Io che nacqui dal Senno.
Born of God's Wisdom and Philosophy,Keen lover of true beauty and true good,I call the vain self-traitorous multitudeBack to my mother's milk; for it is she,Faithful to God her spouse, who nourished me,Making me quick and active to intrudeWithin the inmost veil, where I have viewedAnd handled all things in eternity.If the whole world's our home where we may run,Up, friends, forsake those secondary schoolsWhich give grains, units, inches for the whole!If facts surpass mere words, melt pride of soul,And pain, and ignorance that hardens fools,Here in the fire I've stolen from the Sun!
In superbia il valor.
Valour to pride hath turned; grave holinessTo vile hypocrisy; all gentle waysTo empty forms; sound sense to idle lays;Pure love to heat; beauty to paint and dress:—Thanks to you, Poets! you who sing the praiseOf fabled knights, foul fires, lies, nullities;Not virtue, nor the wrapped sublimitiesOf God, as bards were wont in those old days.How far more wondrous than your phantasiesAre Nature's works, how far more sweet to sing!Thus taught, the soul falsehood and truth descries.That tale alone is worth the pondering,Which hath not smothered history in lies,And arms the soul against each sinful thing.
Il mondo è un animal.
The world's a living creature, whole and great,God's image, praising God whose type it is;We are imperfect worms, vile families,That in its belly have our low estate.If we know not its love, its intellect,Neither the worm within my belly seeksTo know me, but his petty mischief wreaks:—Thus it behoves us to be circumspect.Again, the earth is a great animal,Within the greatest; we are like the liceUpon its body, doing harm as they.Proud men, lift up your eyes; on you I call:Measure each being's worth; and thence be wise;Learning what part in the great scheme you play!
Dentro un pugno di cervel.
A handful of brain holds me: I consumeSo much that all the books the world contains,Cannot allay my furious famine-pains:—What feasts were mine! Yet hunger is my doom.With one world Aristarchus fed my greed;This finished, others Metrodorus gave;Yet, stirred by restless yearning, still I crave:The more I know, the more to learn I need.Thus I'm an image of that Sire in whomAll beings are, like fishes in the sea;That one true object of the loving mind.Reasoning may reach Him, like a shaft shot home;The Church may guide; but only blest is heWho loses self in God, God's self to find.
Il mondo è il libro.
The world's the book where the eternal SenseWrote his own thoughts; the living temple where,Painting his very self, with figures fairHe filled the whole immense circumference.Here then should each man read, and gazing findBoth how to live and govern, and bewareOf godlessness; and, seeing God all-where,Be bold to grasp the universal mind.But we tied down to books and temples dead,Copied with countless errors from the life,—These nobler than that school sublime we call.O may our senseless souls at length be ledTo truth by pain, grief, anguish, trouble, strife!Turn we to read the one original!
Abitator del mondo.
Ye dwellers on this world, to the first MindExalt your eyes; and ye shall see how lowVile Tyranny, wearing the glorious showOf nobleness and worth, keeps you confined.Then look at proud Hypocrisy, entwinedWith lies and snares, who once taught men to knowThe fear of God. Next to the Sophists go,Traitors to thought and reason, jugglers blind.Keen Socrates to quell the Sophists came:To quell the Tyrants, Cato just and rough:To quell the Hypocrites, Christ, heaven's own flame.But to unmask fraud, sacrilege, and lies,Or boldly rush on death, is not enough;Unless we all taste God, made inly wise.
Io nacqui a debellar.
To quell three Titan evils I was made,—Tyranny, Sophistry, Hypocrisy;Whence I perceive with what wise harmonyThemis on me Love, Power, and Wisdom laid.These are the basements firm whereon is stayed,Supreme and strong, our new philosophy;The antidotes against that trinal lieWherewith the burdened world groaning is weighed.Famine, war, pestilence, fraud, envy, pride,Injustice, idleness, lust, fury, fear,Beneath these three great plagues securely hide.Grounded on blind self-love, the offspring dearOf Ignorance, they flourish and abide:—Wherefore to root up Ignorance I'm here!
Credulo il proprio amor.
Self-love fools man with false opinionThat earth, air, water, fire, the stars we see,Though stronger and more beautiful than we,Feel nought, love not, but move for us alone.Then all the tribes of earth except his ownSeem to him senseless, rude—God lets them be:To kith and kin next shrinks his sympathy,Till in the end loves only self each one.Learning he shuns that he may live at ease;And since the world is little to his mind,God and God's ruling Forethought he denies.Craft he calls wisdom; and, perversely blind,Seeking to reign, erects new deities:At last 'I make the Universe!' he cries.
