the counsel that we love one another—is that we wash away the literary rheum that fills our eyes and keeps from us the sight of things as they are. We Italians—and not we alone—are too literary, too polite. We are gentlemen even in the presence of nature, which asks no compliments. We are gentlemen even within the world of poetry, which asks no elegance. In our dried veins—sleek, feminine, civilian dilettantes that we are—we need a little of the blood of peasants, of mountaineers, of the rabble. It is not enough to “open our windows,” as Orsini said. We must go forth, leave the city, feel things and love things immediately, whether they be fair or foul. And we must express our love without respect of persons, without sweetish words, without metrical hair-splitting, without too much thought of the holy traditions, the honorable conventions, and the stupid rules of good society. If we would find again the poetry we have lost we must go back a little toward barbarism—even toward savagery.
If Walt Whitman does not teach us this at least, translations and interpretations will avail nothing.
