TO COUNT CARLO PEPOLI.This wearisome and this distressing sleepThat we call life, O how dost thou support,My Pepoli? With what hopes feedest thouThy heart? Say in what thoughts, and in what deeds,Agreeable or sad, dost thou investThe idleness thy ancestors bequeathedTo thee, a dull and heavy heritage?All life, indeed, in every walk of life,Is idleness, if we may give that nameTo every work achieved, or effort made,That has no worthy aim in view, or failsThat aim to reach. And if you idle callThe busy crew, that daily we behold,From tranquil morn unto the dewy eve,Behind the plough, or tending plants and flocks,Because they live simply to keep alive,And life is worthless for itself alone,The honest truth you speak. His nights and daysThe pilot spends in idleness; the toilAnd sweat in workshops are but idleness;The soldier’s vigils, perils of the field,The eager merchant’s cares are idle all;Because true happiness, for which aloneOur mortal nature longs and strives, no man,Or for himself, or others, e’er acquiresThrough toil or sweat, through peril, or through care.Yet for this fierce desire, which mortals stillFrom the beginning of the world have felt,But ever felt in vain, for happiness,By way of soothing remedy devised,Nature, in this unhappy life of ours,Had manifold necessities prepared,Not without thought or labor satisfied;So that the days, though ever sad, less dullMight seem unto the human family;And this desire, bewildered and confused,Might have less power to agitate the heart.So, too, the various families of brutes,Who have, no less than we, and vainly, too,Desire for happiness; but they, intentOn that which is essential to their life,Consume their days more pleasantly, by far,Nor chide, with us, the dulness of the hours.Butwe, who unto other hands commitThe furnishing of our immediate wants,Have a necessity more grave to meet,For which no other ever can provide,With ennui laden, and with suffering;The stern necessity of killing time;That cruel, obstinate necessity,From which, nor hoarded gold, nor wealth of flocks,Nor fertile fields, nor sumptuous palaces,Nor purple robes, the race of man can save.And if one, scorning such a barren life,And hating to behold the light of day,Turns not a homicidal hand uponHimself, anticipating sluggish Fate,For the sharp sting of unappeased desire,That vainly calls for happiness, he seeks,In desperate chase, on every side, in vain,A thousand inefficient remedies,In lieu of that, which Nature gives to all.One to his dress devotes himself, and hair,His gait and gesture and the learned loreOf horses, carriages, to crowded halls,To thronged piazzas, and to gardens gay;Another gives his nights and days to games,And feasts, and dances with the reigning belles:A smile perpetual is on his lips;But in his breast, alas, stern and severe,Like adamantine column motionless,Eternal ennui sits, against whose mightAvail not vigorous youth, nor prattle fondThat falls from rosy lips, nor tender glanceThat trembles in two dark and lustrous eyes;The most bewildering of mortal things,Most precious gift of heaven unto man.Another, as if hoping to escapeSad destiny, in changing lands and climesHis days consuming, wandering o’er seaAnd hills, the whole earth traverses; each spotThat Nature, in her infinite domain,To restless man hath made accessible,He visits in his wanderings. Alas,Black care is seated on the lofty prow;Beneath each clime, each sky, he asks in vainFor happiness; sadness still lives and reigns.Another in the cruel deeds of warPrefers to pass his hours, and dips his hand,For his diversion, in his brother’s blood:Another in his neighbor’s miseryHis comfort finds, and artfully contrivesTo kill the time, in making others sad.Thisman still walks in wisdom’s ways, or artPursues;thattramples on the people’s rights,At home, abroad; the ancient rest disturbsOf distant shores, on fraudful gain intent,With cruel war, or sharp diplomacy;And so his destined part of life consumes.Thee a more gentle wish, a care more sweetLeads and controls, still in the flower of youth,In the fair April of thy days, to mostA time so pleasant, heaven’s choicest gift;But heavy, bitter, wearisome tohimWho has no country. Thee the love of songImpels, and of portraying in thy speechThe beauty, that so seldom in the worldAppears and fades so soon, andthat, more rareWhich fond imagination, kinder farThan Nature, or than heaven, so bounteouslyFor our entranced, deluded