Art. 3.-THE GINESTRA; OR, THE DESERT FLOWER.* APART from his poetry, which, like the modest flower on the cinder heaps above Pompeii that overlook the beautiful bay of Naples, brought sweetness and some contentment into his seared existence, Leopardi was one of the most unhappy men who have attained celebrity. Doubtless others have had misfortunes. Dante spent long years in exile, Tasso in imprisonment, Milton lost his sight. But these, and others nearly as eminent who have suffered severely, often had a brilliant past to look back upon; they had received good, should they not also receive evil? In the whole course, however, of Leopardi's life anything 'good' in the ordinary sense of the term would be difficult to find. Harsh parents, unsympathising associates, straitened circumstances, physical weakness and ill-health pointing inevitably to early decease, and the settled conviction that the world is governed without regard to individual welfare, constitute the essentially volcanic soil on which sprang 'The Ginestra '-yet within sight of the most enchanting prospects the world can show, mirrored in his imagination.

Of this poem, the last and longest among the more important Odes-perhaps also the most famous, at least on the Continent-very little need be said in explanation. With admirable lucidity it discloses, gravely and unhesitatingly, a conception of human affairs which sorrow had forced on the writer. It contains magnificent imagery and is enlivened with striking contrasts and similitudes, the moral inculcated being that men should devote their energies-without striving, each, for an undue share-to mutual assistance in the struggle with Nature, here regarded as our true Antagonist; in short, an idealised socialism. That a work of such high moral authority, power, and poetic beauty has not hitherto been made easily accessible may surprise some who now read it for the first time.

This task of translating the principal Odes in Leopardi's 'Canti' being now completed, the writer wishes to thank Dr Mackail for guidance and encouragement when preparing the following version, and also those versions that have already appeared in this Review, and, more recently, in The Fortnightly.'

THE GINESTRA.

First published in 1845; written during the spring or autumn of 1836, in the year preceding the poet's death, while he was staying at a little house in the country situated on a spur of the mountain overlooking Torre del Greco and the sea.

'And men loved darkness rather than light.'-John iii, 19.

Here on the arid spine

Of the dread mount

Vesevo,* the destroyer,

Which other flower or tree delights not, thou,

Fragrant Ginestra, joyful in the wild,

Scatterest thy solitary tufts around.

So, lately, had I found

Thy modest blossom, deck those sombre lands
That gird the City which in other time t
Was to all mortal men lady and queen,

And seem with solemn mien

A silent memory, the traveller heeds,
Of her lost power and pride.

Here in this waste I meet thee yet again,

Lover of sad, forsaken, solitudes,

Misfortune's constant friend!

These fields that cinders strew

Unfruitful, hard o'erspread

With lava, echoing to the wanderer's feet;

Where in the sun the snake

Nestles, or writhes uncoiled, and rabbits make

Their wonted burrows-once were pastures gay
With villas, yellowed by the ripening corn,

Gladsome with lowing kine;

Gardens and palaces

There were, a loved repose

Made for the mighty in their hour of ease;

Here famous cities rose,

Which, thundering, this proud mountain overwhelmed

With torrents from her fiery throat aflame,

And those who dwelt therein. One ruin now

Involves them all, where, gentle flower, thou com'st
Wafting thy perfumed sweetness to the sky,

As if compassionate of other's dole,

These deserts to console.

* Vesevus, Latin for Vesuvius.

L. had recently passed through the Roman Campagna on his way

from Florence to Naples.

Before this steep

Let him then come who would exalt with praise
Our state, and see what share

In loving Nature's care

Is ours at need. Here he may justly weigh
And measure well the power and sovereignty
Given to this breed of man whose cruel nurse,
Suddenly moved, when least he fears, annuls
A portion of his race, and on the rest
Destruction in brief space

With but a touch can pour.

Of human progeny

The lofty destinies progressive ever' *

Are written on this shore.

