It vindicates the emphatic reality and pesonality of Petrarch's love, after all, that when from these heights of vision he surveys and resurveys his life's long dream, it becomes to him more and more definite, as well as more poetic, and is farther and farther from a merely vague sentimentalism. In his later sonnets, Laura grows more distinctly individual to us; her traits show themselves as more characteristic, her temperament more intelligible, her precise influence upon Petrarch clearer. What delicate accuracy of delineation is seen, for instance, in this sonnet!
SONNET 314.
"Dolci durezze e placide repulse."
Gentle severity, repulses mild, Full of chaste love and pity sorrowing;Graceful rebukes, that had the power to bring Back to itself a heart by dreams beguiled;A soft-toned voice, whose accents undefiled Held sweet restraints, all duty honoring;The bloom of virtue; purity's clear spring To cleanse away base thoughts and passions wild; Divinest eyes to make a lover's bliss, Whether to bridle in the wayward mind Lest its wild wanderings should the pathway miss, Or else its griefs to soothe, its wounds to bind;This sweet completeness of thy life it is That saved my soul; no other peace I find.
In the following sonnet visions multiply upon visions. Would that one could transfer into English the delicious way in which the sweet Italian rhymes recur and surround and seem to embrace each other, and are woven and unwoven and interwoven, like the heavenly hosts that gathered around Laura.
SONNET 302.
"Gli angeli eletti."
The holy angels and the spirits blest, Celestial bands, upon that day serene When first my love went by in heavenly mien, Came thronging, wondering at the gracious guest.
"What light is here, in what new beauty drest?"They said among themselves; "for none has seen Within this age come wandering such a queen From darkened earth into immortal rest."And she, contented with her new-found bliss, Ranks with the purest in that upper sphere, Yet ever and anon looks back on this, To watch for me, as if for me she stayed.
So strive, my thoughts, lest that high path I miss.
I hear her call, and must not be delayed.
These odes and sonnets are all but parts of one symphony, leading us through a passion strengthened by years and only purified by death, until at last the graceful lay becomes an anthem and a Nunc dimittis. In the closing sonnets Petrarch withdraws from the world, and they seem like voices from a cloister, growing more and more solemn till the door is closed. This is one of the last:-SONNET 309.
"Dicemi spesso il mio fidato speglio."
Oft by my faithful mirror I am told, And by my mind outworn and altered brow, My earthly powers impaired and weakened now, "Deceive thyself no more, for thou art old!"Who strives with Nature's laws is over-bold, And Time to his commandments bids us bow.
Like fire that waves have quenched, I calmly vow In life's long dream no more my sense to fold.
And while I think, our swift existence flies, And none can live again earth's brief career, Then in my deepest heart the voice replies Of one who now has left this mortal sphere, But walked alone through earthly destinies, And of all women is to fame most dear.
How true is this concluding line! Who can wonder that women prize beauty, and are intoxicated by their own fascinations, when these fragile gifts are yet strong enough to outlast all the memories of statesmanship and war? Next to the immortality of genius is that which genius may confer upon the object of its love. Laura, while she lived, was simply one of a hundred or a thousand beautiful and gracious Italian women; she had her loves and aversions, joys and griefs; she cared dutifully for her household, and embroidered the veil which Petrarch loved; her memory appeared as fleeting and unsubstantial as that woven tissue. After five centuries we find that no armor of that iron age was so enduring. The kings whom she honored, the popes whom she revered are dust, and their memory is dust, but literature is still fragrant with her name. An impression which has endured so long is ineffaceable; it is an earthly immortality.
"Time is the chariot of all ages to carry men away, and beauty cannot bribe this charioteer." Thus wrote Petrarch in his Latin essays; but his love had wealth that proved resistless and for Laura the chariot stayed.