souls provides.Oh, fortunate a thousand-fold is he,Who loses not his fancy’s freshness asThe years roll by; whom envious Fate permitsTo keep eternal sunshine in his heart,Who, in his ripe and his declining years,As was his custom in his glorious youth,In his deep thought enhances Nature’s charms,Gives life to death, and to the desert, bloom.May heaven this fortune give to thee; and mayThe spark that now so warms thy breast, make theeIn thy old age a votary of song!Ifeel no more the sweet illusions ofThat happy time; those charming imagesHave faded from my eyes, that I so loved,And which, unto my latest hour, will beRemembered still, with hopeless sighs and tears.And when this breast to all things has becomeInsensible and cold, nor the sweet smileAnd rest profound of lonely sun-lit plains,Nor cheerful morning song of birds in spring,Nor moonlight soft, that rests on hills and fields,Beneath the limpid sky, will move my heart;When every beauty, both of Nature, andOf Art, to me will be inanimateAnd mute; each tender feeling, lofty thought,Unknown and strange; my only comfort, then,Poor beggar, must I find in studies moreSevere; to them, thenceforward, must devoteThe wretched remnant of unhappy life:The bitter truth must I investigate,The destinies mysterious, alikeOf mortal and immortal things;For what was suffering humanity,Bowed down beneath the weight of misery,Created; to what final goal are FateAnd Nature urging it; to whom can ourGreat sorrow any pleasure, profit give;Beneath what laws and orders, to what end,The mighty Universe revolves—the themeOf wise men’s praise, tomea mystery?I in these speculations will consumeMy idleness; because the truth, when known,Though sad, has yet its charms. And if, at times,The truth discussing, my opinions shouldUnwelcome be, or not be understood,I shall not grieve, indeed, because in meThe love of fame will be extinguished quite;Of fame, that idol frivolous and blind;More blind by far than Fortune, or than Love.
This wearisome and this distressing sleepThat we call life, O how dost thou support,My Pepoli? With what hopes feedest thouThy heart? Say in what thoughts, and in what deeds,Agreeable or sad, dost thou investThe idleness thy ancestors bequeathedTo thee, a dull and heavy heritage?All life, indeed, in every walk of life,Is idleness, if we may give that nameTo every work achieved, or effort made,That has no worthy aim in view, or failsThat aim to reach. And if you idle callThe busy crew, that daily we behold,From tranquil morn unto the dewy eve,Behind the plough, or tending plants and flocks,Because they live simply to keep alive,And life is worthless for itself alone,The honest truth you speak. His nights and daysThe pilot spends in idleness; the toilAnd sweat in workshops are but idleness;The soldier’s vigils, perils of the field,The eager merchant’s cares are idle all;Because true happiness, for which aloneOur mortal nature longs and strives, no man,Or for himself, or others, e’er acquiresThrough toil or sweat, through peril, or through care.Yet for this fierce desire, which mortals stillFrom the beginning of the world have felt,But ever felt in vain, for happiness,By way of soothing remedy devised,Nature, in this unhappy life of ours,Had manifold necessities prepared,Not without thought or labor satisfied;So that the days, though ever sad, less dullMight seem unto the human family;And this desire, bewildered and confused,Might have less power to agitate the heart.So, too, the various families of brutes,Who have, no less than we, and vainly, too,Desire for happiness; but they, intentOn that which is essential to their life,Consume their days more pleasantly, by far,Nor chide, with us, the dulness of the hours.Butwe, who unto other hands commitThe furnishing of our immediate wants,Have a necessity more grave to meet,For which no other ever can provide,With ennui laden, and with suffering;The stern necessity of killing time;That cruel, obstinate necessity,From which, nor hoarded gold, nor wealth of flocks,Nor fertile fields, nor sumptuous palaces,Nor purple robes, the race of man can save.And if one, scorning such a barren life,And hating to behold the light of day,Turns not a homicidal hand uponHimself, anticipating sluggish Fate,For the sharp sting of unappeased desire,That vainly calls for happiness, he seeks,In desperate chase, on every side, in vain,A thousand inefficient remedies,In lieu of that, which Nature gives to all.