Questo amor singolar.
This love of self sinks man in sinful sloth:Yet, if he seek to live, he needs must feignSense, goodness, courage. Thus he dwells in pain,A sphinx, twy-souled, a false self-stunted growth.Honours, applause, and wealth these torments soothe;Till jealousy, contrasting his foul stainWith virtues eminent, by spur and reinDrives him to slay, steal, poison, break his oath.But he who loves our common Father, hathAll men for brothers, and with God doth joyIn whatsoever worketh for their bliss.Good Francis called the birds upon his pathBrethren; to him the fishes were not coy.—Oh, blest is he who comprehendeth this!
Se Dio ci dà la vita.
God gives us life, and God our life preserves;Nay, all our happiness on Him doth rest:Why then should love of God inflame man's breastLess than his lady and the lord he serves?Through mean and wanton ignorance he swerves,And worships a false Good, divinely dressed;Love cannot soar to what it never guessed,But stoops its flight, and the thralled soul unnerves.Here too is man deceived. He yields his ownTo spend on others. Yet in vile delightGod's splendour still shines through love's earthliness.But we embrace the loss, the lure aloneLove fools us with. That glimpse of heavenly light,That foretaste of eternal Good, we miss.
Gran fortuna è 'l saper.
Wisdom is riches great and great estate,Far above wealth; nor are the wise unblestIf born of lineage vile or race oppressed:These by their doom sublime they illustrate.
They have their griefs for guerdon, to dilateTheir name and glory; nay, the cross, the swordMake them to be like saints or God adored;And gladness greets them in the frowns of fate:
For joys and sorrows are their dear delight;Even as a lover takes the weal and woeFelt for his lady. Such is wisdom's might.
But wealth still vexes fools; more vile they growBy being noble; and their luckless lightWith each new misadventure burns more low.
Gli astrologi antevista.
Once on a time the astronomers foresawThe coming of a star to madden men:Thus warned they fled the land, thinking that whenThe folk were crazed, they'd hold the reins of law
When they returned the realm to overawe,They prayed those maniacs to quit cave and den,And use their old good customs once again;But these made answer with fist, tooth, and claw:
So that the wise men were obliged to ruleThemselves like lunatics to shun grim death,Seeing the biggest maniac now was king.
Stifling their sense, they lived, aping the fool,In public praising act and word and thingJust as the whims of madmen swayed their breath.
Nel teatro del mondo.
The world's a theatre: age after age,Souls masked and muffled in their fleshly gearBefore the supreme audience appear,As Nature, God's own Art, appoints the stage.
Each plays the part that is his heritage;From choir to choir they pass, from sphere to sphere,And deck themselves with joy or sorry cheer,As Fate the comic playwright fills the page.
None do or suffer, be they cursed or blest,Aught otherwise than the great Wisdom wroteTo gladden each and all who gave Him mirth,
When we at last to sea or air or earthYielding these masks that weal or woe denote,In God shall see who spoke and acted best.
Natura dal Signor.
Nature, by God directed, formed in spaceThe universal comedy we see;Wherein each star, each man, each entity,Each living creature, hath its part and place:
And when the play is over, it shall beThat God will judge with justice and with grace.—Aping this art divine, the human racePlans for itself on earth a comedy:
It makes kings, priests, slaves, heroes for the eyesOf vulgar folk; and gives them masks to playTheir several parts—not wisely, as we see;
For impious men too oft we canonise,And kill the saints; while spurious lords arrayTheir hosts against the real nobility.
Neron fu Re.
Nero was king by accident in show;But Socrates by nature in good sooth;By right of both Augustus; luck and truthLess perfectly were blent in Scipio.
The spurious prince still seeks to extirpateThe seed of natures born imperial—Like Herod, Caiaphas, Meletus, allWho by bad acts sustain their stolen state.
Slaves whose souls tell them that they are but slaves,Strike those whose native kinghood all can see:Martyrdom is the stamp of royalty.
Dead though they be, these govern from their graves:The tyrants fall, nor can their laws remain;While Paul and Peter rise o'er Rome to reign.
Chi pennelli have e colori.
