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Page 19
Those courtly knights and sprightly maids,
Who really seemed disposed to shine
In gallantries and escapades,
Anon became great friends of mine.
Yet was there sentiment with fun,
And oftentimes my tears would flow
At some quaint tale of valor done,
As told by my Boccaccio.
In boyish dreams I saw again
Bucolic belles and dames of court,
The princely youths and monkish men
Arrayed for sacrifice or sport.
Again I heard the nightingale
Sing as she sang those years ago
In his embowered Italian vale
To my revered Boccaccio.
And still I love that brown old book
I found upon the topmost shelf--
I love it so I let none look
Upon the treasure but myself!
And yet I have a strapping boy
Who (I have every cause to know)
Would to its full extent enjoy
The friendship of Boccaccio!
But boys are, oh! so different now
From what they were when I was one!
I fear my boy would not know how
To take that old raconteur's fun!
In your companionship, O friend,
I think it wise alone to go
Plucking the gracious fruits that bend
Wheree'er you lead, Boccaccio.
So rest you there upon the shelf,
Clad in your garb of faded brown;
Perhaps, sometime, my boy himself
Shall find you out and take you down.
Then may he feel the joy once more
That thrilled me, filled me years ago
When reverently I brooded o'er
The glories of Boccaccio!
Out upon the vile brood of imitators, I say! Get ye gone, ye
Bandellos and ye Straparolas and ye other charlatans who would
fain possess yourselves of the empire which the genius of
Boccaccio bequeathed to humanity. There is but one master, and
to him we render grateful homage. He leads us down through the
cloisters of time, and at his touch the dead become reanimate,
and all the sweetness and the valor of antiquity recur; heroism,
love, sacrifice, tears, laughter, wisdom, wit, philosophy,
charity, and understanding are his auxiliaries; humanity is his
inspiration, humanity his theme, humanity his audience, humanity
his debtor.
Now it is of Tancred's daughter he tells, and now of
Rossiglione's wife; anon of the cozening gardener he speaks and
anon of Alibech; of what befell Gillette de Narbonne, of
Iphigenia and Cymon, of Saladin, of Calandrino, of Dianora and
Ansaldo we hear; and what subject soever he touches he quickens
it into life, and he so subtly invests it with that indefinable
quality of his genius as to attract thereunto not only our
sympathies but also our enthusiasm.
Yes, truly, he should be read with understanding; what author
should not? I would no more think of putting my Boccaccio into
the hands of a dullard than I would think of leaving a bright and
beautiful woman at the mercy of a blind mute.
I have hinted at the horror of the fate which befell Yseult
Hardynge in the seclusion of Mr. Henry Boggs's Lincolnshire
estate. Mr. Henry Boggs knew nothing of romance, and he cared
less; he was wholly incapable of appreciating a woman with dark,
glorious eyes and an expanding soul; I'll warrant me that he
would at any time gladly have traded a ``Decameron'' for a copy
of ``The Gentleman Poulterer,'' or for a year's subscription to
that grewsome monument to human imbecility, London ``Punch.''
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