools J now at last I bel^ve it to be settling into deeper and calmer chatinels. / LORENZO STECCHETTI 217 PRELUDE Poor rhymes of mine which to the wind I throw, Sweet memories of youth now long gone by ; Poor rhymes of mine, O whither will ye go, Each with your joyous or lamenting cry? Ah ! flee the world which aimed so many a blow At one who loved it not ; urge where ye fly My artless speech sincere, and whisper low My secret love, O modest rhymes and shy. And if ye meet my Lady by-and-by. For whose sweet sake death's agonies I know, O ye who hear my spirit's inmost sigh. Ye who have seen my lengthening death and slow. How much I loved her, tell her ere I die. Poor rhymes of mine which to the wind I throw ! [Postu?>ia, i. ) When the leaves fall in autumn, and you go To seek the cross that marks my lonely grave. In that far corner where they laid me low The nodding wild-flowers o'er my bones shall wave. O pluck you then, to deck your golden hair. The flowers born of my heart which blossom there : They are the songs I dreamed, but ne'er have sung, The words of love you heard not on my tongue. [Postiema, xiv.) 2l8 LORENZO STECCHETTI SONNET Seated one night to breathe the evening air Beneath the tremulous stars with silver ray, Thou once shalt hear thro' night from far away A failing cry that calls thee, O most fair : And 'mid the flowers where first I saw thee, there A tear shall fall beside thee on thy way, And thou shalt think it dew, and pluck in play The flower whereon it fell, to deck thy hair. No, 'tis no dewdrop that doth thus appear As the white sunlight on quicksilver lies, But the remembrance of a fallen tear ; That sound is not the mournful wind that cries, But it is I who dying send thee, Dear, My last long kiss and my lamenting sighs. [Postuma, liv. ) Lady, 1 fain would die, but die consoled By thy pure and honest flame ; Know myself loved, and hear love's story told. Once at least, untouched by shame. Ah ! could I give to thee the days unshed Of my youth now almost o'er. On thy sweet bosom lay my weary head. Slumber, and awake no more ! {Fosiuma, Ixxxiii.) G. TARGIONI-TOZZETTI AND G. M E N A S C I 1 G. TARGIONI-TOZZETTI AND G. MENASCI These are the libretto-writers for MascagnV s well-known operas, ''Cavallcria Rusticafta,' ^L'Amico Frit 2,^ and '/ Rantzau.^ Their work is far superior to what is usually to be met with in this field of literature, and I have therefore thought it worth while to reproduce a melodious piece which opens the third act of^IRantzau^ 222 G. TARGIONI-TOZZETTI AND G. MEN ASCI CHORUS OF WOMEN Limpid wave that sparkling brightly Leapest lightly, Chatterer gay and unrepenting ; Thou whose voice from mountain-valleys Breaks and rallies, Scattering echoes self-tormenting : Hast thou found upon the mountain, At thy fountain, My lost shepherd-love lamenting ? O sweet water, rippling, singing. Art thou bringing His dear kiss to me relenting ? {I Rantzau, iii. i.) ANNIE VIVANTI ANNIE VIVANTI The liic7-ary sensaiion of 1S90, in Italy ^ luas the picblica- tioft of-Lirica^ {Milati, Galli), with a prefatory letter by Carducci — an unusual honour^ and as such a sure title at least to consideration, if not to fame. '■In viy poetical creed^ he begins, ' it is loritten that priests and luomen may not write verse. ' But he revokes this judgment in her favour — not in that of the priests. He goes on to say that hers is certainly poetry, and poetry such as ' must almost fatally break forth from the temperament of a lyrical 7ifoman {a most rare case)? It lacks ^7uhat is with pedantic neologism called ^^form," ' btet it has pure expression, poivcr of rep7-csentation, coloia'iiig, passion. To Carducci' s sometuhat qualified praise it must be added that this young poetess — she was born in London in 1868 — allows herself some freedom in her amatory verses, and that her fervour of passionate expression is calculated to give offence. But she is, nevertheless, a brilliant and eloquent writer, and so early and splendid a promise as is given in ^Lirica ' entitles tts to hope for better and maturer work from so facile a pen. Eng- lishmen who can refer to the original will note with amusemeiit her vehement denunciation, in '■Ave Albion I ' of the country i?i which she had the misfortune to be born. I am the more encouraged in refusing to take the flagel- lation seriously, as the Italian postal authorities have only just now, with delightful vagiceness, reported her present address to be ''London? P 226 ANNIE VIVANTI WHITE VIOLETS I SEND you violets, violets dim and white ; Fragrance and brilliant hues they cannot claim, Yet keep they of their scented sistei'S bright The semblance and the name. Such is the love that lingers sad and pale Within the heart, though conquered by the v^rill ; Love that by kiss and smile tells not its tale, Yet ever love, love still ! (Lirica.) THE DEAD CHILD Her wings were hidden still, and we forgot That she might fly away ; So sweet her laughing eyes. We thought not she was homesick all her day For Paradise. Angel she seemed to be, yet wc forgot That one day she might die ; For, in her childlike fear, We thought not she would ever wish to fly And leave us here. ANNIE VIVANTI 227 We loved her, ah ! so much ! yet we forgot, So sweet she was and gay, That she might hear God call, And spread her airy wings and fly away Beyond recall. [Lirica. ) ANTONIO Z ARDO ANTONIO ZARDO A Venetian poet. Born in 1850 at Padua., in the Uni- versity of ivJiieJi town he studied law, Zardo has devoted hiinself to an cdtccational career, and occupies a chair of '■belles-lettres.^ His ^Versi' were published in 1879 ( Venice, Segre), and he is the author of many versiotis from the German, besides other works. 