Oldport Days [54]
And the soft lightning of the angelic smile That changed this earth to some celestial isle, Are now but dust, poor dust, that nothing knows. And yet I live! Myself I grieve and scorn, Left dark without the light I loved in vain, Adrift in tempest on a bark forlorn; Dead is the source of all my amorous strain, Dry is the channel of my thoughts outworn, And my sad harp can sound but notes of pain.
"And yet I live!" What a pause is implied before these words! the drawing of a long breath, immeasurably long; like that vast interval of heart-beats that precedes Shakespeare's "Since Cleopatra died." I can think of no other passage in literature that has in it the same wide spaces of emotion.
The following sonnet seems to me the most stately and concentrated in the whole volume. It is the sublimity of a despair not to be relieved by utterance. SONNET 253. "Soleasi nel mio cor." She ruled in beauty o'er this heart of mine, A noble lady in a humble home, And now her time for heavenly bliss has come, 'T is I am mortal proved, and she divine. The soul that all its blessings must resign, And love whose light no more on earth finds room Might rend the rocks with pity for their doom, Yet none their sorrows can in words enshrine; They weep within my heart; and ears are deaf Save mine alone, and I am crushed with care, And naught remains to me save mournful breath. Assuredly but dust and shade we are, Assuredly desire is blind and brief, Assuredly its hope but ends in death.
In a later strain he rises to that dream which is more than earth's realities. SONNET 261. "Levommi il mio pensiero." Dreams bore my fancy to that region where She dwells whom here I seek, but cannot see. 'Mid those who in the loftiest heaven be I looked on her, less haughty and more fair. She touched my hand, she said, "Within this sphere, If hope deceive not, thou shalt dwell with me: I filled thy life with war's wild agony; Mine own day closed ere evening could appear. My bliss no human brain can understand; I wait for thee alone, and that fair veil Of beauty thou dost love shall wear again." Why was she silent then, why dropped my hand Ere those delicious tones could quite avail To bid my mortal soul in heaven remain?
It vindicates the emphatic reality and pesonality of Petrarch's love, after all, that when from these heights of vision he surveys and resurveys his life's long dream, it becomes to him more and more definite, as well as more poetic, and is farther and farther from a merely vague sentimentalism. In his later sonnets, Laura grows more distinctly individual to us; her traits show themselves as more characteristic, her temperament more intelligible, her precise influence upon Petrarch clearer. What delicate accuracy of delineation is seen, for instance, in this sonnet! SONNET 314. "Dolci durezze e placide repulse." Gentle severity, repulses mild, Full of chaste love and pity sorrowing; Graceful rebukes, that had the power to bring Back to itself a heart by dreams beguiled; A soft-toned voice, whose accents undefiled Held sweet restraints, all duty honoring; The bloom of virtue; purity's clear spring To cleanse away base thoughts and passions wild; Divinest eyes to make a lover's bliss, Whether to bridle in the wayward mind Lest its wild wanderings should the pathway miss, Or else its griefs to soothe, its wounds to bind; This sweet completeness of thy life it is That saved my soul; no other peace I find.
In the following sonnet visions multiply upon visions. Would that one could transfer into English the delicious way in which the sweet Italian rhymes recur and surround and seem to embrace each other, and are woven and unwoven and interwoven, like the heavenly hosts that gathered around Laura. SONNET 302. "Gli angeli eletti." The holy angels and the spirits blest, Celestial bands, upon that day serene When first my love went by in heavenly
"And yet I live!" What a pause is implied before these words! the drawing of a long breath, immeasurably long; like that vast interval of heart-beats that precedes Shakespeare's "Since Cleopatra died." I can think of no other passage in literature that has in it the same wide spaces of emotion.
The following sonnet seems to me the most stately and concentrated in the whole volume. It is the sublimity of a despair not to be relieved by utterance. SONNET 253. "Soleasi nel mio cor." She ruled in beauty o'er this heart of mine, A noble lady in a humble home, And now her time for heavenly bliss has come, 'T is I am mortal proved, and she divine. The soul that all its blessings must resign, And love whose light no more on earth finds room Might rend the rocks with pity for their doom, Yet none their sorrows can in words enshrine; They weep within my heart; and ears are deaf Save mine alone, and I am crushed with care, And naught remains to me save mournful breath. Assuredly but dust and shade we are, Assuredly desire is blind and brief, Assuredly its hope but ends in death.
In a later strain he rises to that dream which is more than earth's realities. SONNET 261. "Levommi il mio pensiero." Dreams bore my fancy to that region where She dwells whom here I seek, but cannot see. 'Mid those who in the loftiest heaven be I looked on her, less haughty and more fair. She touched my hand, she said, "Within this sphere, If hope deceive not, thou shalt dwell with me: I filled thy life with war's wild agony; Mine own day closed ere evening could appear. My bliss no human brain can understand; I wait for thee alone, and that fair veil Of beauty thou dost love shall wear again." Why was she silent then, why dropped my hand Ere those delicious tones could quite avail To bid my mortal soul in heaven remain?
It vindicates the emphatic reality and pesonality of Petrarch's love, after all, that when from these heights of vision he surveys and resurveys his life's long dream, it becomes to him more and more definite, as well as more poetic, and is farther and farther from a merely vague sentimentalism. In his later sonnets, Laura grows more distinctly individual to us; her traits show themselves as more characteristic, her temperament more intelligible, her precise influence upon Petrarch clearer. What delicate accuracy of delineation is seen, for instance, in this sonnet! SONNET 314. "Dolci durezze e placide repulse." Gentle severity, repulses mild, Full of chaste love and pity sorrowing; Graceful rebukes, that had the power to bring Back to itself a heart by dreams beguiled; A soft-toned voice, whose accents undefiled Held sweet restraints, all duty honoring; The bloom of virtue; purity's clear spring To cleanse away base thoughts and passions wild; Divinest eyes to make a lover's bliss, Whether to bridle in the wayward mind Lest its wild wanderings should the pathway miss, Or else its griefs to soothe, its wounds to bind; This sweet completeness of thy life it is That saved my soul; no other peace I find.
In the following sonnet visions multiply upon visions. Would that one could transfer into English the delicious way in which the sweet Italian rhymes recur and surround and seem to embrace each other, and are woven and unwoven and interwoven, like the heavenly hosts that gathered around Laura. SONNET 302. "Gli angeli eletti." The holy angels and the spirits blest, Celestial bands, upon that day serene When first my love went by in heavenly