Seven Sonnets and a Canzone

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow * Track #317 On The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Album The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Seven Sonnets and a Canzone by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Seven Sonnets and a Canzone Annotated

I

THE ARTIST

Nothing the greatest artist can conceive
&nbsp That every marble block doth not confine
&nbsp Within itself; and only its design
&nbsp The hand that follows intellect can achieve.
The ill I flee, the good that I believe,
&nbsp In thee, fair lady, lofty and divine,
&nbsp Thus hidden lie; and so that death be mine
&nbsp Art, of desired success, doth me bereave.
Love is not guilty, then, nor thy fair face,
&nbsp Nor fortune, cruelty, nor great disdain,
&nbsp Of my disgrace, nor chance, nor destiny,
If in thy heart both death and love find place
&nbsp At the same time, and if my humble brain,
&nbsp Burning, can nothing draw but death from thee.

II

FIRE

Not without fire can any workman mould
&nbsp The iron to his preconceived design,
&nbsp Nor can the artist without fire refine
&nbsp And purify from all its dross the gold;
Nor can revive the phoenix, we are told,
&nbsp Except by fire. Hence if such death be mine
&nbsp I hope to rise again with the divine,
&nbsp Whom death augments, and time cannot make old.
O sweet, sweet death! O fortunate fire that burns
&nbsp Within me still to renovate my days,
&nbsp Though I am almost numbered with the dead!
If by its nature unto heaven returns
&nbsp This element, me, kindled in its blaze,
&nbsp Will it bear upward when my life is fled.

III

YOUTH AND AGE

Oh give me back the days when loose and free
&nbsp To my blind passion were the curb and rein,
&nbsp Oh give me back the angelic face again,
&nbsp With which all virtue buried seems to be!
Oh give my panting footsteps back to me,
&nbsp That are in age so slow and fraught with pain,
&nbsp And fire and moisture in the heart and brain,
&nbsp If thou wouldst have me burn and weep for thee!
If it be true thou livest alone, Amor,
&nbsp On the sweet-bitter tears of human hearts,
&nbsp In an old man thou canst not wake desire;
Souls that have almost reached the other shore
&nbsp Of a diviner love should feel the darts,
&nbsp And be as tinder to a holier fire.

IV

OLD AGE

The course of my long life hath reached at last,
&nbsp In fragile bark o'er a tempestuous sea,
&nbsp The common harbor, where must rendered be
&nbsp Account of all the actions of the past.
The impassioned phantasy, that, vague and vast,
&nbsp Made art an idol and a king to me,
&nbsp Was an illusion, and but vanity
&nbsp Were the desires that lured me and harassed.
The dreams of love, that were so sweet of yore,
&nbsp What are they now, when two deaths may be mine,—
&nbsp One sure, and one forecasting its alarms?
Painting and sculpture satisfy no more
&nbsp The soul now turning to the Love Divine,
&nbsp That oped, to embrace us, on the cross its arms.

V
TO VITTORIA COLONNA

Lady, how can it chance—yet this we see
&nbsp In long experience—that will longer last
&nbsp A living image carved from quarries vast
&nbsp Than its own maker, who dies presently?
Cause yieldeth to effect if this so be,
&nbsp And even Nature is by Art at surpassed;
&nbsp This know I, who to Art have given the past,
&nbsp But see that Time is breaking faith with me.
Perhaps on both of us long life can I
&nbsp Either in color or in stone bestow,
&nbsp By now portraying each in look and mien;
So that a thousand years after we die,
&nbsp How fair thou wast, and I how full of woe,
&nbsp And wherefore I so loved thee, may be seen.

VI

TO VITTORIA COLONNA

When the prime mover of my many sighs
&nbsp Heaven took through death from out her earthly place,
&nbsp Nature, that never made so fair a face,
&nbsp Remained ashamed, and tears were in all eyes.
O fate, unheeding my impassioned cries!
&nbsp O hopes fallacious! O thou spirit of grace,
&nbsp Where art thou now? Earth holds in its embrace
&nbsp Thy lovely limbs, thy holy thoughts the skies.
Vainly did cruel death attempt to stay
&nbsp The rumor of thy virtuous renown,
&nbsp That Lethe's waters could not wash away!
A thousand leaves, since he hath stricken thee down,
&nbsp Speak of thee, nor to thee could Heaven convey,
&nbsp Except through death, a refuge and a crown.

VII

DANTE

What should be said of him cannot be said;
&nbsp By too great splendor is his name attended;
&nbsp To blame is easier those who him offended,
&nbsp Than reach the faintest glory round him shed.
This man descended to the doomed and dead
&nbsp For our instruction; then to God ascended;
&nbsp Heaven opened wide to him its portals splendid,
&nbsp Who from his country's, closed against him, fled.
Ungrateful land! To its own prejudice
&nbsp Nurse of his fortunes; and this showeth well,
&nbsp That the most perfect most of grief shall see.
Among a thousand proofs let one suffice,
&nbsp That as his exile hath no parallel,
&nbsp Ne'er walked the earth a greater man than he.

VIII

CANZONE

Ah me! ah me! when thinking of the years,
The vanished years, alas, I do not find
Among them all one day that was my own!
Fallacious hope; desires of the unknown,
Lamenting, loving, burning, and in tears
(For human passions all have stirred my mind),
Have held me, now I feel and know, confined
Both from the true and good still far away.
I perish day by day;
The sunshine fails, the shadows grow more dreary,
And I am near to fail, infirm and weary

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