232 ANTONIO ZARDO THE DAISY Shy, modest flower ! if thee her eyes shall greet When cruel fear her tender heart o'erpowers, Though she disdain to see thy sister flowers, The maid shall pause to pluck thee at her feet. She plucks thee from the turf, diviner sweet Of love's sweet secrets in the dubious hours, And bends her blushing face in leafy bowers. While thy pale leaves her coming fate repeat. Ah ! well for her, bright flower whose day is done, That unto thee she turned i' the heart's distress ! For thou complainest not, when one by one Thy silver petals fall to her joy and grief : Thou diest pitying her — ' He loves thee, yes I ' Thou answerest with thy last remaining leaf. Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to Her Majesty, at the Edinburgh University Press. List of Books in Relies Jettres ^ ^Litionsin 'g) 1S93 ' A ^O''^^ must be said for the manner in which the pubUshers -^*- have produced the vohimc [i.e. "The Earth Fiend"), a sumptuous foHo, printed by Constable, the etchings on Japanese paper by Mr. Goulding. The volume should add not only to Mr. Strang's fame but to that of Messrs. Elkin Mathews and John Lane, who are rapidly gaining distinction for their beautiful editions of belles-lettres.' — Daily Chronicle, Sept. 24, 1892. Refer fing to Mr. Le Gallienne's ' English Poems ' and ' Silhouettes' by Mr. Arthur Symons : — ' We only refer to them now to note a fact which they illustrate, and which we have been observing of late, namely, the recovery to a certain extent of good taste in the matter of printing and binding books. These two books, which are turned out by Messrs. Elkin Mathews and John Lane, are models of artistic publishing, and yet they are simplicity itself. The books with their excellent printing and their very simplicity make a harmony which is satisfying to the artistic sense.' — Siinday Sun, Oct. 2, 1892. ' Mr. Le Gallienne is a fortunate young gentleman. I don't know by what legerdemain he and his publishers work, but here, in an age as stony to poetry as the ages of Chatterton and Richard Savage, we find the full edition of his book sold before publication. How is it done, Messrs. Elkin Mathews and John Lane? for, without depreciating Mr. Le Gallienne's sweetness and charm, I doubt that the marvel would have been wrought under another publisher. These publishers, indeed, produce books so de- lightfully that it must give an added pleasure to the hoarding of first editions.'— Katharine Tynan in The Irish Daily hidependent. ' To Messrs. Elkin Mathews and John Lane almost more than to any other, we take it, are the thanks of the grateful singer especially due ; for it is they who have managed, by means of limited editions and charming workmanship, to impress book- buyers with the belief that a volume may have an aesthetic and commercial value. They have made it possible to speculate in the latest discovered poet, as in a new company — with the difference that an operation in the former can be done with three half-crowns. Si James's Gazette. Septe7tiber 1893. List of Books IN BELLES LETT RES {Including sojne Transfers) PUBLISHED BY Elkin Mathews andjohn Lane VIGO STREET, LONDON, W. N.B. — The Authors and Publishers reserve the right of reprinting any book in this list if a second edition is called for, except lit cases ■where a stipidaiio?i has been made to the contrary, and of pri7itin<' a separate edition of any of i/ie books for America irrespective of the numbers to which the English editions are limited. 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Trans/erred by the Author to the present Publishers. 14 PUBLICATIONS OF ELKIN MATHEWS ^ JOHN LANE The Hobby Horse A new series of this illustrated magazine will be published quarterly by subscription, under the Editorship of Herbert P. Home, Subscription £i per annum, post free, for the four numbers. Quarto, printed on hand-made paper, and issued in a limited edition to subscribers only. The Magazine will contain articles upon Literature, Music, Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, and the Decorative Arts ; Poems ; Essays ; Fiction ; original Designs ; with reproduc- tions of pictures and drawings by the old masters and contemporary artists. There will be a new title- page and ornaments designed by the Editor. Among the contributors to the Hobby Horse are : The late Matthew Arnold. I,A\VRENCE BiNYON. Wilfrid Blunt. Ford Madox Brown. The late Arthur Burgess. E. BURNE-JONES, A.R.-'V. Austin Dohson. Richard Garnett, LL.D. A. J. HiPKiNS, F.S.A. Selwyn Image. Lionel Johnson. Richard Le Gallienne. Sir F. Leighton, Bart., P.R.A. T. Hoi'E McLachlan. May Morris. C. Hubert H. Parry, Mus. Doc. A. W. Pollard. ' F. York Powell. Christina G. Rossettl W. M. Rossettl John Ruskin, D.C.L., LL.D. Frederick Sandys. The late W. Bell Scott. Frederick J. Shields. J. H. Shorthouse. James Smetham. Simeon Solomon. A. Somervell. The late J. Addington SymONDS. Katharine Tynan. G. F. Watts, R.A. Frederick Wedmore. Oscar Wilde. Etc. Etc. Prospectuses 071 Application. THE BODLEY HEAD, VIGO STREET, LONDON, W. ' Nearly every book put out by Messrs. Elkin Mathews & John Lane, at the Sign of the Bodley Head, is a satisfaction to the special senses of the modern bookman for bindings, shapes, types, and papers. They have surpassed themselves, and registered a real achievement in English bookmaking by the volume of ' ' Poems, Dramatic and Lyrical, " of Lord De Tabley. ' Newcastle Daily Chronicle. 1^ Edinburgh; T. and A. Constadle Printers to Her Majesty r University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. MAR 1 8 1999 f 3 1158 00246 6745 ^ .'t PQ k22S E5G8 if""" AAW437S ^iSiJpiii: mxti i.ilttrifW' " '.w.i.'.ir I riTii ' ii.i.niTifr i Uni c