Giacomo leopardi collect.., p.5
Giacomo Leopardi Collected Works, page 5
And thou, if fame belie thee not,
Didst sound the depths of human woe,
Sweet bird, that comest to the leafy grove,
The new-born Spring to greet,
And when the fields are hushed in sleep,
To chant into the dark and silent air,
The ancient wrongs, and cruel treachery,
That stirred the pity of the gods, to see.
But, no, thy race is not akin to ours;
No sorrow framed thy melodies;
Thy voice of crime unconscious, pleases less,
Along the dusky valley heard.
Ah, since the mansions of Olympus all
Are desolate, and without guide, the bolt,
That, wandering o’er the cloud-capped mountain-tops,
In horror cold dissolves alike
The guilty and the innocent;
Since this, our earthly home,
A stranger to her children has become,
And brings them up, to misery;
Lend thou an ear, dear Nature, to the woes
And wretched fate of mortals, and revive
The ancient spark within my breast;
If thou, indeed, dost live, if aught there is,
In heaven, or on the sun-lit earth,
Or in the bosom of the sea,
That pities? No; but sees our misery.
HYMN TO THE PATRIARCHS. OR OF THE BEGINNINGS OF THE HUMAN RACE.
Illustrious fathers of the human race,
Of you, the song of your afflicted sons
Will chant the praise; of you, more dear, by far,
Unto the Great Disposer of the stars,
Who were not born to wretchedness, like ours.
Immedicable woes, a life of tears,
The silent tomb, eternal night, to find
More sweet, by far, than the ethereal light,
These things were not by heaven’s gracious law
Imposed on you. If ancient legends speak
Of sins of yours, that brought calamity
Upon the human race, and fell disease,
Alas, the sins more terrible, by far,
Committed by your children, and their souls
More restless, and with mad ambition fixed,
Against them roused the wrath of angry gods,
The hand of all-sustaining Nature armed,
By them so long neglected and despised.
Then life became a burden and a curse,
And every new-born babe a thing abhorred,
And hell and chaos reigned upon the earth.
Thou first the day, and thou the shining lights
Of the revolving stars didst see, the fields,
And their new flocks and herds, O leader old
And father of the human family!
The wandering air that o’er the meadows played,
When smote the rocks, and the deserted vales,
The torrent, rustling headlong from the Alps,
With sound, till then, unheard; and o’er the sites
Of future nations, noisy cities, yet unknown
To fame, a peace profound, mysterious reigned;
And o’er the unploughed hills, in silence, rose
The ray of Phœbus, and the golden moon.
O world, how happy in thy loneliness,
Of crimes and of disasters ignorant!
Oh, how much wretchedness Fate had in store
For thy poor race, unhappy father, what
A series vast of terrible events!
Behold, the fields, scarce tilled, with blood are stained,
A brother’s blood, in sudden frenzy shed;
And now, alas, first hears the gentle air
The whirring of the fearful wings of Death.
The trembling fratricide, a fugitive,
The lonely shades avoids; in every blast
That sweeps the groves, a voice of wrath he hears.
He the first city builds, abode and realm
Of wasting cares; repentance desperate,
Heart-sick, and groaning, thus unites and binds
Together blind and sinful souls, and first
A refuge offers unto mutual guilt.
The wicked hand now scorns the crooked plough;
The sweat of honest labor is despised;
Now sloth possession of the threshold takes;
The sluggish frames their native vigor lose;
The minds in hopeless indolence are sunk;
And slavery, the crowning curse of all,
Degrades and crushes poor humanity.
And thou from heaven’s wrath, and ocean’s waves,
That bellowed round the cloud-capped mountain-tops,
The sinful brood didst save; thou, unto whom,
From the dark air and wave-encumbered hills,
The white dove brought the sign of hope renewed,
And sinking in the west, the shipwrecked sun,
His bright rays darting through the angry clouds,
The dark sky painted with the lovely bow.
The race restored, to earth returned, begins anew
The same career of wickedness and lust,
With their attendant ills. Audacious man
Defies the threats of the avenging sea,
And to new shores and to new stars repeats
The same sad tale of infamy and woe.
And now of thee I think, the just and brave,
The Father of the faithful, and the sons
Thy honored name that bore. Of thee I speak,
Whom, sitting, thoughtful, in the noontide shade,
Before thy humble cottage, near the banks,
That gave thy flocks both rest and nourishment,
The minds ethereal of celestial guests
With blessings greeted; and of thee, O son
Of wise Rebecca, how at eventide,
In Aran’s valley sweet, and by the well,
Where happy swains in friendly converse met,
Thou didst with Laban’s daughter fall in love;
Love, that to exile long, and suffering,
And to the odious yoke of servitude,
Thy patient soul a willing martyr led.
