_Love is the Minstrel; for in God’s own sight, The master of all melody, he stands, And holds a golden rebeck in his hands, And leads the chorus of the saints in light; But ever and anon those chambers bright Detain him not, for down to these low lands He flies, and spreads his musical commands, And teaches men some fresh divine delight. For with his bow he strikes a single chord Across a soul, and wakes in it desire To grow more pure and lovely, and aspire To that ethereal country where, outpoured From myriad stars that stand before the Lord, Love’s harmonies are like a flame of fire._ _If I am aught, it is Love’s miracle, He to rough mass gave shape with forming file; He, as youth bloomed in April’s sunny smile, Came through the eyes within the heart to dwell. My Lord and Master he, who bade expel All sordid thought and apprehension vile, Sweetness bestowed on rude unmellowed style, And melody that shall be memorable. My spirit at his call her pinions bent To wing the heavenly realm where Time is not; From star to star he beckoned, and she went: By him my heart hath chosen for her lot True honour whose renown shall ne’er be spent; If aught my soul hath borne, ’twas he begot._ Poets are often found to be gregarious. Redi had two chief friends at the Tuscan court--Menzini, of whom we shall have to speak, and Filicaja, who in an unpoetical age raised the Italian lyric to as great a height as it had ever attained in the Cinque Cento. VINCENZO FILICAJA (1642-1707) is one of the highest examples the world has seen of the academical poet, the man who is rarely hurried away by the god, but who seriously and perseveringly follows poetry as an art, in whose breast the sacred fire is always burning, but always needing to be stirred up. A grave, just magistrate, and a deeply religious man, he was well constituted to sing events of such importance to the Christian commonwealth as the deliverance of Vienna by Sobieski, and, from his point of view, the conversion of Queen Christina. Tender, affectionate, and carrying with him the life-long wound of an unfortunate passion, he was no less qualified to be the laureate of domestic sorrow, while his elevation of mind lent uncommon dignity to many of his occasional pieces, especially his sonnets. If only his scrolls smelt less of the lamp he might deserve Macaulay’s exaggerated praise as the greatest lyrist of modern times, supposing this expression to denote the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.