Italy! Italy! thou who'rt doomed to wear The fatal gift of beauty, and possess The dower funest of infinite wretchedness Written upon thy forehead by despair;Ah! would that thou wert stronger, or less fair.
That they might fear thee more, or love thee less, Who in the splendor of thy loveliness Seem wasting, yet to mortal combat dare!
Then from the Alps I should not see descending Such torrents of armed men, nor Gallic horde Drinking the wave of Po, distained with gore, Nor should I see thee girded with a sword Not thine, and with the stranger's arm contending, Victor or vanquished, slave forever more.
SEVEN SONNETS AND A CANZONE
[The following translations are from the poems of Michael Angelo as revised by his nephew Michael Angelo the Younger, and were made before the publication of the original text by Guasti.]
I
THE ARTIST
Nothing the greatest artist can conceive That every marble block doth not confine Within itself; and only its design The hand that follows intellect can achieve.
The ill I flee, the good that I believe, In thee, fair lady, lofty and divine, Thus hidden lie; and so that death be mine Art, of desired success, doth me bereave.
Love is not guilty, then, nor thy fair face, Nor fortune, cruelty, nor great disdain, Of my disgrace, nor chance, nor destiny, If in thy heart both death and love find place At the same time, and if my humble brain, Burning, can nothing draw but death from thee.
II
FIRE
Not without fire can any workman mould The iron to his preconceived design, Nor can the artist without fire refine And purify from all its dross the gold;Nor can revive the phoenix, we are told, Except by fire.Hence if such death be mine I hope to rise again with the divine, Whom death augments, and time cannot make old.
O sweet, sweet death! O fortunate fire that burns Within me still to renovate my days, Though I am almost numbered with the dead!
If by its nature unto heaven returns This element, me, kindled in its blaze, Will it bear upward when my life is fled.
III
YOUTH AND AGE
Oh give me back the days when loose and free To my blind passion were the curb and rein, Oh give me back the angelic face again, With which all virtue buried seems to be!
Oh give my panting footsteps back to me, That are in age so slow and fraught with pain, And fire and moisture in the heart and brain, If thou wouldst have me burn and weep for thee!
If it be true thou livest alone, Amor, On the sweet-bitter tears of human hearts, In an old man thou canst not wake desire;Souls that have almost reached the other shore Of a diviner love should feel the darts, And be as tinder to a holier fire.
IV
OLD AGE
The course of my long life hath reached at last, In fragile bark o'er a tempestuous sea, The common harbor, where must rendered be Account of all the actions of the past.
The impassioned phantasy, that, vague and vast, Made art an idol and a king to me, Was an illusion, and but vanity Were the desires that lured me and harassed.
The dreams of love, that were so sweet of yore, What are they now, when two deaths may be mine,--One sure, and one forecasting its alarms?
Painting and sculpture satisfy no more The soul now turning to the Love Divine, That oped, to embrace us, on the cross its arms.
V
TO VITTORIA COLONNA
Lady, how can it chance--yet this we see In long experience--that will longer last A living image carved from quarries vast Than its own maker, who dies presently?
Cause yieldeth to effect if this so be, And even Nature is by Art at surpassed;This know I, who to Art have given the past, But see that Time is breaking faith with me.
Perhaps on both of us long life can I
Either in color or in stone bestow, By now portraying each in look and mien;So that a thousand years after we die, How fair thou wast, and I how full of woe, And wherefore I so loved thee, may be seen.
VI
TO VITTORIA COLONNA
When the prime mover of my many sighs Heaven took through death from out her earthly place, Nature, that never made so fair a face, Remained ashamed, and tears were in all eyes.
O fate, unheeding my impassioned cries!
O hopes fallacious! O thou spirit of grace, Where art thou now? Earth holds in its embrace Thy lovely limbs, thy holy thoughts the skies.
Vainly did cruel death attempt to stay The rumor of thy virtuous renown, That Lethe's waters could not wash away!
A thousand leaves, since he hath stricken thee down, Speak of thee, nor to thee could Heaven convey, Except through death, a refuge and a crown.
VII
DANTE
What should be said of him cannot be said;By too great splendor is his name attended;To blame is easier those who him offended, Than reach the faintest glory round him shed.
This man descended to the doomed and dead For our instruction; then to God ascended;Heaven opened wide to him its portals splendid, Who from his country's, closed against him, fled.
Ungrateful land! To its own prejudice Nurse of his fortunes; and this showeth well, That the most perfect most of grief shall see.
Among a thousand proofs let one suffice, That as his exile hath no parallel, Ne'er walked the earth a greater man than he.
VIII
CANZONE
Ah me! ah me! when thinking of the years, The vanished years, alas, I do not find Among them all one day that was my own!
Fallacious hope; desires of the unknown, Lamenting, loving, burning, and in tears (For human passions all have stirred my mind), Have held me, now I feel and know, confined Both from the true and good still far away.
I perish day by day;
The sunshine fails, the shadows grow more dreary, And I am near to fail, infirm and weary.
THE NATURE OF LOVE
BY GUIDO GUINIZELLI
To noble heart Love doth for shelter fly, As seeks the bird the forest's leafy shade;Love was not felt till noble heart beat high, Nor before love the noble heart was made.
Soon as the sun's broad flame Was formed, so soon the clear light filled the air;Yet was not till he came:
So love springs up in noble breasts, and there Has its appointed space, As heat in the bright flames finds its allotted place.
Kindles in noble heart the fire of love, As hidden virtue in the precious stone: