Page:Carducci - Poems of Italy.djvu/23

 form and subject, one creed; his actions, often contradictory in appearance, spring from one source. He is always the poet—the challenger of the world's smallnesses, compromises, hypocrisies; the seeker after the beautiful, the high, the true, whether found in king's palace or peasant's hut, in Christian church or pagan temple. Because the Papacy appears to him a thing of corruption and tyranny, he turns from the dark cathedral to the boundless purity of the open air and the arms of the great earth-mother. Because, in the early days, Vittorio Emanuele presents himself as the symbol of Italy's salvation, he sings the Cross of Savoy; the monarchy, triumphant, grows careless of its ideals, and Carducci passes to the Republicans with "After Aspromonte;" the great personalities that had been the glory of the Republican party disappear, the standard is lowered, and he draws near once more to the throne that has been sanctioned by the people's voice. It is with spiritual values, not with external forms, that he concerns himself; and in one of the prose essays, "Raccoglimenti," he gives us the key to his attitude.

"The poet should not feel himself obliged to