The smile that like the lightning fleets away,
The sorrows that for half a life delay;
Like drops of honey in a wormwood bowl,
Drain’d to the dregs in bitterness of soul.
BOYD.
PART IV.
So fickle fortune, in a luckless hour,
Had close consigned me to a tyrant’s power,
Who cut the nerves that, with elastic force,
Had borne me on in Freedom’s generous course —
So I, in noble independence bred,
Free as the roebuck in the sylvan glade,
By passion lured, a voluntary slave —
My ready name to Cupid’s muster gave.
And yet I saw their grief and wild despair;
I saw them blindly seek the fatal snare
Through winding paths, and many an artful maze,
Where Cupid’s viewless spell the band obeys.
Here, as I turn’d my anxious eyes around,
If any shade I then could see renown’d
In old or modern times; the bard I spied
Whose unabated love pursued his bride
Down to the coast of Hades; and above
His life resign’d, the pledge of constant love,
Calling her name in death. — Alcæus near,
Who sung the joys of Love and toils severe,
Was seen with Pindar and the Teian swain,
A veteran gay among the youthful train
Of Cupid’s host. — The Mantuan next I found,
Begirt with bards from age to age renown’d;
Whether they chose in lofty themes to soar,
Or sportive try the Muse’s lighter lore. —
There soft Tibullus walk’d with Sulmo’s bard;
And there Propertius with Catullus shared
The meed of lovesome lays: the Grecian dame
With sweeter numbers woke the amorous flame
While thus I turn’d around my wondering eyes,
I saw a noble train with new surprise,
Who seem’d of Love in choral notes to sing,
While all around them breathed Elysian spring. —
Here Alighieri, with his love I spied,
Selvaggia, Guido, Cino, side by side —
Guido, who mourn’d the lot that fix’d his name
The second of his age in lyric fame. —
Two other minstrels there I spied that bore
His name, renown’d on Arno’s tuneful shore.
With them Sicilia’s bards, in elder days
Match’d with the foremost in poetic praise,
Though now they rank behind. — Sennuccio nigh
With gentle Franceschino met my eye. —
But soon another tribe, of manners strange
And uncouth dialect, was seen to range
Along the flowery paths, by Arnald led;
In Cupid’s lore by all the Muses bred,
And master of the theme. — Marsilia’s coast
And Narbonne still his polish’d numbers boast. —
The next I saw with lighter step advance;
’Twas he that caught a flame at every glance
That met his eye, with him who shared his name.
Join’d with an Arnald of inferior fame. —
Next either Rambold in procession trod,
No easy conquest to the winged god.
The pride of Montferrat (a peerless dame)
In many a ditty sung, announced his flame;
And Genoa’s bard, who left his native coast,
And on Marsilia’s towers the memory lost
Of his first time, when Salem’s sacred flame
Taught him a nobler heritage to claim, —
Gerard and Peter, both of Gallic blood,
And tuneful Rudel, who, in moonstruck mood,
O’er ocean by a flying image led,
In the fantastic chase his canvas spread;
And, where he thought his amorous vows to breathe,
From Cupid’s bow received the shaft of Death. —
There was Cabestaing, whose unequall’d lays
From all his rivals won superior praise. —
Hugo was there, with Almeric renown’d; —
Bernard and Anselm by the Muses crown’d. —
Those and a thousand others o’er the field
Advanced; nor javelin did they want, or shield;
The Muses form’d their guard, and march’d before.
Spreading their long renown from shore to shore. —
The Latian band, with sympathising woe,
At last I spied amid the moving show:
Bologna’s poet first, whose honour’d grave
His relics hold beside Messina’s wave.
O fickle joys, that fleet upon the wind,
And leave the lassitude of life behind!
The youth, that every thought and movement sway’d
Of this sad heart, is now an empty shade!
What world contains thee now, my tuneful guide,
Whom nought of old could sever from my side?
What is this life? — what none but fools esteem;
A fleeting shadow, a romantic dream! —
Not far I wander’d o’er the peopled field,
Till Socrates and Lælius I beheld.
Oh, may their holy influence never cease
That soothed my heart-corroding pangs to peace!
Unequall’d friends! no bard’s ecstatic lays
Nor polish’d prose your deathless name can raise
To match your genuine worth! O’er hill and dale
We pass’d, and oft I told my doleful tale,
Disclosing all my wounds, end not in vain:
Their sacred presence seem’d to soothe my pain.
Oh, may that glorious privilege be mine,
Till dust to dust the final stroke resign!
My courage they inspired to claim the wreath —
Immortal emblem of my constant faith
To her whose name the poet’s garland bears!
Yet nought from her, for long devoted years,
I reap’d but cold disdain, and fruitless tears. —
But soon a sight ensued, that, like a spell,
Restrain’d at once my passion’s stormy swell:
But this a loftier muse demands to sing,
The hallow’d power that pruned the daring wing
Of that blind force, by folly canonized
And in the garb of deity disguised.