Oh, surely once, — for not with idle tales
And shadows, the Aonian song, and voice
Of Fame, the eager list’ners feed, — once was
This wretched earth more friendly to our race,
Was more beloved and dear, and golden flew
The days, that now so laden are with care.
Not that the milk, in waves of purest white,
Gushed from the rocks, and flowed along the vales;
Or that the tigers mingled with the sheep,
To the same fold were led; or shepherd-boys
With playful wolves would frolic at the spring;
But of its own lot ignorant, and all
The sufferings that were in store, devoid
Of care it lived: a soft, illusive veil
Of error hid the stern realities,
The cruel laws of heaven and of fate.
Life glided on, with cheerful hope content;
And tranquil, sought the haven of its rest.
So lives, in California’s forests vast,
A happy race, whose life-blood is not drained
By pallid care, whose limbs are not by fierce
Disease consumed: the woods their food, their homes
The hollow rock, the streamlet of the vale
Its waters furnishes, and, unforeseen,
Dark death upon them steals. Ah, how unarmed,
Wise Nature’s happy votaries, are ye,
Against our impious audacity!
Our fierce, indomitable love of gain
Your shores, your caves, your quiet woods invades;
Your minds corrupts, your bodies enervates;
And happiness, a naked fugitive,
Before it drives, to earth’s remotest bounds.
THE LAST SONG OF SAPPHO.
Thou tranquil night, and thou, O gentle ray
Of the declining moon; and thou, that o’er
The rock appearest, ‘mid the silent grove,
The messenger of day; how dear ye were,
And how delightful to these eyes, while yet
Unknown the furies, and grim Fate! But now,
No gentle sight can soothe this wounded soul.
Then, only, can forgotten joy revive,
When through the air, and o’er the trembling fields
The raging south wind whirls its clouds of dust;
And when the car, the pondrous car of Jove,
Omnipotent, high-thundering o’er our heads,
A pathway cleaves athwart the dusky sky.
Then would I love with storm-charged clouds to fly
Along the cliffs, along the valleys deep,
The headlong flight of frightened flocks to watch,
Or hear, upon some swollen river’s shore
The angry billows’ loud, triumphant roar.
How beautiful thou art, O heaven divine,
And thou, O dewy earth! Alas no part
Of all this beauty infinite, the gods
And cruel fate to wretched Sappho gave!
To thy proud realms, O Nature, I, a poor,
Unwelcome guest, rejected lover, come;
To all thy varied forms of loveliness,
My heart and eyes, a suppliant, lift in vain.
The sun-lit shore hath smiles no more for me,
Nor radiant morning light at heaven’s gate;
The birds no longer greet me with their songs,
Nor whispering trees with gracious messages;
And where, beneath the bending willows’ shade,
The limpid stream its bosom pure displays,
As I, with trembling and uncertain foot,
Oppressed with grief, upon its margin pause,
The dimpled waves recoil, as in disdain,
And urge their flight along the flowery plain.
What fearful crime, what hideous excess
Have so defiled me, e’en before my birth,
That heaven and fortune frown upon me thus?
Wherein have I offended, as a child,
When we of evil deeds are ignorant,
That thus disfigured, of the bloom of youth
Bereft, my little thread of life has from
The spindle of the unrelenting Fate
Been drawn? Alas, incautious are thy words!
Mysterious counsels all events control,
And all, except our grief, is mystery.
Deserted children, we were born to weep;
But why, is known to those above, alone.
O vain the cares, the hopes of earlier years!
To idle shows Jove gives eternal sway
O’er human hearts. Unless in shining robes arrayed,
All manly deeds in arms, or art, or song,
Appeal in vain unto the vulgar throng.
I die! This wretched veil to earth I cast,
And for my naked soul a refuge seek
Below, and for the cruel faults atone
Of gods, the blind dispensers of events.
And thou, to whom I have been bound so long,
By hopeless love, and lasting faith, and by
The frenzy vain of unappeased desire,
Live, live, and if thou canst, be happy here!
My cup o’erflows with bitterness, and Jove
Has from his vase no drop of sweetness shed,
For all my childhood’s hopes and dreams have fled.
The happiest day the soonest fades away;
And then succeed disease, old age, the shade
Of icy death. Behold, alas! Of all
My longed-for laurels, my illusions dear,
The end, — the gulf of hell! My spirit proud
Must to the realm of Proserpine descend,
The Stygian shore, the night that knows no end.
FIRST LOVE.
Ah, well can I the day recall, when first
The conflict fierce of love I felt, and said:
If this be love, how hard it is to bear!
With eyes still fixed intent upon the ground,
I saw but her, whose artless innocence,
Triumphant took possession of this heart.