Here gaze, here see thyself

Elate and foolish age,

That from the path discerned

When thought revived, assigned to us of old,

Hast wandered, backward in thy course returned,
And, still retiring, sounded an advance.

Dreaming of liberty, thou wouldst enchain
THOUGHT, that has led us out from barbarous ways,
That gave us civil life, whereby alone

In public acts a more humane regard

For all may yet be shown.

The truth-the bitter lot,

The humble place Nature prepared for us-
Displeases thee. Whereat, in coward sort,

Thy back turned to the light that makes this clear.
Thyself a fugitive, thou call'st him slave
Who seeks the light, him sole magnanimous
Who, fool or rascal, mocking at his kind,

Or mocked himself, with vile or senseless praise
Our rank on earth above the stars would raise.
The man of modest means and sickly frame,
If honour and a lofty soul be his,

Calls not nor deems himself

With wealth and vigour crowned;

Nor in the world makes an absurd pretence

Of sumptuous life and virile eminence;

But, if a beggar in his purse and health,
Holds it no shame to let the truth appear,
Speaks openly of all

'Le sorti magnifiche e progressive dell' umanità.' A quotation from Terenzio Mamiani. It occurs in the dedication to the 'Inni Sacri' (1832).

And gives to things that matter their true name.
Magnanimous indeed I cannot call,

But stupid, a frail creature born to die,
Nurtured in all distress,

Who says he lives for joy;

And with foul-smelling pride

Fills books that promise new felicities

And glories all unknown

(Not only on this orb

But in the very sky,)

Here, upon earth, to beings whom a breath
Malarial,* a wave

Of turbulent ocean, or the rocking soil
Which tremors shake, destroys so utterly
That even their memory

Great pains will hardly save.

A noble heart is his

Who dares, with mortal eyes,

Look on the common fate;

With tongue unbound, nought taking from the truth,
Confess the evils for our journey meant,

Our weak and low estate;

One who in suffering is strong and great,
And to our other ills

That deeper misery,

Fraternal ire and hate,

Adds not, by charging those of his own kind
With blame for any sorrows that are his—
But her, the criminal

Whose guilt it truly is, who stands to us
By birth our mother, stepdame in intent!
Calls her the enemy, against her rage
Holds that society was first ordained †
With love of each to each

It is significant that the same sequence of ideas appears in the Italian, and interesting to compare the effect on Cowper's darkly devotional mind of a similar catastrophe.

† Rousseau's theories are here glanced at.

For prompt and mutual aid,

Expected and accorded in the stress

And peril of the war that all must wage;
One in whose sight

To arm the hand of man against his brother,
Spread snares and stumbling blocks

For mutual injury,

Not less infatuate seems than in a camp
Beleaguered, pressed, at hottest of the fight,
If the defenders, careless of the foe,

On their own soldiers levied hateful war
And sought with fire and sword

Their friends to overthrow.*

When thoughts like these, made clear,
Shine forth apparent to the general mind,

And that first dread of Nature which combined
Mortals in social bonds shall have returned,

In part, through wisdom learned;

Then civil intercourse upright and fair,
Justice and piety, will have some root

Better than haughty myths tradition feigns,
Whereon much public probity is based

With such security as all may see

That which on error stands elsewhere attains. Oft on this barren shore

Clad as in mourning by the lava's flow,

That still a wavelike motion seems to show,

I sit at night, and, o'er this wilderness,

Austere and cultureless,

See the clear stars in deeps

Of purest blue come forth,

Whereto the sea her mirror turns below;

And in this glittering sphere

Our universe appear,

And vast serene of heaven, and all aglow.

Then, on these lights I gaze which to my eyes
Are only specks, although in truth so great
That land and sea with such
Compared, seem but a speck;
To whom man and this globe,
Where man himself is nought,

1. 71, Bk. II, 'The Task.'

And 'tis but seemly that, where all deserve
And stand exposed by common peccancy

To what no few have felt, there should be peace,
And brethren in calamity should love.