He who hath brush and colours, and chance-wiseDoth daub, befouling walls and canvases,Is not a painter; but, unhelped by these,He who in art is masterful and wise.Cowls and the tonsure do not make a friar;Nor make a king wide realms and pompous wars;But he who is all Jesus, Pallas, Mars,Though he be slave or base-born, wears the tiar.Man is not born crowned like the natural kingOf beasts, for beasts by this investitureHave need to know the head they must obey;Wherefore a commonwealth fits men, I say,Or else a prince whose worth is tried and sure,Not proved by sloth or false imagining.
I tuo' seguaci.
Thy followers to-day are less like Thee,The crucified, than those who made Thee die,Good Jesus, wandering all ways awryFrom rules prescribed in Thy wise charity.The saints now most esteemed love lying lips,Lust, strife, injustice; sweet to them the cryDrawn forth by monstrous pangs from men that die:So many plagues hath not the ApocalypseAs these wherewith they smite Thy friends ignored—Even as I am; search my heart, and know;My life, my sufferings bear Thy stamp and sign.If Thou return to earth, come armed; for lo,Thy foes prepare fresh crosses for Thee, Lord!Not Turks, not Jews, but they who call them Thine.
Morte, stipendio della colpa.
O Death, the wage of our first father's blame,Daughter of envy and nonentity,Serf of the serpent, and his harlotry,Thou beast most arrogant and void of shame!Thy last great conquest dost thou dare proclaim,Crying that all things are subdued to thee,Against the Almighty raised almightily?—The proofs that prop thy pride of state are lame.Not to serve thee, but to make thee serve Him,He stoops to Hell. The choice of arms was thine;Yet art thou scoffed at by the crucified!He lives—thy loss. He dies—from every limb,Mangled by thee, lightnings of godhead shine,From which thy darkness hath not where to hide.
No. I.
O tu ch' ami la parte.
O you who love the part more than the whole,And love yourself more than all human kind,Who persecute good men with prudence blindBecause they combat your malign control,See Scribes and Pharisees, each impious school,Each sect profane, o'erthrown by his great mind,Whose best our good to Deity refined,The while they thought Death triumphed o'er his soul.Deem you that only you have thought and sense,While heaven and all its wonders, sun and earth,Scorned in your dullness, lack intelligence?Fool! what produced you? These things gave you birth:So have they mind and God. Repent; be wise!Man fights but ill with Him who rules the skies.
No. 2.
Quinci impara a stupirti.
Here bend in boundless wonder; bow your head:Think how God's deathless Mind, that men might beRobed in celestial immortality(O Love divine!), in flesh was raimented:How He was killed and buried; from the deadHow He arose to life with victory,And reigned in heaven; how all of us shall beGlorious like Him whose hearts to His are wed:How they who die for love of reason, giveHypocrites, tyrants, sophists—all who sellTheir neighbours ill for holiness—to hell:How the dead saint condemns the bad who live;How all he does becomes a law for men;How he at last to judge shall come again!
Se sol sei ore.
If Christ was only six hours crucifiedAfter few years of toil and misery,Which for mankind He suffered willingly,While heaven was won for ever when He died;Why should He still be shown on every side,Painted and preached, in nought but agony,Whose pains were light matched with His victory,When the world's power to harm Him was defied?Why rather speak and write not of the realmHe rules in heaven, and soon will bring belowUnto the praise and glory of His name?Ah foolish crowd! This world's thick vapours whelmYour eyes unworthy of that glorious show,Blind to His splendour, bent upon His shame.
Il vero amante.
He who loves truly, grows in force and might;For beauty and the image of his loveExpand his spirit: whence he burns to proveAdventures high, and holds all perils light.If thus a lady's love dilate the knight,What glories and what joy all joys aboveShall not the heavenly splendour, joined by loveUnto our flesh-imprisoned soul, excite?Once freed, she would become one sphere immenseOf love, power, wisdom, filled with Deity,Elate with wonders of the eternal Sense.But we like sheep and wolves war ceaselessly:That love we never seek, that light intense,Which would exalt us to infinity.
Son tremil' anni.
Through full three thousand years the world reveresBlind Love that bears the quiver and hath wings:Now too he's deaf, and to the sufferingsOf folk in anguish turns impiteous ears.Of gold he's greedy, and dark raiment wears;A child no more, that naked sports and sings,But a sly greybeard; no gold shaft he flings,Now that fire-arms have cursed these latter years.Charcoal and sulphur, thunder, lead, and smoke,That leave the flesh with plagues of hell diseased,And drive the craving spirit deaf and blind,These are his weapons. But my bell hath brokeHer silence. Yield, thou deaf, blind, tainted beast,To the wise fervour of a blameless mind!
