e
In gallantries and escapades,
Anon became great friends of mine.
Yet was there sentiment with fun,
And oftentimes my tears would flow
At some quaint tale of valor done,
As told by my Boccaccio.

In boyish dreams I saw again
Bucolic belles and dames of court,
The princely youths and monkish men
Arrayed for sacrifice or sport.
Again I heard the nightingale
Sing as she sang those years ago
In his embowered Italian vale
To my revered Boccaccio.

And still I love that brown old book
I found upon the topmost shelf--
I love it so I let none look
Upon the treasure but myself!
And yet I have a strapping boy
Who (I have every cause to know)
Would to its full extent enjoy
The friendship of Boccaccio!

But boys are, oh! so different now
From what they were when I was one!
I fear my boy would not know how
To take that old raconteur's fun!
In your companionship, O friend,
I think it wise alone to go
Plucking the gracious fruits that bend
Wheree'er you lead, Boccaccio.

So rest you there upon the shelf,
Clad in your garb of faded brown;
Perhaps, sometime, my boy himself
Shall find you out and take you down.
Then may he feel the joy once more
That thrilled me, filled me years ago
When reverently I brooded o'er
The glories of Boccaccio!

Out upon the vile brood of imitators, I say! Get ye gone, ye Bandellos
and ye Straparolas and ye other charlatans who would fain possess
yourselves of the empire which the genius of Boccaccio bequeathed to
humanity. There is but one master, and to him we render grateful
homage. He leads us down through the cloisters of time, and at his
touch the dead become reanimate, and all the sweetness and the valor of
antiquity recur; heroism, love, sacrifice, tears, laughter, wisdom,
wit, philosophy, charity, and understanding are his auxiliaries;
humanity is his inspiration, humanity his theme, humanity his audience,
humanity his debtor.

Now it is of Tancred's daughter he tells, and now of Rossiglione's
wife; anon of the cozening gardener he speaks and anon of Alibech; of
what befell Gillette de Narbonne, of Iphigenia and Cymon, of Saladin,
of Calandrino, of Dianora and Ansaldo we hear; and what subject soever
he touches he quickens it into life, and he so subtly invests it with
that indefinable quality of his gen