NOTES ON BROWNING
441
"Ma vedi la un anima che posta
Sola soletta versa noi riguarda;
Quella ne'nsegneà la via più tosta.
Sola soletta versa noi riguarda;
Quella ne'nsegneà la via più tosta.
Venimmo a lei: O anima Lombarda,
Come ti stavi altera e disdegnosa,
E nel mover degli occhj onesta e tarda!
Come ti stavi altera e disdegnosa,
E nel mover degli occhj onesta e tarda!
Ella non ci diceva alcuna cosa,
Ma laciavene gir, solo guardando
A guisa di leon quando si posa."
Ma laciavene gir, solo guardando
A guisa di leon quando si posa."
"But look and mark that spirit posted there
Apart, alone, who gazes as we go;
He will instruct us how we best may fare.
Apart, alone, who gazes as we go;
He will instruct us how we best may fare.
We came to him: O Lombard spirit, lo,
What pride and scorn thy bearing then expressed,
The movement of thine eyes how firm and slow!
What pride and scorn thy bearing then expressed,
The movement of thine eyes how firm and slow!
No word at all he unto us addressed,
But let us pass, only regarding still
In manner of a lion when at rest."
But let us pass, only regarding still
In manner of a lion when at rest."
Yet no good judge who watched how strenuously this still youthful genius was wrestling with the difficult and almost indomitable subject-matter of "Sordello" could help foreseeing its triumphant mastery over whatever it might undertake when its slow strong growth should be fully mature. To my mind this thorough maturity was reached in the two volumes of "Men and Women," published in 1855. There had been previous poems mature as well as great; but in this collection, distributed under various headings in the six-volume edition of 1868, I found, and find, all the leading pieces mature; the fire burns intensely clear, completely consuming its own smoke.