In noi dal senno.
Valour and mind form real nobility,The which bears fruit and shows a fair increaseBy doughty actions: these and nought but theseConfer true patents of gentility.Money is false and light unless it beBought by a man's own worthy qualities;And blood is such that its corrupt diseaseAnd ignorant pretence are foul to see.Honours that ought to yield more true a type,Europe, thou measurest by fortune still,To thy great hurt; and this thy foe perceives:He rates the tree by fruits mature and ripe,Not by mere shadows, roots, and verdant leaves:—Why then neglect so grave a cause of ill?
Il popolo è una bestia.
The people is a beast of muddy brain,That knows not its own force, and therefore standsLoaded with wood and stone; the powerless handsOf a mere child guide it with bit and rein:One kick would be enough to break the chain;But the beast fears, and what the child demands,It does; nor its own terror understands,Confused and stupefied by bugbears vain.Most wonderful! with its own hand it tiesAnd gags itself—gives itself death and warFor pence doled out by kings from its own store.Its own are all things between earth and heaven;But this it knows not; and if one ariseTo tell this truth, it kills him unforgiven.
Seco ogni coif a è doglia.
All crime is its own torment, bearing woeTo mind or body or decrease of fame;If not at once, still step by step our nameOr blood or friends or fortune it brings low.But if our will do not resent the blow,We have not sinned. That penance hath no blameWhich Magdalen found sweet: purging our shame,Self-punishment is virtue, all men know.The consciousness of goodness pure and wholeMakes a man fully blest; but miserySprings from false conscience, blinded in its pride.This Simon Peter meant when he repliedTo Simon Magus, that the prescient soulHath her own proof of immortality.
Mentola al comun corpo.
Organ of rut, not reason, is the lordWho from the body politic doth drainLust for himself, instead of toil and pain,Leaving us lean as crickets on dry sward.Well too if he like Love would filch our hoardWith pleasure to ourselves, sluicing our veinAnd vigour to perpetuate the strainOf life by spilth of life within us stored!Love's cheat yields joy and profit. Kings, less kind,Harm those they hoodwink; sow bare rock with seed;Nor use our waste to propagate the breed.Heaven help that body which a little mind,Housed in a head, lacking ears, tongue, and eyes,And senseless but for smell, can tyrannise!
La gran Donna.
That Lady who to Caesar came in stateUpon the Rubicon, what time she fearedRuin from those strange races who appearedErewhile to build her empire strong and great,Now stays with limbs dispersed and lacerate,A bondslave, shorn of all her pomp revered:Nor seems it now that Dinah's shame can girdSimeon or Levi to avenge her fate.If then Jerusalem doth not repairTo Nazareth or Athens, where did reignWisdom of God or man in days of yore,None shall arise her honours to restore:For Herods are all strangers; when they swearTo save the Saviour's seed, their oath is vain.
Nuova arca di Noè.
New Ark of Noah! when the cruel scourgeOf that barbarian tyrant like a waveWent over Italy, thou then didst saveThe seed of just men on the weltering surge.Here, still by discord and foul servitudeUntainted, thou a hero brood dost raise,Powerful and prudent. Due to thee their praiseOf maiden pure, of teeming motherhood!Thou wonder of the world, Rome's loyal heir,Thou pride and strong support of Italy,Dial of princes, school of all things wise!Thou like Arcturus steadfast in the skies,With tardy sense guidest thy kingdom fair,Bearing alone the load of liberty.
Le Ninfe d'Arno.
The nymphs of Arno; Adria's goddess-queen;Greece, where the Latin banner floated free;The lands that border on the Syrian sea;The Euxine, and fair Naples; these have beenThine, by the right of conquest; these should beStill thine by empire: Asia's broad demesne,Afric, America—realms never seenBut by thy venture—all belong to thee.But thou, thyself not knowing, leavest allFor a poor price to strangers; since thy headIs weak, albeit thy limbs are stout and good.Genoa, mistress of the world, recallThy soul magnanimous! Nay, be not ledSlave to base gold, thou and thy tameless brood!
Sopra i regni.
