For me the ambrosial fingers
Of Graces never wove the laurel crown,
But the Fates shadowed, from my youngest days,
My brow with passion-flowers, and I have lived
Unknown to my dear land. Oh, fortunate
My sisters that in the heroic dawn
Of races sung! To them did destiny give
The virgin fire and chaste ingenuousness
Of their land's speech; and, reverenced, their hands
Ran over potent strings. To me, the hopes
Turbid with hate; to me, the senile rage;
To me, the painted fancies clothed by art
Degenerate; to me, the desperate wish,
Not in my soul to nurse ungenerous dreams,
But to contend, and with the sword of song
To fight my battles too.
Such is the spirit, such is the manner, of the Prime Storie of
Aleardi. The merits of the poem are so obvious, that it seems scarcely
profitable to comment upon its picturesqueness, upon the clearness
and ease of its style, upon the art which quickens its frequent
descriptions of nature with a human interest. The defects of the poem
are quite as plain, and I have again to acknowledge the critical
acuteness of Arnaud, who says of Aleardi: "Instead of synthetizing
his conceptions, and giving relief to the principal lines, the poet
lingers caressingly upon the particulars, preferring the descriptive
to the dramatic element.
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