Yet first the conscious muse designs to tell
How I endured and ‘scaped his witching spell;
A subject that demands a muse of fire,
A glorious theme, that Phoebus might inspire —
Worthy of Homer and the Orphean lyre!
Still, as along the whirling chariot flew,
I kept the wafture of his wings in view:
Onward his snow-white steeds were seen to bound
O’er many a steepy hill and dale profound:
And, victims of his rage, the captive throng.
Chain’d to the flying wheels, were dragg’d along,
All torn and bleeding, through the thorny waste;
Nor knew I how the land and sea he pass’d,
Till to his mother’s realm he came at last.
Far eastward, where the vext Ægean roars,
A little isle projects its verdant shores:
Soft is the clime, and fruitful is the ground,
No fairer spot old ocean clips around;
Nor Sol himself surveys from east to west
A sweeter scene in summer livery drest.
Full in the midst ascends a shady hill,
Where down its bowery slopes a streaming rill
In dulcet murmurs flows, and soft perfume
The senses court from many a vernal bloom,
Mingled with magic; which the senses steep
In sloth, and drug the mind in Lethe’s deep,
; Quenching the spark divine — the genuine boast
Of man, in Circe’s wave immersed and lost.
This favour’d region of the Cyprian queen
Received its freight — a heaven-abandon’d scene.
Where Falsehood fills the throne, while Truth retires,
And vainly mourns her half-extinguish’d fires.
Vile in its origin, and viler still
By all incentives that seduce the will,
It seems Elysium to the sons of Lust,
But a foul dungeon to the good and just.
Exulting o’er his slaves, the winged God
Here in a theatre his triumphs show’d,
Ample to hold within its mighty round
His captive train, from Thule’s northern bound
To far Taprobane, a countless crowd,
Who, to the archer boy, adoring, bow’d.
Sad fantoms shook above their Gorgon wings —
Fantastic longings for unreal things,
And fugitive delights, and lasting woes;
The summer’s biting frost, and winter’s rose;
And penitence and grief, that dragg’d along
The royal lawless pair, that poets sung.
One, by his Spartan plunder, seal’d the doom
Of hapless Troy — the other rescued Rome.
Beneath, as if in mockery of their woe,
The tumbling flood, with murmurs deep and low,
Return’d their wailings; while the birds above
With sweet aerial descant fill’d the grove.
And all beside the river’s winding bed
Fresh flowers in gay confusion deck’d the mead,
Painting the sod with every scent and hue
That Flora’s breath affords, or drinks the morning dew,
And many a solemn bower, with welcome shade,
Over the dusky stream a shelter made.
And when the sun withdrew his slanting ray,
And winter cool’d the fervours of the day,
Then came the genial hours, the frequent feast
And circling times of joy and balmy rest.
New day and night were poised in even scale,
And spring awoke her equinoctial gale,
And Progne now and Philomel begun
With genial toils to greet the vernal sun.
Just then — O hapless mortals! that rely
On fickle fortune’s ever-changing sky —
E’en in that season, when, with sacred fire,
Dan Cupid seem’d his subjects to inspire,
That warms the heart, and kindles in the look,
And all beneath the moon obey his yoke —
I saw the sad reverse that lovers own,
I heard the slaves beneath their bondage groan;
I saw them sink beneath the deadly weight
And the long tortures that forerun their fate.
Sad disappointments there in meagre forms
Were seen, and feverish dreams, and fancied harms;
And fantoms rising from the yawning tomb
Were seen to muster in the gathering gloom
Around the car; and some were seen to climb,
While cruel fate reversed their steps sublime.
And empty notions in the port were seen,
And baffled hopes were there with cloudy mien.
There was expensive gain, and gain that lost,
And amorous schemes by fortune’s favour cross’d;
And wearisome repose, and cares that slept.
There was the semblance of disgrace, that kept
The youth from dire mischance on whom it fell,
And glory darken’d on the gloom of hell;
Perfidious loyalty, and honest fraud,
And wisdom slow, and headlong thirst of blood;
The dungeon, where the flowery paths decoy;
The painful, hard escape, with long annoy.
I saw the smooth descent the foot betray,
And the steep rocky path that leads again to day.
There in the gloomy gulf confusion storm’d,
And moody rage its wildest freaks perform’d;
And settled grief was there; and solid night,
But rarely broke with fitful gleams of light
From joy’s fantastic hand. Not Vulcan’s forge,
When his Cyclopean caves the fumes disgorge;
Nor the deep mine of Mongibel, that throws
The fiery tempest o’er eternal snows;
Nor Lipari, whose strong sulphureous blast
O’ercanopies with flames the watery waste;
Nor Stromboli, that sweeps the glowing sky
With red combustion, with its rage could vie. —
Little he loves himself that ventures there,
For there is ceaseless woe and fell despair:
Yet, in this dolorous dungeon long confined,
Till time had grizzled o’er my locks, I pined.