High o'er those realms that make blind chance the heirOf empire, Poland, dost thou lift thy head:For while thou mournest for thy monarch dead,Thou wilt not let his son the sceptre bear,Lest he prove weak perchance to do or dare.Yet art thou even more by luck misled,Choosing a prince of fortune, courtly-bred,Uncertain whether he will spend or spare.Oh, quit this pride! In hut or shepherd's penSeek Cato, Minos, Numa! For of suchGod still makes kings in plenty: and these menWill squander little substance and gain much,Knowing that virtue and not blood shall beTheir titles to true immortality.
Se voi più innalza.
Ye Alpine rocks! If less your peaks elateTo heaven exalt you than that gift divine,Freedom; why do your children still combineTo keep the despots in their stolen state?Lo, for a piece of bread from windows wideYou fling your blood, taking no thought what cause,Righteous or wrong, your strength to battle draws;So is your valour spurned and vilified.All things belong to free men; but the slaveClothes and feeds poorly. Even so from youBroad lands and Malta's knighthood men withhold.Up, free yourselves, and act as heroes do!Go, take your own from tyrants, which you gaveSo recklessly, and they so dear have sold!
Da Roma ad Ostia.
From Rome to Ostia a poor man went;Thieves robbed and wounded him upon the way;Some monks, great saints, observed him where he lay,And left him, on their breviaries intent.A Bishop passed thereby, and careless bentTo sign the cross, a blessing brief to say;But a great Cardinal, to clutch their prey,Followed the thieves, falsely benevolent.At last there came a German Lutheran,Who builds on faith, merit of works withstands;He raised and clothed and healed the dying man.Now which of these was worthiest, most humane?The heart is better than the head, kind handsThan cold lip-service; faith without works is vain.Who understandsWhat creed is good and true for self and others?—But none can doubt the good he doth his brothers.
Nessun ti venne a dir.
Who comes and saith: 'A Tyrant, lo, am I!'And, 'I am Antichrist!' what man will swear?The crafty rogue, hiding his poisonous ware,Sells you what slays your soul, for sanctity.Cheats, brigands, prostitutes, and all that fry,Not having fashioned so devout a snare,Appear worse sinners than perhaps they are;For where the craft's small, small's the villainy;You're on your guard. The meek SamaritanMakes way before those guileful Pharisees,Though God assigned to him the higher place.Not words nor wonders prove a virtuous man,But deeds and acts. How many deitiesHath this false standard given the human race!
Nessun ti verrà a dire.
'Behold, I am a Sophist!' no man saith.But the true sons of perfidy refinedForge theologic lies the soul to blind,Calling themselves evangels of the faith.Aretine with his scoundrels blew his breath,And in the cynic orgies boldly joined;His ribald jests had flowers and thorns combined—A frank fair list including life and death,For fun, not fraud. It shames him to be foundLess vile than those who cannot bear to seeTheir sink of filth laid open to the ground:Wherefore they shut our mouths, our books impound,Garble with lies each sentence that may beCited to prove their foul hypocrisy.
Gli affetti di Pluton.
Deep in their hearts they hide the lusts of Hell:Christ's name is written on their brow, that thoseWho only view the husk, may not supposeWhat guile and malice harbour in the shell.O God! O Wisdom! Holy Fervour! WellOf strength invincible to strike Thy foes!Give me the force—my spirit burns and glows—To strip those idols and to break their spell!The zeal I bear unto Thy name benign,The love I feel for truth sincere and pure,When such men triumph, make me rend my hair.How long shall folk this infamy endure—Thatheshould be held sacred,hedivine,Who strips e'en corpses in the graveyard bare?
No. I.
Vilissima progenie.
Ye vile offscourings! with unblushing faceDare ye claim sonship to our heavenly Sire,Who serve brute vices, crouching in the mireTo hounds and conies, beasts that ape our race?Such truckling is called virtue by the baseHucksters of sophistry, the priest and friar,—Gilt claws of tyrant brutes,—who lie for hire,Preaching that God delights in this disgrace.Look well, ye brainless folk! Do fathers holdTheir children slaves to serfs? Do sheep obeyThe witless ram? Why make a beast your king?If there are no archangels, let your foldBe governed by the sense of all: why strayFrom men to worship every filthy thing?
No. 2.
Dov' è la libertà.
Where are the freedom and high feats that springFrom fatherhood so fair as Deity?Fleas are no sons of men, although they beFlesh-born: brave thoughts and deeds this honour bring.If princes great or small seek anythingAdverse to good and God's authority,Which of you dares refuse? Nay, who is heThat doth not cringe to do their pleasuring?So then with soul and blood in verityYou serve base gold, vices, and worthless men—God with lip-service only and with lies,Sunk in the slough of dire idolatry:If Ignorance begat these errors, thenTo Reason turn for sonship and be wise!