Ah, Love, how badly hast thou governed me!
Why should affection so sincere and pure,
Bring with it such desire, such suffering?
Why not serene, and full, and free from guile
But sorrow-laden, and lamenting sore,
Should joy so great into my heart descend?
O tell me, tender heart, that sufferest so,
Why with that thought such anguish should be blent,
Compared with which, all other thoughts were naught?
That thought, that ever present in the day,
That in the night more vivid still appeared,
When all things round in sweet sleep seemed to rest:
Thou, restless, both with joy and misery
Didst with thy constant throbbings weary so
My breast, as panting in my bed I lay.
And when worn out with grief and weariness,
In sleep my eyes I closed, ah, no relief
It gave, so broken and so feverish!
How brightly from the depths of darkness, then,
The lovely image rose, and my closed eyes,
Beneath their lids, their gaze upon it fed!
O what delicious impulses, diffused,
My weary frame with sweet emotion filled!
What myriad thoughts, unstable and confused,
Were floating in my mind! As through the leaves
Of some old grove, the west wind, wandering,
A long, mysterious murmur leaves behind.
And as I, silent, to their influence yield,
What saidst thou, heart, when she departed, who
Had caused thee all thy throbs, and suffering?
No sooner had I felt within, the heat
Of love’s first flame, than with it flew away
The gentle breeze, that fanned it into life.
Sleepless I lay, until the dawn of day;
The steeds, that were to leave me desolate,
Their hoofs were beating at my father’s gate.
And I, in mute suspense, poor timid fool,
With eye that vainly would the darkness pierce,
And eager ear intent, lay, listening,
That voice to hear, if, for the last time, I
Might catch the accents from those lovely lips;
The voice alone; all else forever lost!
How many vulgar tones my doubtful ear
Would smite, with deep disgust inspiring me,
With doubt tormented, holding hard my breath!
And when, at last, that voice into my heart
Descended, passing sweet, and when the sound
Of horses and of wheels had died away;
In utter desolation, then, my head
I in my pillow buried, closed my eyes,
And pressed my hand against my heart, and sighed.
Then, listlessly, my trembling knees across
The silent chamber dragging, I exclaimed,
“Nothing on earth can interest me more!”
The bitter recollection cherishing
Within my breast, to every voice my heart,
To every face, insensible remained.
Long I remained in hopeless sorrow drowned;
As when the heavens far and wide their showers
Incessant pour upon the fields around.
Nor had I, Love, thy cruel power known,
A boy of eighteen summers flown, until
That day, when I thy bitter lesson learned;
When I each pleasure held in scorn, nor cared
The shining stars to see, or meadows green,
Or felt the charm of holy morning light;
The love of glory, too, no longer found
An echo in my irresponsive breast,
That, once, the love of beauty with it shared.
My favorite studies I neglected quite;
And those things vain appeared, compared with which,
I used to think all other pleasures vain.
Ah! how could I have changed so utterly?
How could one passion all the rest destroy?
Indeed, what helpless mortals are we all!
My heart my only comfort was, and with
That heart, in conference perpetual,
A constant watch upon my grief to keep.
My eye still sought the ground, or in itself
Absorbed, shrank from encountering the glance
Of lovely or unlovely countenance;
The stainless image fearing to disturb,
So faithfully reflected in my breast;
As winds disturb the mirror of the lake.
And that regret, that I could not enjoy
Such happiness, which weighs upon the mind,
And turns to poison pleasure that has passed,
Did still its thorn within my bosom lodge,
As I the past recalled; but shame, indeed,
Left not its cruel sting within this heart.
To heaven, to you, ye gentle souls, I swear,
No base desire intruded on my thought;
But with a pure and sacred flame I burned.
That flame still lives, and that affection pure;
Still in my thought that lovely image breathes,
From which, save heavenly, I no other joy,
Have ever known; my only comfort, now!
THE LONELY SPARROW.
Thou from the top of yonder antique tower,
O lonely sparrow, wandering, hast gone,
Thy song repeating till the day is done,
And through this valley strays the harmony.
How Spring rejoices in the fields around,
And fills the air with light,
So that the heart is melted at the sight!
Hark to the bleating flocks, the lowing herds!
In sweet content, the other birds
Through the free sky in emulous circles wheel,
In pure enjoyment of their happy time:
Thou, pensive, gazest on the scene apart,
Nor wilt thou join them in the merry round;
Shy playmate, thou for mirth hast little heart;
And with thy plaintive music, dost consume
Both of the year, and of thy life, the bloom.
Alas, how much my ways
Resemble thine! The laughter and the sport,
That fill with glee our youthful days,
And thee, O love, who art youth’s brother still,
Too oft the bitter sigh of later years,
