Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece Part 34

Down into h.e.l.l I went and thence returned: Ah me! alas! the people that were there!

I found a room where many candles burned, And saw within my love that languished there.

When as she saw me, she was glad of cheer, And at the last she said: Sweet soul of mine; Dost thou recall the time long past, so dear, When thou didst say to me, Sweet soul of mine?

Now kiss me on the mouth, my dearest, here; Kiss me that I for once may cease to pine!

So sweet, ah me, is thy dear mouth, so dear, That of thy mercy prithee sweeten mine!

Now, love, that thou hast kissed me, now, I say, Look not to leave this place again for aye.

Or again in this (p. 232):--

Methinks I hear, I hear a voice that cries: Beyond the hill it floats upon the air.

It is my lover come to bid me rise, If I am fain forthwith toward heaven to fare.

But I have answered him, and said him No!

I've given my paradise, my heaven, for you: Till we together go to paradise, I'll stay on earth and love your beauteous eyes.

But it is not with such remote and eerie thoughts that the rustic muse of Italy can deal successfully. Far better is the following half-playful description of love-sadness (p. 71):--

Ah me, alas! who know not how to sigh!

Of sighs I now full well have learned the art: Sighing at table when to eat I try, Sighing within my little room apart, Sighing when jests and laughter round me fly, Sighing with her and her who know my heart: I sigh at first, and then I go on sighing; 'Tis for your eyes that I am ever sighing: I sigh at first, and sigh the whole year through; And 'tis your eyes that keep me sighing so.

The next two rispetti, delicious in their navete, might seem to have been extracted from the libretto of an opera, but that they lack the sympathising chorus, who should have stood at hand, ready to chime in with 'he,' 'she,' and 'they,' to the 'I,' 'you,' and 'we' of the lovers (p. 123):--

Ah, when will dawn that glorious day When you will softly mount my stair?

My kin shall bring you on the way; I shall be first to greet you there.

Ah, when will dawn that day of bliss When we before the priest say Yes?

Ah, when will dawn that blissful day When I shall softly mount your stair, Your brothers meet me on the way, And one by one I greet them there?

When comes the day, my staff, my strength, To call your mother mine at length?

When will the day come, love of mine, I shall be yours and you be mine?

Hitherto the songs have told only of happy love, or of love returned.

Some of the best, however, are unhappy. Here is one, for instance, steeped in gloom (p. 142):--

They have this custom in fair Naples town; They never mourn a man when he is dead: The mother weeps when she has reared a son To be a serf and slave by love misled; The mother weeps when she a son hath born To be the serf and slave of galley scorn; The mother weeps when she a son gives suck To be the serf and slave of city luck.

The following contains a fine wild image, wrought out with strange pa.s.sion in detail (p. 300):--

I'll spread a table brave for revelry, And to the feast will bid sad lovers all.

For meat I'll give them my heart's misery; For drink I'll give these briny tears that fall.

Sorrows and sighs shall be the varletry, To serve the lovers at this festival: The table shall be death, black death profound; Weep, stones, and utter sighs, ye walls around!

The table shall be death, yea, sacred death; Weep, stones, and sigh as one that sorroweth!

Nor is the next a whit less in the vein of mad Jeronimo (p. 304):--

High up, high up, a house I'll rear, High up, high up, on yonder height; At every window set a snare, With treason, to betray the night; With treason, to betray the stars, Since I'm betrayed by my false feres; With treason, to betray the day, Since Love betrayed me, well away!

The vengeance of an Italian reveals itself in the energetic song which I quote next (p. 303):--

I have a sword; 'twould cut a brazen bell, Tough steel 'twould cut, if there were any need: I've had it tempered in the streams of h.e.l.l By masters mighty in the mystic rede: I've had it tempered by the light of stars; Then let him come whose skin is stout as Mars; I've had it tempered to a trenchant blade; Then let him come who stole from me my maid.

More mild, but brimful of the bitterness of a soul to whom the whole world has become but ashes in the death of love, is the following lament (p. 143):--

Call me the lovely Golden Locks no more, But call me Sad Maid of the golden hair.

If there be wretched women, sure I think I too may rank among the most forlorn.

I fling a palm into the sea; 'twill sink: Others throw lead, and it is lightly borne.

What have I done, dear Lord, the world to cross?

Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to dross.

How have I made, dear Lord, dame Fortune wroth?

Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to froth.

What have I done, dear Lord, to fret the folk?

Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to smoke.

Here is pathos (p. 172):--

The wood-dove who hath lost her mate, She lives a dolorous life, I ween; She seeks a stream and bathes in it, And drinks that water foul and green: With other birds she will not mate, Nor haunt, I wis, the flowery treen; She bathes her wings and strikes her breast; Her mate is lost: oh, sore unrest!

And here is fanciful despair (p. 168):--

I'll build a house of sobs and sighs, With tears the lime I'll slack; And there I'll dwell with weeping eyes Until my love come back: And there I'll stay with eyes that burn Until I see my love return.

The house of love has been deserted, and the lover comes to moan beneath its silent eaves (p. 171):--

Dark house and window desolate!

Where is the sun which shone so fair?

'Twas here we danced and laughed at fate: Now the stones weep; I see them there.

They weep, and feel a grievous chill: Dark house and widowed window-sill!

And what can be more piteous than this prayer? (p. 809):--

Love, if you love me, delve a tomb, And lay me there the earth beneath; After a year, come see my bones, And make them dice to play therewith.

But when you're tired of that game, Then throw those dice into the flame; But when you're tired of gaming free, Then throw those dice into the sea.

The simpler expression of sorrow to the death is, as usual, more impressive. A girl speaks thus within sight of the grave (p. 808):--

Yes, I shall die: what wilt thou gain?

The cross before my bier will go; And thou wilt hear the bells complain, The _Misereres_ loud and low.

Midmost the church thou'lt see me lie With folded hands and frozen eye; Then say at last, I do repent!-- Nought else remains when fires are spent.

Here is a rustic Oenone (p. 307):--

Fell death, that fliest fraught with woe!

Thy gloomy snares the world ensphere: Where no man calls, thou lov'st to go; But when we call, thou wilt not hear.

Fell death, false death of treachery, Thou makest all content but me.

Another is less reproachful, but scarcely less sad (p. 308):--

Strew me with blossoms when I die, Nor lay me 'neath the earth below; Beyond those walls, there let me lie, Where oftentimes we used to go.

There lay me to the wind and rain; Dying for you, I feel no pain: There lay me to the sun above; Dying for you, I die of love.

Yet another of these pitiful love-wailings displays much poetry of expression (p. 271):--