No. 3.
Allor potrete orar.
Then shall ye pray with every hour that flies;Thy kingdom come, and let Thy will be doneOn earth as in the spheres above the sun,When all we hoped and wished shall bless our eyes.Poets shall see their Age of Gold arise,Fairer than feigned in hymn or orison;Yea, all the realm by Adam's sin undoneShall be restored in sinless Paradise.Philosophers shall govern for their ownThat perfect commonwealth whereof they write,The which on earth as yet was never known.Judah to Sion shall return with mightOf greater wonders than shook Pharaoh's throne,From Babylon, to bless the prophets' sight.
No. 1.
Mentre l'acquila invola.
While yet the eagle preys, and growls the bear;While roars the lion; while the crow defiesThe lamb who raised our race above the skies;While yet the dove laments to the deaf air;While, mixed with goodly wheat, darnel and tareWithin the field of human nature rise;—Let that ungodly sect, profanely wise,That scorns our hope, feed, fatten, and beware!Soon comes the day when those grim giants fell,Famed through the world, dyed deep with sanguine hue,Whom with feigned flatteries you applaud, shall beSwept from the earth, and sunk in horrid Hell,Girt round with flames, to weep and wail with you,In doleful dungeons everlastingly.
No. 2.
La scuola inimicissima.
You sect most adverse to the good and true,Degenerate from your origin divine,Pastured on lies and shadows by the lineOf Thais, Sinon, Judas, Homer! You,Thus saith the Spirit, when the retinueOf saints with Christ returns on earth to shine,When the fifth angel's vial pours condignVengeance with awful ire and torments due,—You shall be girt with gloom; your lips profane,Disloyal tongues, and savage teeth shall grindAnd gnash with fury fell and anger vain:In Malebolge your damned souls confinedOn fiery marle, for increment of pain,Shall see the saved rejoice with mirth of mind.
No. 3.
Se fu nel mondo.
If men were happy in that age of gold,We yet may hope to see mild Saturn's reign;For all things that were buried live again,By time's revolving cycle forward rolled.Yet this the fox, the wolf, the crow, made boldBy fraud and perfidy, deny—in vain:For God that rules, the signs in heaven, the trainOf prophets, and all hearts this faith uphold.If thine and mine were banished in good soothFrom honour, pleasure, and utility,The world would turn, I ween, to Paradise;Blind love to modest love with open eyes;Cunning and ignorance to living truth;And foul oppression to fraternity.
Non piaccia a Dio.
Nay, God forbid that mid these tragic throesTo idle comedy my thought should bend,When torments dire and warning woes portendOf this our world the instantaneous close!The day approaches which shall discomposeAll earthly sects, the elements shall blendIn utter ruin, and with joy shall sendJust spirits to their spheres in heaven's repose.The Highest comes in Holy Land to holdHis sovran court and synod sanctified,As all the psalms and prophets have foretold:The riches of his grace He will spread wideThrough his own realm, that seat and chosen foldOf worship and free mercies multiplied.
Convien al secol nostro.
Black robes befit our age. Once they were white;Next many-hued; now dark as Afric's Moor,Night-black, infernal, traitorous, obscure,Horrid with ignorance and sick with fright.For very shame we shun all colours bright,Who mourn our end—the tyrants we endure,The chains, the noose, the lead, the snares, the lure—Our dismal heroes, our souls sunk in night.Black weeds again denote that extreme follyWhich makes us blind, mournful, and woe-begone:For dusk is dear to doleful melancholy;Nathless fate's wheel still turns: this raiment dunWe shall exchange hereafter for the holyGarments of white in which of yore we shone.
Veggo in candida robba.
Clothed in white robes I see the Holy SireDescend to hold his court amid the bandOf shining saints and elders: at his handThe white immortal Lamb commands their choir.John ends his long lament for torments dire,Now Judah's lion rises to expandThe fatal book, and the first broken bandSends the white courier forth to work God's ire.The first fair spirits raimented in whiteGo out to meet him who on his white cloudComes heralded by horsemen white as snow.Ye black-stoled folk, be dumb, who hate the loudBlare of God's lifted angel-trumpets! Lo,The pure white dove puts the black crows to flight!
Già sto mirando.
