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