There, dreaming still of liberty to come,
I spent my summers in this noisome gloom;
Yet still a dubious joy my grief controll’d,
To spy such numbers in that darksome hold.
But soon to gall my seeming transport turn’d,
And my illustrious partner’s fate I mourn’d;
And often seem’d, with sympathising woe,
To melt in solvent tears like vernal snow.
I turn’d away, but, with inverted glance,
Perused the fleeting shapes that fill’d my trance;
Like him that feels a moment’s short delight
When a fine picture fleets before his sight.
BOYD.
THE TRIUMPH OF CHASTITY.
Quando ad un giogo ed in Un tempo quivi.
When to one yoke at once I saw the height
Of gods and men subdued by Cupid’s might,
I took example from their cruel fate,
And by their sufferings eased my own hard state;
Since Phoebus and Leander felt like pain,
The one a god, the other but a man;
One snare caught Juno and the Carthage dame
(Her husband’s death prepared her funeral flame —
’Twas not a cause that Virgil maketh one);
I need not grieve, that unprepared, alone,
Unarm’d, and young, I did receive a wound,
Or that my enemy no hurt hath found
By Love; or that she clothed him in my sight,
And took his wings, and marr’d his winding flight;
No angry lions send more hideous noise
From their beat breasts, nor clashing thunder’s voice
Rends heaven, frights earth, and roareth through the air
With greater force than Love had raised, to dare
Encounter her of whom I write; and she
As quick and ready to assail as he:
Enceladus when Etna most he shakes,
Nor angry Scylla, nor Charybdis makes
So great and frightful noise, as did the shock
Of this (first doubtful) battle: none could mock
Such earnest war; all drew them to the height
To see what ‘mazed their hearts and dimm’d their sight.
Victorious Love a threatening dart did show
His right hand held; the other bore a bow,
The string of which he drew just by his ear;
No leopard could chase a frighted deer
(Free, or broke loose) with quicker speed than he
Made haste to wound; fire sparkled from his eye.
I burn’d, and had a combat in my breast,
Glad t’ have her company, yet ’twas not best
(Methought) to see her lost, but ’tis in vain
T’ abandon goodness, and of fate complain;
Virtue her servants never will forsake,
As now ’twas seen, she could resistance make:
No fencer ever better warded blow,
Nor pilot did
to shore more wisely row
To shun a shelf, than with undaunted power
She waved the stroke of this sharp conqueror.
Mine eyes and heart were watchful to attend,
In hope the victory would that way bend
It ever did; and that I might no more
Be barr’d from her; as one whose thoughts before
His tongue hath utter’d them you well may see
Writ in his looks; “Oh! if you victor be
Great sir,” said I, “let her and me be bound
Both with one yoke; I may be worthy found,
And will not set her free, doubt not my faith:”
When I beheld her with disdain and wrath
So fill’d, that to relate it would demand
A better muse than mine: her virtuous hand
Had quickly quench’d those gilded fiery darts
Which, dipp’d in beauty’s pleasure, poison hearts.
Neither Camilla, nor the warlike host
That cut their breasts, could so much valour boast
Nor Cæsar in Pharsalia fought so well,
As she ‘gainst him who pierceth coats of mail;
All her brave virtues arm’d, attended there,
(A glorious troop!) and marched pair by pair:
Honour and blushes first in rank; the two
Religious virtues make the second row;
(By those the other women doth excel);
Prudence and Modesty, the twins that dwell
Together, both were lodgèd in her breast:
Glory and Perseverance, ever blest:
Fair Entertainment, Providence without,
Sweet Courtesy, and Pureness round about;
Respect of credit, fear of infamy;
Grave thoughts in youth; and, what not oft agree,
True Chastity and rarest Beauty; these
All came ‘gainst Love, and this the heavens did please,
And every generous soul in that full height.
He had no power left to bear the weight;
A thousand famous prizes hardly gain’d
She took; and thousand glorious palms obtained.
Shook from his hands; the fall was not more strange
Of Hannibal, when Fortune pleased to change
Her mind, and on the Roman youth bestow
The favours he enjoy’d; nor was he so
Amazed who frighted the Israelitish host —
Struck by the Hebrew boy, that quit his boast;
Nor Cyrus more astonish’d at the fall
The Jewish widow gave his general:
As one that sickens suddenly, and fears
His life, or as a man ta’en unawares
In some base act, and doth the finder hate;
Just so was he, or in a worse estate:
Fear, grief, and shame, and anger, in his face
Collected Poetical Works of Francesco Petrarch Page 43