Mouth of the Serchio

Gabriele d'Annunzio may be better known now as a precursor of Mussolini than a poet and so I hesitate to write a blog post about Halcyon (1903), even if it is his most widely admired book. But as J. G. Nichols says in his introduction, there are hardly any signs here of what he was to become. The eighty-eight lyrics form a 'solar diary' inspired by the Tuscan summers he spent with his lover, the world-famous actress Eleonora Duse. In Lucy Hughes-Hallett's fascinating d'Annunzio biography The Pike, she describes him writing lyrics of 'limpid elegance' while swimming and riding on the beach; on one unfortunate occasion he fell from his horse, although as he bathed his bleeding face in the sea he got the idea for a poem about a sea nymph. Halcyon drew on 'the Tuscan landscapes around him, all gilded by his imagination, stripped of intrusive modern buildings and vulgar modern people, and inhabited instead by nymphs and gods and hybrid mythological creatures.' She is right about this, but no doubt you could read about contemporary Tuscany elsewhere. Halcyon is set in that sunlit and timeless Mediterranean of the mind that will always appeal to those of us living in grey northern cities. 

About halfway through Halcyon there is a poem called 'Mouth of the Serchio' in the form of a dialogue between two riders which vividly conveys their sensual pleasure in this landscape. You really need to read the poem or a translation but I'll briefly summarise it here. A youth, Ardi (possibly modelled on one of the poet's sons), and a writer, Glauco (d'Annunzio), are riding naked through a pine forest. Ardi's legs have been scratched by brambles, but Glauco reassures him that his blood looks splendid... The scent of juniper and pine needles is like the wine of Summer. They come to a glade where resin on the red pines resembles amber, myrtle shines like polished metal and 'everything shakes and sparkles.' They talk a while and then ride on, seeking signs of the Serchio River, but slowing down, so as to prolong the pleasure of anticipation. When they arrive they offer to it their hot horses and their own bodies. Finally Glauco addresses the Serchio. 'You are a god', he says, 'and we are mortal.  / But we shall cleave your current in our course. / True joy is always on the other bank.'

The Serchio flows from the Apennines through northern Tuscany, over the plain of Lucca and into the Tyrrhenian Sea. It is by no means the only river in Halcyon...

Tributaries of the Arno

At the mouth of the Arno, 'the colour of honey', d'Annunzio thinks of its tributaries with their rhyming names, the Pescia and Era, Oesa and Elsa, Greve and Sieve. Further upstream, the cool soft rills of  'Casentino's verdant hills' flow through 'polished stones, bright clays' and 'ponds surrounded by young willows.' As he contemplates the whole course of the river, from mountains to sea, night falls and the Arno flows on quietly, gleaming through poplars. 

Affrico

Another tributary of the Arno, flowing between Fiesole and Florence, which d'Annunzio writes about in a poem with a title that reminds me of Chinese poetry: 'By the side of the Affrico on an evening in June after rain'. Here the black and white swallows fly low over the wet grass 'and pleasure seems to make / the flight itself into a sort of blue.' 

Loricino

A small river in Lazio that is described in 'The flock and the herd', one of his lovely 'Dreams of Distant Places'. It is fringed with emerald reeds and has 'almost-rosy sand' which d'Annunzio likens to his greyhound's palate. Here too there are swallows, who 'fly above that fragile glass / delighting as they shatter it with white / breasts.' 

Ticino

Another river in the 'Dreams of Distant Places' which is described in a poem about hunting, 'The pack'. It flows through shrubs and scattered thickets to 'a dam of rosy granite', where it descends in foam and froth. The poem ends with the pack heading home and moors growing 'misty as the stream exhales'. 

Motrone

This is a stream that enters the Tyrrhenian Sea near Marina di Pietrasanta. Syrinx was the nymph changed into a reed whilst fleeing from Pan and in one of his 'Summer Madrigals', d'Annunzio discovers his own 'savage nymph' on a hot August day 'in the reeds of Motrone's clay'. Her saliva and scent are like marjoram and mint. Thunder crackles. And then rain falls, warm as blood.