Page:Carducci - Poems of Italy.djvu/46

 the poet would have had the Consul put all aside when his true work—the humbling of the thrones, the giving of "concordant laws"—was done, and retire, a second Cincinnatus, to the "lonely house on the Aiaccian shore."  ""

One of Carducci's most delicate bits of impressionism. The glamour which the sun's "dying salutation" sheds on the grim towers and solemn church of dark-turreted Bologna, hangs like a golden haze over the whole poem; and in the last stanza one may feel the intensity of the poet's yearning for that antique beauty which has vanished with a vanished time.  ""

The Château of Miramar, from which the Archduke Maximilian of Austria set out on his ill-fated expedition to Mexico, is situated on the Adriatic, not far from Trieste. The "double gulf" (third stanza) consists of the Gulf of Venice and the Gulf of Trieste, which form practically one sheet of water; and the "turreted cities of the Istrian shore" (whose names I omitted in the translation as unnecessary) are Muggia, Pirano, Egida, and Parenzo. Huitzilopotli (stanza sixteen) is the Mexican god of war. In his own note to the original poem, Carducci explains the rather obscure allusions which occur in the ninth and 