Chapter V: Introduction (3)

"Smooth, sliding waters, pure and crystalline,[19] Trees that reflect your image in their breast Green pastures, full of fountains and fresh shades, Birds, that here scatter your sweet serenades; Mosses and reverend ivies serpentine, That wreath your verdurous arms round beech and pine, And, climbing, crown their crest! Can I forget, ere grief my spirit changed, With what delicious ease and pure content, Your peace I wooed, your solitudes I ranged, Enchanted and refreshed where'er I went! How many blissful noons here I have spent In luxury of slumber, couched on flowers, And with my own fond fancies, from a boy, Discoursed away the hours, Discovering nought in your delightful bowers, But golden dreams, and memories fraught with joy. * * * Where are those eloquent mild eyes, which drew My heart where'er it wandered? where the hand, White, delicate, and pure as melting dew, Filled with the spoils, that proud of thy command, My feelings paid in tribute? the bright hair That paled the shining gold, that did contemn The glorious opal as a meaner gem, The bosom's ivory apples, where, ah! where? Where now the neck to whiteness overwrought, That like a column with genteelest scorn Sustained the golden dome of virtuous thought? Gone! ah, for ever gone, To the chill desolate and dreary pall, And mine the grief--the wormwood and the gall! * * * Poor, lost Eliza! of thy locks of gold, One treasured ringlet in white silk I keep For ever at my heart, which, when unrolled, Fresh grief and pity o'er my spirit creep; And my insatiate eyes, for hours untold. O'er the dear pledge, will like an infant's, weep. With sighs more warm than fire anon I dry The tears from off it, number one by one The radiant hairs, and with a love-knot tie; Mine eyes, this duty done, Give over weeping, and with slight relief I taste a short forgetfulness of grief."

Although this quotation has run to a great lengthy I cannot refrain from adding the ode to the Flower of Gnido. It is more fanciful and airy, more original, yet more classic. Mr. Wiffen's translation also is very correct and beautiful, failing only in not preserving all the exquisite simplicity of the original; but that is a charm difficult indeed to transfer from one language to another. Of the subject of the ode we receive the following account from the commentators. "The title of this ode is derived from a quarter of a city of Naples called Il Seggio di Gnido, or the seat of Gnido, the favourite abode then of the people of fashion, in which also the lady lived, to whom the ode was addressed. This lady. Violante San Severino, a daughter of the duke of Soma, was courted by Fabio Galeota, a friend of Garcilaso in whose behalf the poem was written."

"TO THE FLOWER OF GNIDO.[20]

I.

Had I the sweet resounding lyre, Whose voice could in a moment chain The howling wind's ungoverned ire, And movement of the raging main, On savage hills the leopard rein, The lion's fiery soul entrance, And lead along with golden tones The fascinated trees and stones In voluntary dance;