In many respects D’Annunzio presents a strong affinity to Keats; but to the innocent sensuousness which rejoices in the reproduction of sumptuous beauty, he adds that which purposely ministers to voluptuousness. This might be forgiven as the failing of a youthful and ardent poet, and becomes, indeed, much less obtrusive in his later poetical writings. The misfortune is that nothing seems to be taking its place. Had years brought D’Annunzio “the philosophic mind,” had his third volume compared with its predecessors as _Locksley Hall_ and _In Memoriam_ compare with the _Lotus Eaters_, he would be at the head, not merely of Italian, but of European poets. His most recent productions, while indicating, as must almost inevitably be the case, an impoverishment of the merely sensuous opulence of his youth, manifest but slight advance in power of thought, in dignity of utterance, in human or national sympathies, in anything that discriminates the noon of poetical power from its morning. The _Canto Novo_ (1881) and the _Intermezzo_ (1883) were a splendid dawn; and _L’Isotteo_ (1885) and _La Chimera_ (1888) revealed further development, not indeed in power of thought, but in objectivity and in mastery of form. Much of all these volumes is mere voluptuous dreaming, but the pictures of nature are marvellously vivid; such pieces as the little unrhymed lyric of twelve lines, _O falce di luna calante_, reveal the natural magic which is perhaps the rarest endowment of genius; and the melody is such as is only granted to a true poet. In the _Poema Paradisiaco_, the joy of life is evidently on the wane, and, except in a few pieces of exquisite pathos, such as _Consolazione_, seems in danger of being replaced, not by a nobler and more serious theory of life, but by the worst kind of pessimism, that born of mere satiety. The most recent poems, the _Odi Navali_ (1893), though patriotic in theme, appear tame and artificial in comparison with earlier work. The epilogue to the _Poema Paradisiaco_, nevertheless, argues progress in the right direction, and leaves room to hope that D’Annunzio may yet take rank not merely with poets eminent for melody, fancy, and imagination, but with those who have counted among the shaping forces of their time. The general impression of D’Annunzio’s poetry is one of dazzling splendour and intoxicating perfume. The poet seems determined to leave no sense ungratified, and not to omit a hue, an odour, or a cadence that can by any possibility be pressed into his service. It says much for the genuineness of his poetical faculty that he should actually be able to perform this without falling into extravagance; but although his lavish luxury of phrase and description is kept within the limits of taste, the too uniform splendour satiates and fatigues. Mr. Greene’s translations in his Italian Lyrists convey a very good notion of D’Annunzio’s most usual manner. The following sonnet may serve as a specimen:--