The first heaven-wandering lights I see ascendUpon the seventh and ninth centenary,When in the Archer's realm three years shall beAdded, this aeon and our age to end.Thou too, Mercurius, like a scribe dost lendThine aid to promulgate that dread decree,Stored in the archives of eternity,And signed and sealed by powers no prayers can bend.O'er Europe's full meridian on thy mornIn the tenth house thy court I see thee hold:The Sun with thee consents in Capricorn.God grant that I may keep this mortal breathUntil I too that glorious day beholdWhich shall at last confound the sons of death!
Babel disfatta.
The golden head was Babylon; she passed:Persia came next, the silvern breast: wheretoJoined brazen flank and belly—these are you,Ye men of Macedon! Now Rome's the last.Rome on two iron legs towered tall and vast;But at her feet were toes of clay, that drewDownfall: those scattered tribes erewhile she knewFor lords; now 'neath her fatal sway they're cast.Ah thirsty soil! From your parched fallow fumesA smoke of pride, vain-glory, cruelty,That blinds, infects, and blackens, and consumes!To Daniel, to the Bible you refuseYour rebel sense; for it is still your useTo screen yourself with lies and sophistry.
Come va al centro.
As to the centre all things that have weightSink from the surface: as the silly mouseRuns at a venture, rash though timorous,Into the monster's jaws to meet her fate:Thus all who love high Science, from the straitDead sea of Sophistry sailing like usInto Truth's ocean, bold and amorous,Must in our haven anchor soon or late.One calls this haunt a Cave of Polypheme,And one Atlante's Palace, one of CreteThe Labyrinth, and one Hell's lowest pit.Knowledge, grace, mercy, are an idle dreamIn this dread place. Nought but fear dwells in it,Of stealthy Tyranny the sacred seat.
Sciolto e legato.
Bound and yet free, companioned and alone,Loud mid my silence, I confound my foes:Men think me fool in this vile world of woes;God's wisdom greets me sage from heaven's high throne.With wings on earth oppressed aloft I bound;My gleeful soul sad bonds of flesh enclose:And though sometimes too great the burden grows,These pinions bear me upward from the ground.A doubtful combat proves the warrior's might:Short is all time matched with eternity:Nought than a pleasing burden is more light.My brows I bind with my love's effigy,Sure that my joyous flight will soon be spedWhere without speech my thoughts shall all be read.
D' Italia in Grecia.
From Rome to Greece, from Greece to Libya's sand,Yearning for liberty, just Cato went;Nor finding freedom to his heart's content,Sought it in death, and died by his own hand.Wise Hannibal, when neither sea nor landCould save him from the Roman eagles, rentHis soul with poison from imprisonment;And a snake's tooth cut Cleopatra's band.In this way died one valiant Maccabee;Brutus feigned madness; prudent Solon hidHis sense; and David, when he feared Gath's king.Thus when the Mystic found that Jonah's seaWas yawning to engulf him, what he didHe gave to God—a wise man's offering.
Non é brutto il Demon.
The Devil's not so ugly as they paint;He's well with all, compact of courtesy:Real heroism is real piety:Before small truth great falsehoods shrink and faintIf pots stain worse than pipkins, it were quaintTo charge the pipkins with impurity:Freedom I crave: who craves not to be free?Yet life that must be feigned for, leaves a taint.Ill conduct brings repentance?—If you prateThis wise to me, why prate not thus to allPhilosophers and prophets, and to Christ?Not too much learning, as some arrogate,But the small brains of dullards have sufficedTo make us wretched and the world enthrall.
Ben sei mila anni.
Six thousand years or more on earth I've been:Witness those histories of nations dead,Which for our age I have illustratedIn philosophic volumes, scene by scene.And thou, mere mite, seeing my sun sereneEclipsed, wilt argue that I had no headTo live by.—Why not try the sun instead,If nought in fate unfathomed thou hast seen?If wise men, whom the world rebukes, combinedWith tyrant wolves, brute beasts we should become.The sage, once stoned for sin, you canonise.When rennet melts, much milk makes haste to bind.The more you blow the flames, the more they rise,Bloom into stars, and find in heaven their home.
Tu che Forza ed Amor.
O Thou, who, mingling Force and Love, dost drawAnd guide the complex of all entities,Framed for that purpose; whence our reason seesIn supreme Fate the synthesis of Law;Though prayers transgress which find defect or flawIn things foredoomed by Thy divine decrees,Yet wilt Thou modify, by slow degreesOr swift, good times or bad Thy mind foresaw:I therefore pray—I who through years have beenThe scorn of fools, the butt of impious men,Suffering new pains and torments day by day—Shorten this anguish, Lord, these griefs allay;For still Thou shalt not have changed counsel whenI soar from hence to liberty foreseen.