One to his dress devotes himself, and hair,His gait and gesture and the learned loreOf horses, carriages, to crowded halls,To thronged piazzas, and to gardens gay;Another gives his nights and days to games,And feasts, and dances with the reigning belles:A smile perpetual is on his lips;But in his breast, alas, stern and severe,Like adamantine column motionless,Eternal ennui sits, against whose mightAvail not vigorous youth, nor prattle fondThat falls from rosy lips, nor tender glanceThat trembles in two dark and lustrous eyes;The most bewildering of mortal things,Most precious gift of heaven unto man.
Another, as if hoping to escapeSad destiny, in changing lands and climesHis days consuming, wandering o’er seaAnd hills, the whole earth traverses; each spotThat Nature, in her infinite domain,To restless man hath made accessible,He visits in his wanderings. Alas,Black care is seated on the lofty prow;Beneath each clime, each sky, he asks in vainFor happiness; sadness still lives and reigns.
Another in the cruel deeds of warPrefers to pass his hours, and dips his hand,For his diversion, in his brother’s blood:Another in his neighbor’s miseryHis comfort finds, and artfully contrivesTo kill the time, in making others sad.Thisman still walks in wisdom’s ways, or artPursues;thattramples on the people’s rights,At home, abroad; the ancient rest disturbsOf distant shores, on fraudful gain intent,With cruel war, or sharp diplomacy;And so his destined part of life consumes.
Thee a more gentle wish, a care more sweetLeads and controls, still in the flower of youth,In the fair April of thy days, to mostA time so pleasant, heaven’s choicest gift;But heavy, bitter, wearisome tohimWho has no country. Thee the love of songImpels, and of portraying in thy speechThe beauty, that so seldom in the worldAppears and fades so soon, andthat, more rareWhich fond imagination, kinder farThan Nature, or than heaven, so bounteouslyFor our entranced, deluded souls provides.Oh, fortunate a thousand-fold is he,Who loses not his fancy’s freshness asThe years roll by; whom envious Fate permitsTo keep eternal sunshine in his heart,Who, in his ripe and his declining years,As was his custom in his glorious youth,In his deep thought enhances Nature’s charms,Gives life to death, and to the desert, bloom.May heaven this fortune give to thee; and mayThe spark that now so warms thy breast, make theeIn thy old age a votary of song!Ifeel no more the sweet illusions ofThat happy time; those charming imagesHave faded from my eyes, that I so loved,And which, unto my latest hour, will beRemembered still, with hopeless sighs and tears.And when this breast to all things has becomeInsensible and cold, nor the sweet smileAnd rest profound of lonely sun-lit plains,Nor cheerful morning song of birds in spring,Nor moonlight soft, that rests on hills and fields,Beneath the limpid sky, will move my heart;When every beauty, both of Nature, andOf Art, to me will be inanimateAnd mute; each tender feeling, lofty thought,Unknown and strange; my only comfort, then,Poor beggar, must I find in studies moreSevere; to them, thenceforward, must devoteThe wretched remnant of unhappy life:The bitter truth must I investigate,The destinies mysterious, alikeOf mortal and immortal things;For what was suffering humanity,Bowed down beneath the weight of misery,Created; to what final goal are FateAnd Nature urging it; to whom can ourGreat sorrow any pleasure, profit give;Beneath what laws and orders, to what end,The mighty Universe revolves—the themeOf wise men’s praise, tomea mystery?
I in these speculations will consumeMy idleness; because the truth, when known,Though sad, has yet its charms. And if, at times,The truth discussing, my opinions shouldUnwelcome be, or not be understood,I shall not grieve, indeed, because in meThe love of fame will be extinguished quite;Of fame, that idol frivolous and blind;More blind by far than Fortune, or than Love.