from the songs of Robbie B.

Robert Burns is the premier poet of Scotland. On reading Burns' poems one realizes the debt master Robbie owes to the poets Fergusson, Goldsmith and Young. Outside of that Burns is his own man and no mean poet. Beside him so much of contemporary poetry is merely lush sluff. But I should not go on, everyone knows what I mean. Let Robert Burns sing for himself:

LOUIS, WHAT RECK I BY THEE?

Louis, what reck I by thee,
Or Geordie on his ocean?
Dyvour, beggar loons to me,--
I reign in Jennie's bosom!

Let her crown my love her law,
And in her breast enthrone me:
Kings and nations, swith awa!
Reif randies, I disown ye!

from Tasso

Torquato Tasso has long been regarded as one of the premier Italian Renaissance poets. He was born at Sorrento, on the southern shore of the Bay of Naples, not far from where a part of my own family originates. Born in 1544, Torquato was the son of Bernardo Tasso, himself an eminent poet, who was obliged through the misfortunes of a patron to leave his home in the kingdom of Naples, and his son was educated at Padua. It was in Padua that Torquato, at the age of eighteen, published a romantic poem called Rinaldo that brought him to the attention of the princes of Ferrara, the Este family. Stories circulated that he was infatuated with Leonora d'Este, or her sister Lucretia, but the truth suffers with time. Eventually Torquato came under the notice of the Inquisition, confessing to certain doubts of faith that were eventually dismissed as the illusions of hypochondria. Tasso died in 1595.

The Stout and Wise
Gerusalemme, x. 20.

Che sovente advien che 'l saggio e 'l forte
Fabro a se stesso e' di beata sorte.

They make their fortune who are stout and wise,
Wit rules the heavens, discretion guides the skies.

The Cautious Sailor

Claudius Claudianus

A Latin poet, flourished during the reign of Theodosius and
his sons Honorius and Arcadius, A.D. 395-408. The Roman
Senate ordered a statue erected in his honor, comparing him
to Virgil and Homer.

Cautior ante violentum navita Corum prospicit

In Eutorop. ii. 5.

"The cautious sailor sees long before the approach of the violent south-west wind."

I have used this quote by Claudianus as an opening to Irish Italian Poetry, and as an introductory statement. This is to be more than a place for Irish poetry written by an Irish poet or Italian poetry by an Italian, but a testament to what I think is beautiful and noteworthy regardless of origin.

We are intermixed in spirit, the Claudianus's and I. My origins are, I am told, as ancient as that of the hills of Rome itself, as windswept as the seaside cliffs of Eire, and as bonny as the sound of the pipes drifting over the Scottish highlands into the England countryside. I am all of these or I am none of these. For a poet there is no middle ground.

I endeavor to bring all of my experience and knowledge to bear in this simple enterprise of presenting to the reader small gifts from the past. There is enough that passes us that is pretentious in knowledge and no more beautiful than an old discarded pair of pants rejected even by the rag man.

I do not pretend to be a great literary person for I am not. My one and only goal is to include here what I find interesting and intellectually satisfying, and if I may, make this a refuge of peace and pleasantness among the thorns. No ideology here. I will leave it elsewhere and for another time.

Irish Italian Poet