Modern Italian Poets; Essays and Versions Part 25

THE MIDNIGHT RIDE.

I.

Ruello, Ruello, devour the way!

On your breath bear us with you, O winds, as ye swell!

My darling, she lies near her death to-day,-- Gallop, gallop, gallop, Ruel!

That my spurs have torn open thy flanks, alas!

With thy long, sad neighing, thou need'st not tell; We have many a league yet of desert to pa.s.s,-- Gallop, gallop, gallop, Ruel!

Hear'st that mocking laugh overhead in s.p.a.ce?

Hear'st the shriek of the storm, as it drives, swift and fell?

A scent as of graves is blown into my face,-- Gallop, gallop, gallop, Ruel!

Ah, G.o.d! and if that be the sound I hear Of the mourner's song and the pa.s.sing-bell!

O heaven! What see I? The cross and the bier?-- Gallop, gallop, gallop, Ruel!

Thou falt'rest, Ruello? Oh, courage, my steed!

Wilt fail me, O traitor I trusted so well?

The tempest roars over us,--halt not, nor heed!-- Gallop, gallop, gallop, Ruel!

Gallop, Ruello, oh, faster yet!

Good G.o.d, that flash! O G.o.d! I am chill,-- Something hangs on my eyelids heavy as death,-- Gallop, gallop, gallop, Ruel!

II.

Smitten with the lightning stroke, From his seat the cavalier Fell, and forth the charger broke, Rider-free and mad with fear,-- Through the tempest and the night, Like a winged thing in flight.

In the wind his mane blown back, With a frantic plunge and neigh,-- In the shadow a shadow black, Ever wilder he flies away,-- Through the tempest and the night, Like a winged thing in flight.

From his throbbing flanks arise Smokes of fever and of sweat,-- Over him the pebble flies From his swift feet swifter yet,-- Through the tempest and the night, Like a winged thing in flight.

From the cliff unto the wood, Twenty leagues he pa.s.sed in all; Soaked with b.l.o.o.d.y foam and blood, Blind he struck against the wall: Death is in the seat; no more Stirs the steed that flew before.

III.

And the while, upon the colorless, Death-white visage of the dying Maiden, still and faint and fair, Rosy lights arise and wane; And her weakness lifting tremulous From the couch where she was lying Her long, beautiful, loose hair Strives she to adorn in vain.

"Mother, what it is has startled me From my sleep I cannot tell thee: Only, rise and deck me well In my fairest robes again.

For, last night, in the thick silences,-- I know not how it befell me,-- But the gallop of Ruel, More than once I heard it plain.

"Look, O mother, through yon shadowy Trees, beyond their gloomy cover: Canst thou not an atom see Toward us from the distance start?

Seest thou not the dust rise cloudily, And above the highway hover?

Come at last! 'T is he! 't is he!

Mother, something breaks my heart."

Ah, poor child! she raises wearily Her dim eyes, and, turning slowly, Seeks the sun, and leaves this strife With a loved name in her breath.

Ah, poor child! in vain she waited him.

In the grave they made her lowly Bridal bed. And thou, O life!

Hast no hopes that know not death?

Among Prati's patriotic poems, I have read one which seems to me rather vivid, and which because it reflects yet another phase of that great Italian resurrection, as well as represents Prati in one of his best moods, I will give here:

THE SPY.

With ears intent, with eyes abased, Like a shadow still my steps thou hast chased; If I whisper aught to my friend, I feel Thee follow quickly upon my heel.

Poor wretch, thou fill'st me with loathing; fly!

Thou art a spy!

When thou eatest the bread that thou dost win With the filthy wages of thy sin, The hideous face of treason anear Dost thou not see? dost thou not fear?

Poor wretch, thou fill'st me with loathing; fly!

Thou art a spy!

The thief may sometimes my pity claim; Sometimes the harlot for her shame; Even the murderer in his chains A hidden fear from me constrains; But thou only fill'st me with loathing; fly!

Thou art a spy!

Fly, poor villain; draw thy hat down, Close be thy mantle about thee thrown; And if ever my words weigh on thy heart, Betake thyself to some church apart; There, "Lord, have mercy!" weep and cry: "I am a spy!"

Forgiveness for thy great sin alone Thou may'st hope to find before his throne.

Dismayed by thy snares that all abhor, Brothers on earth thou hast no more; Poor wretch, thou fill'st me with loathing; fly!

Thou art a spy!

ALEARDO ALEARDI

I.

In the first quarter of the century was born a poet, in the village of San Giorgio, near Verona, of parents who endowed their son with the magnificent name of Aleardo Aleardi. His father was one of those small proprietors numerous in the Veneto, and, though not indigent, was by no means a rich man. He lived on his farm, and loved it, and tried to improve the condition of his tenants. Aleardo's childhood was spent in the country,--a happy fortune for a boy anywhere, the happiest fortune if that country be Italy, and its scenes the grand and beautiful scenes of the valley of the Adige. Here he learned to love nature with the pa.s.sion that declares itself everywhere in his verse; and hence he was in due time taken and placed at school in the Collegio {note: Not a college in the American sense, but a private school of a high grade.} of Sant' Anastasia, in Verona, according to the Italian system, now fallen into disuse, of fitting a boy for the world by giving him the training of a cloister. It is not greatly to Aleardi's discredit that he seemed to learn nothing there, and that he drove his reverend preceptors to the desperate course of advising his removal.

They told his father he would make a good farmer, but a scholar, never. They nicknamed him the _mole_, for his dullness; but, in the mean time, he was making underground progress of his own, and he came to the surface one day, a mole no longer, to everybody's amazement, but a thing of such flight and song as they had never seen before,--in fine, a poet. He was rather a scapegrace, after he ceased to be a mole, at school; but when he went to the University at Padua, he became conspicuous among the idle, dissolute students of that day for temperate life and severe study. There he studied law, and learned patriotism; political poetry and interviews with the police were the consequence, but no serious trouble.

One of the offensive poems, which he says he and his friends had the audacity to call an ode, was this:

Sing we our country. 'T is a desolate And frozen cemetery; Over its portals undulates A banner black and yellow; And within it throng the myriad Phantoms of slaves and kings:

A man on a worn-out, tottering Throne watches o'er the tombs: The pallid lord of consciences, The despot of ideas.

Tricoronate he vaunts himself And without crown is he.

In this poem the yellow and black flag is, of course, the Austrian, and the enthroned man is the pope, of whose temporal power our poet was always the enemy. "The Austrian police," says Aleardi's biographer, "like an affectionate mother, anxious about everything, came into possession of these verses; and the author was admonished, in the way of maternal counsel, not to touch such topics, if he would not lose the favor of the police, and be looked on as a prodigal son."

He had already been admonished for carrying a cane on the top of which was an old Italian pound, or lira, with the inscription, Kingdom of Italy,--for it was an offense to have such words about one in any way, so trivial and petty was the cruel government that once reigned over the Italians.

In due time he took that garland of paper laurel and gilt pasteboard with which the graduates of Padua are sublimely crowned, and returned to Verona, where he entered the office of an advocate to learn the practical workings of the law. These disgusted him, naturally enough; and it was doubtless far less to the hurt of his feelings than of his fortune that the government always refused him the post of advocate.

In this time he wrote his first long poem, Arnaldo, which was published at Milan in 1842, and which won him immediate applause. It was followed by the tragedy of Bragadino; and in the year 1845 he wrote Le Prime Storie, which he suffered to lie unpublished for twelve years. It appeared in Verona in 1857, a year after the publication of his Monte Circellio, written in 1846.