Come vuoi, ch' a buon porto.
How wilt Thou I should gain a harbour fair,If after proof among my friends I findThat some are faithless, some devoid of mind,Some short of sense, though stout to do and dare?If some, though wise and loyal, like the hareHide in a hole, or fly in terror blind,While nerve with wisdom and with faith combinedThrough malice and through penury despair?Reason, Thy honour, and my weal eschewedThat false ally who said he came from Thee,With promise vain of power and liberty.I trust:—I'll do. Change Thou the bad to good!—But ere I raise me to that altitude,Needs must I merge in Thee as Thou in me.
To Annibale Caraccioli,
Non Licida, nè Driope.
Lycoris, Lycidas, and DryopeCannot, dear Niblo, save thy name from death;Shadows that fleet, and flowers that yield their breath,Match not the Love that craves infinity.The beauty thou dost worship dwells in thee:Within thy soul divine it harboureth:This also bids my spirit soar, and saithWords that unsphere for me heaven's harmony.Make then thine inborn lustre beam and shineWith love of goodness; goodness cannot fail:From God alone let praise immense be thine.My soul is tired of telling o'er the taleWith men: she calls on thine: she bids thee goInto God's school with tablets white as snow.
Telesio, il telo.
Telesius, the arrow from thy bowMidmost his band of sophists slays that highTyrant of souls that think; he cannot fly:While Truth soars free, loosed by the self-same blow.Proud lyres with thine immortal praises glow,Smitten by bards elate with victory:Lo, thine own Cavalcante, stormfullyLightning, still strikes the fortress of the foe!Good Gaieta bedecks our saint sereneWith robes translucent, light-irradiate,Restoring her to all her natural sheen;The while my tocsin at the temple-gateOf the wide universe proclaims her queen,Pythia of first and last ordained by fate.
Senno ed Amor.
Wisdom and love, O Bina, gave thee wings,Before the blossom of thy years had faded,To fly with Adam for thy guide, God-aided,Through many lands in divers journeyings.Pure virtue is thy guerdon: virtue bringsGlory to thee, death to the foes degraded,Who through long years of darkness have invadedThy Germany, mother of slaves not kings.Yet, gazing on heaven's book, heroic child,My soul discerns graces divine in thee:—Leave toys and playthings to the crowd of fools!Do thou with heart fervent and proudly mildMake war upon those fraud-engendering schools!I see thee victor, and in God I see.
Portando in man.
Holding the cynic lantern in your hand,Through Europe, Egypt, Asia, you have passed,Till at Ausonia's feet you find at lastThat Cyclops' cave, where I, to darkness banned,In light eternal forge for you the brandAgainst Abaddon, who hath overcastThe truth and right, Adami, made full fastUnto God's glory by our steadfast band.Go, smite each sophist, tyrant, hypocrite!Girt with the arms of the first Wisdom, freeYour country from the frauds that cumber it!Swerve not: 'twere sin. How good, how great the praiseOf him who turns youth, strength, soul, energy,Unto the dayspring of the eternal rays!
Temo che per morir.
I fear that by my death the human raceWould gain no vantage. Thus I do not die.So wide is this vast cage of miseryThat flight and change lead to no happier place.Shifting our pains, we risk a sorrier case:All worlds, like ours, are sunk in agony:Go where we will, we feel; and this my cryI may forget like many an old disgrace.Who knows what doom is mine? The OmnipotentKeeps silence; nay, I know not whether strifeOr peace was with me in some earlier life.Philip in a worse prison me hath pentThese three days past—but not without God's will.Stay we as God decrees: God doth no ill.
La fabbrica del mondo.
The fabric of the world—earth, air, and skies—Each particle thereof and tiniest partDesigned for special ends—proclaims the artOf an almighty Maker good and wise.Nathless the lawless brutes, our crimes and lies,The joys of vicious men, the good man's smart,All creatures swerving from their ends, impartDoubts that the Ruler is nor good nor wise.Can it then be that boundless Power, Love, Mind,Lets others reign, the while He takes repose?Hath He grown old, or hath He ceased to heed?Nay, one God made and rules: He shall unwindThe tangled skein; the hidden law disclose,Whereby so many sinned in thought and deed.