Poemata : Latin, Greek and Italian Poems Part 11

To My Tutor, Thomas Young.

Though I had determined, my excellent tutor, to write you an epistle in verse, yet I could not satisfy myself without sending also another in prose, for the emotions of my grat.i.tude, which your services so justly inspire, are too expansive and too warm to be expressed in the confined limits of poetical metre; they demand the unconstrained freedom of prose, or rather the exuberant richness of Asiatic phraseology: thought it would far exceed my power accurately to describe how much I am obliged to you, even if I could drain dry all the sources of eloquence, or exhaust all the topics of discourse which Aristotle or the famed Parisian logician has collected. You complain with truth that my letters have been very few and very short; but I do not grieve at the omission of so pleasurable a duty, so much as I rejoice at having such a place in your regard as makes you anxious often to hear from me. I beseech you not to take it amiss, that I have not now written to you for more than three years; but with you usual benignity to impute it rather to circ.u.mstances than to inclination. For Heaven knows that I regard you as a parent, that I have always treated you with the utmost respect, and that I was unwilling to tease you with my compositions. And I was anxious that if my letters had nothing else to recommend them, they might be recommended by their rarity. And lastly, since the ardour of my regard makes me imagine that you are always present, that I hear your voice and contemplate your looks; and as thus... I charm away my grief by the illusion of your presence, I was afraid when I wrote to you the idea of your distant separation should forcibly rush upon my mind; and that the pain of your absence, which was almost soothed into quiescence, should revive and disperse the pleasurable dream. I long since received your desirable present of the Hebrew Bible. I wrote this at my lodgings in the city, not, as usual, surrounded by my books. If, therefore, there be anything in this letter which either fails to give pleasure, or which frustrates expectation, it shall be compensated by a more elaborate composition as soon as I return to the dwelling of the muses.1 --London, March 26, I625.

1 i.e. Cambridge.

Appendix: Translations of the Italian Poems By George MacDonald (I876).

I.

O lady fair, whose honoured name doth grace Green vale and n.o.ble ford of Rheno's stream-- Of all worth void the man I surely deem Whom thy fair soul enamoureth not apace, When softly self-revealed in outer s.p.a.ce 5 By actions sweet with which thy will doth teem, And gifts--Love's bow and shafts in their esteem Who tend the flowers one day shall crown thy race.

When thou dost lightsome talk or gladsome sing,-- A power to draw the hill-trees, rooted hard-- 10 The doors of eyes and ears let that man keep, Who knows himself unworthy thy regard.

Grace from above alone him help can bring, That pa.s.sion in his heart strike not too deep.

II.

As in the twilight brown, on hillside bare, Useth to go the little shepherd maid, Watering some strange fair plant, poorly displaced, Not thriving in unwonted soil and air, Far from its native springtime's genial care; 5 So on my ready tongue hath Love a.s.sayed Of a strange speech to wake new flower and blade, While I of thee, in scorn so debonair, Sing songs whose sense is to my people lost- Yield the fair Thames, and the fair Arno gain. 10 Love willed it so, and I, at others' cost, Already knew Love never willed in vain.

Ill would slow mind, hard heart reward the toil Of him who plants from heaven so good a soil,

III.

Canzone.

Ladies, and youths that in their favour bask, With mocking smiles come round me: Prithee, why, Why dost thou with an unknown language cope, Love-riming? Whence the courage for the task?

Tell us--so never frustrate be thy hope, 5 And the best thoughts still to thy thinking fly!

Thus mocking they: Thee other streams, they cry, Thee other sh.o.r.es, another sea demands, Upon whose verdant strands Are budding, every moment, for thy hair, 10 Immortal guerdon, leaves that will not die; An over-burden on thy back why bear?-- Song,1 I will tell thee; thou for me reply: My lady saith-and her word is my heart-- This is Love's mother-tongue, and fits his part. 15

1 Ital. "Canzone."

IV.

To Charles Diodati.

Diodati--and I muse to tell the tale-- This stubborn I, that Love was wont despise, And made a laughter of his snares, unwise, Am fallen, where honest feet will sometimes fail.

Not golden tresses, not a cheek vermeil, 5 Bewitched me thus; but, in a new-world guise, A beauty that the heart beatifies; A mien where high-souled modesty I hail; Eyes softly splendent with a darkness dear; A speech that more than one tongue va.s.sal hath; 10 A voice that in the middle hemisphere Might make the tired moon wander from her path; While from her eyes such potent flashes shoot, That to stop hard my ears would little boot.

V.

Truly,1 my lady sweet, your blessed eyes-- It cannot be but that they are my sun; As strong they smite me as he smites upon The man whose way o'er Libyan desert lies, The while a vapour hot doth me surprise, 5 From that side springing where my pain doth won; Perchance accustomed lovers--I am none, And know not--in their speech call such things sighs; A part shut in, itself, sore vexed, conceals, And shakes my bosom; part, undisciplined, 10 Breaks forth, and all about in ice congeals; But that which to mine eyes the way doth find, Makes all my nights in silent showers abound, Until my Dawn2 returns, with roses crowned.

1 Correcting MacDonald's "Certes" (Ital. "Per Certo").

2 [Ital.] "Alba"-I suspect a hint at the lady's name.-G.M.

VI.

A modest youth, in love a simpleton, When to escape myself I seek and s.h.i.+ft, Lady, I of my heart the humble gift Vow unto thee. In trials many a one, True, brave, it has been, firm to things begun, 5 By gracious, prudent, worthy thoughts uplift.

When roars the great world, in the thunder-rift, Its own self, armour adamant, it will don, From chance and envy as securely barred, From hopes and fears that still the crowd abuse, 10 As inward gifts and high worth coveting, And the resounding lyre, and every Muse.

There only wilt thou find it not so hard Where Love hath fixed his ever cureless sting.