Chapter LXXVII: The Blood of Christ

_Mentre m' attrista._

Mid weariness and woe I find some cheer
In thinking of the past, when I recall
My weakness and my sins, and reckon all
The vain expense of days that disappear:
This cheers by making, ere I die, more clear
The frailty of what men delight miscall;
But saddens me to think how rarely fall
God's grace and mercies in life's latest year.
For though Thy promises our faith compel,
Yet, Lord, what man shall venture to maintain
That pity will condone our long neglect?
Still from Thy blood poured forth we know full well
How without measure was Thy martyr's pain,
How measureless the gifts we dare expect.

THE SONNETS OF TOMMASO CAMPANELLA

I.

_THE PROEM._

_Io che nacqui dal Senno._

Born of God's Wisdom and Philosophy,
Keen lover of true beauty and true good,
I call the vain self-traitorous multitude
Back to my mother's milk; for it is she,
Faithful to God her spouse, who nourished me,
Making me quick and active to intrude
Within the inmost veil, where I have viewed
And handled all things in eternity.
If the whole world's our home where we may run,
Up, friends, forsake those secondary schools
Which give grains, units, inches for the whole!
If facts surpass mere words, melt pride of soul,
And pain, and ignorance that hardens fools,
Here in the fire I've stolen from the Sun!

II.

_TO THE POETS._

_In superbia il valor._

Valour to pride hath turned; grave holiness
To vile hypocrisy; all gentle ways
To empty forms; sound sense to idle lays;
Pure love to heat; beauty to paint and dress:--
Thanks to you, Poets! you who sing the praise
Of fabled knights, foul fires, lies, nullities;
Not virtue, nor the wrapped sublimities
Of God, as bards were wont in those old days.
How far more wondrous than your phantasies
Are Nature's works, how far more sweet to sing!
Thus taught, the soul falsehood and truth descries.
That tale alone is worth the pondering,
Which hath not smothered history in lies,
And arms the soul against each sinful thing.

III.

_THE UNIVERSE._

_Il mondo è un animal._

The world's a living creature, whole and great,
God's image, praising God whose type it is;
We are imperfect worms, vile families,
That in its belly have our low estate.
If we know not its love, its intellect,
Neither the worm within my belly seeks
To know me, but his petty mischief wreaks:--
Thus it behoves us to be circumspect.
Again, the earth is a great animal,
Within the greatest; we are like the lice
Upon its body, doing harm as they.
Proud men, lift up your eyes; on you I call:
Measure each being's worth; and thence be wise;
Learning what part in the great scheme you play!

IV.

_THE SOUL._

_Dentro un pugno di cervel._

A handful of brain holds me: I consume
So much that all the books the world contains,
Cannot allay my furious famine-pains:--
What feasts were mine! Yet hunger is my doom.
With one world Aristarchus fed my greed;
This finished, others Metrodorus gave;
Yet, stirred by restless yearning, still I crave:
The more I know, the more to learn I need.
Thus I'm an image of that Sire in whom
All beings are, like fishes in the sea;
That one true object of the loving mind.
Reasoning may reach Him, like a shaft shot home;
The Church may guide; but only blest is he
Who loses self in God, God's self to find.

V.

_THE BOOK OF NATURE._

_Il mondo è il libro._

The world's the book where the eternal Sense
Wrote his own thoughts; the living temple where,
Painting his very self, with figures fair
He filled the whole immense circumference.
Here then should each man read, and gazing find
Both how to live and govern, and beware
Of godlessness; and, seeing God all-where,
Be bold to grasp the universal mind.
But we tied down to books and temples dead,
Copied with countless errors from the life,--
These nobler than that school sublime we call.
O may our senseless souls at length be led
To truth by pain, grief, anguish, trouble, strife!
Turn we to read the one original!

VI.

_AN EXHORTATION TO MANKIND._

_Abitator del mondo._

Ye dwellers on this world, to the first Mind
Exalt your eyes; and ye shall see how low
Vile Tyranny, wearing the glorious show
Of nobleness and worth, keeps you confined.
Then look at proud Hypocrisy, entwined
With lies and snares, who once taught men to know
The fear of God. Next to the Sophists go,
Traitors to thought and reason, jugglers blind.
Keen Socrates to quell the Sophists came:
To quell the Tyrants, Cato just and rough:
To quell the Hypocrites, Christ, heaven's own flame.
But to unmask fraud, sacrilege, and lies,
Or boldly rush on death, is not enough;
Unless we all taste God, made inly wise.

VII.

_THE BROOD OF IGNORANCE._

_Io nacqui a debellar._

To quell three Titan evils I was made,--
Tyranny, Sophistry, Hypocrisy;
Whence I perceive with what wise harmony
Themis on me Love, Power, and Wisdom laid.
These are the basements firm whereon is stayed,
Supreme and strong, our new philosophy;
The antidotes against that trinal lie
Wherewith the burdened world groaning is weighed.
Famine, war, pestilence, fraud, envy, pride,
Injustice, idleness, lust, fury, fear,
Beneath these three great plagues securely hide.
Grounded on blind self-love, the offspring dear
Of Ignorance, they flourish and abide:--
Wherefore to root up Ignorance I'm here!

VIII.

_SELF-LOVE._

_Credulo il proprio amor._

Self-love fools man with false opinion
That earth, air, water, fire, the stars we see,
Though stronger and more beautiful than we,
Feel nought, love not, but move for us alone.
Then all the tribes of earth except his own
Seem to him senseless, rude--God lets them be:
To kith and kin next shrinks his sympathy,
Till in the end loves only self each one.
Learning he shuns that he may live at ease;
And since the world is little to his mind,
God and God's ruling Forethought he denies.
Craft he calls wisdom; and, perversely blind,
Seeking to reign, erects new deities:
At last 'I make the Universe!' he cries.

IX.

_LOVE OF SELF AND GOD._

_Questo amor singolar._

This love of self sinks man in sinful sloth:
Yet, if he seek to live, he needs must feign
Sense, goodness, courage. Thus he dwells in pain,
A sphinx, twy-souled, a false self-stunted growth.
Honours, applause, and wealth these torments soothe;
Till jealousy, contrasting his foul stain
With virtues eminent, by spur and rein
Drives him to slay, steal, poison, break his oath.
But he who loves our common Father, hath
All men for brothers, and with God doth joy
In whatsoever worketh for their bliss.
Good Francis called the birds upon his path
Brethren; to him the fishes were not coy.--
Oh, blest is he who comprehendeth this!

X.

_EARTHLY AND DIVINE LOVE._

_Se Dio ci dà la vita._

God gives us life, and God our life preserves;
Nay, all our happiness on Him doth rest:
Why then should love of God inflame man's breast
Less than his lady and the lord he serves?
Through mean and wanton ignorance he swerves,
And worships a false Good, divinely dressed;
Love cannot soar to what it never guessed,
But stoops its flight, and the thralled soul unnerves.
Here too is man deceived. He yields his own
To spend on others. Yet in vile delight
God's splendour still shines through love's earthliness.
But we embrace the loss, the lure alone
Love fools us with. That glimpse of heavenly light,
That foretaste of eternal Good, we miss.