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Canzone IX

[Pg 74]

CANZONE IX.

Gentil mia donna, i' veggio.

IN PRAISE OF LAURA'S EYES: THEY LEAD HIM TO CONTEMPLATE THE PATH OF LIFE.

Lady, in your bright eyesSoft glancing round, I mark a holy light,Pointing the arduous way that heavenward lies;And to my practised sight,From thence, where Love enthroned, asserts his might,Visibly, palpably, the soul beams forth.This is the beacon guides to deeds of worth,And urges me to seek the glorious goal;This bids me leave behind the vulgar throng,Nor can the human tongueTell how those orbs divine o'er all my soulExert their sweet control,Both when hoar winter's frosts around are flung,And when the year puts on his youth again,Jocund, as when this bosom first knew pain.

Oh! if in that high sphere,From whence the Eternal Ruler of the starsIn this excelling work declared his might,All be as fair and bright,Loose me from forth my darksome prison here,That to so glorious life the passage bars;Then, in the wonted tumult of my breast,I hail boon Nature, and the genial dayThat gave me being, and a fate so blest,And her who bade hope beamUpon my soul; for till then burthensomeWas life itself become:But now, elate with touch of self-esteem,High thoughts and sweet within that heart arise,Of which the warders are those beauteous eyes.

No joy so exquisiteDid Love or fickle Fortune ere devise,In partial mood, for favour'd votaries,But I would barter itFor one dear glance of those angelic eyes,Whence springs my peace as from its living root.O vivid lustre! of power absolute[Pg 75]O'er all my being—source of that delight,By which consumed I sink, a willing prey.As fades each lesser rayBefore your splendour more intense and bright,So to my raptured heart,When your surpassing sweetness you impart,No other thought of feeling may remainWhere you, with Love himself, despotic reign.

All sweet emotions e'erBy happy lovers felt in every clime,Together all, may not with mine compare,When, as from time to time,I catch from that dark radiance rich and deepA ray in which, disporting, Love is seen;And I believe that from my cradled sleep,By Heaven provided this resource hath been,'Gainst adverse fortune, and my nature frail.Wrong'd am I by that veil,And the fair hand which oft the light eclipse,That all my bliss hath wrought;And whence the passion struggling on my lips,Both day and night, to vent the breast o'erfraught,Still varying as I read her varying thought.

For that (with pain I find)Not Nature's poor endowments may aloneRender me worthy of a look so kind,I strive to raise my mindTo match with the exalted hopes I own,And fires, though all engrossing, pure as mine.If prone to good, averse to all things base,Contemner of what worldlings covet most,I may become by long self-discipline.Haply this humble boastMay win me in her fair esteem a place;For sure the end and aimOf all my tears, my sorrowing heart's sole claim,Were the soft trembling of relenting eyes,The generous lover's last, best, dearest prize.

My lay, thy sister-song is gone before.And now another in my teeming brainPrepares itself: whence I resume the strain.

Dacre.

Written by Thomas Hardy |

The Bridge of Lodi

 I 

When of tender mind and body 
I was moved by minstrelsy, 
And that strain "The Bridge of Lodi" 
Brought a strange delight to me. 

II 

In the battle-breathing jingle 
Of its forward-footing tune 
I could see the armies mingle, 
And the columns cleft and hewn 

III 

On that far-famed spot by Lodi 
Where Napoleon clove his way 
To his fame, when like a god he 
Bent the nations to his sway. 

IV 

Hence the tune came capering to me 
While I traced the Rhone and Po; 
Nor could Milan's Marvel woo me 
From the spot englamoured so. 

V 

And to-day, sunlit and smiling, 
Here I stand upon the scene, 
With its saffron walls, dun tiling, 
And its meads of maiden green, 

VI 

Even as when the trackway thundered 
With the charge of grenadiers, 
And the blood of forty hundred 
Splashed its parapets and piers . . . 

VII 

Any ancient crone I'd toady 
Like a lass in young-eyed prime, 
Could she tell some tale of Lodi 
At that moving mighty time. 

VIII 

So, I ask the wives of Lodi 
For traditions of that day; 
But alas! not anybody 
Seems to know of such a fray. 

IX 

And they heed but transitory 
Marketings in cheese and meat, 
Till I judge that Lodi's story 
Is extinct in Lodi's street. 

X 

Yet while here and there they thrid them 
In their zest to sell and buy, 
Let me sit me down amid them 
And behold those thousands die . . . 

XI 

- Not a creature cares in Lodi 
How Napoleon swept each arch, 
Or where up and downward trod he, 
Or for his memorial March! 

XII 

So that wherefore should I be here, 
Watching Adda lip the lea, 
When the whole romance to see here 
Is the dream I bring with me? 

XIII 

And why sing "The Bridge of Lodi" 
As I sit thereon and swing, 
When none shows by smile or nod he 
Guesses why or what I sing? . . . 

XIV 

Since all Lodi, low and head ones, 
Seem to pass that story by, 
It may be the Lodi-bred ones 
Rate it truly, and not I. 

XV 

Once engrossing Bridge of Lodi, 
Is thy claim to glory gone? 
Must I pipe a palinody, 
Or be silent thereupon? 

XVI 

And if here, from strand to steeple, 
Be no stone to fame the fight, 
Must I say the Lodi people 
Are but viewing crime aright? 

XVII 

Nay; I'll sing "The Bridge of Lodi" - 
That long-loved, romantic thing, 
Though none show by smile or nod he 
Guesses why and what I sing!