Italy’s Most Picturesque Poet

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 797, 18 October 1929, Page 16

Italy’s Most Picturesque Poet

D’ANNUNZIO. PRINCE AND PATRIOT

TVANNUNZIO is, undoubtedly, the most interesting figure in Italian literary life today. Followed and fought, loved and hated with an intensity that very few other writers ever aroused around them, he, now past his prime, is still at his post ( writes F. M. Gualtieri). From his pen still come pages which have all the force of the first writings. His life has been so full of activity and experience that it surprises, almost, how he had time and serenity to write all the works he did. D’Annunzio was born in Pescara on March 12, 1863. In 1897 he was elected member of the Italian Parliament, and swore loyalty to the Conservatives. But a few days later, in the Chamber, he rose from his seat and said: "Here is death; there—pointing to the Socialist benches —is life.” I, as a man of intellect, go toward life.” And so he deserted his party. At this time an American magazine asked him, through the head of the Associated Press in Rome, if he was willing to write a series of articles. “I will write them,” he said. "But at what price?” “Twenty thousand dollars for each article.” “That is prohibitive!” “It is just what I mean them to be,” ended up the poet with his shining smile. When, some time ago, the great Canadian tenor, Edward Johnson, produced at La Scala in Milan, D’Annunzio’s masterpieces “La Nave” and “Phaedra," the poet sent him his picture with the following words: "To Edward Johnson who, with his heroic breath, vivified Ippolito, master of horses, and Marco Gratica, subjugator of tempests.” When the war broke out he was in France, desert of his temptations; he came back in May, 1915, to deliver on tiie Rock of Quarto, near Genoa, the •ommemorative address of Garibaldi’s famous expedition of the One Thousand. Cn that occasion he spoke of the j.ecessity on Italy’s part to join the war with the Allies. Repeating an old attempt to bring in, literature some reminiscences of the Gospel, he delivered to the people the beatitudes of his country. He said: "Blessed are those who are twenty years of age, because they can serve their country; blessed are those who have more, because they can give more.” What he did during the Great War assumes the proportion of legend. He served in all the armies; and certainly no other commander, in no other front, with his example and words, stirred a greater enthusiasm for the common cause.

When in the fall of 1917 the Italian Army suffered the great 'reverse at Caporetto. it seemed as if all Italy’s hopes had been, scatterd. In those days he gathered around him the officers serving at the front, and said to them in a faltering voice:

"And now what shall we do? Some of you have grown pale, unless the little sight 1 have left be failing me. Behold, all that love is overcome by au infinite wave of blood, is carried away by a flood that seems without source and without end like the flow of eternity. If that was love, what can this be which tortures and multiplies us? If that was sacrifice, what test is being asked of us today? What are we about to give? Dying is not enough. If dying means to desist from fighting, then we cannot die. We must rise up again.”