The One of the Woollen Coat - Bucolic Verses

And no lover of Beauty could bypass
This dear young shepherd with his bright goat,
The Representation of the Mincio,

A boy who did not know yet the sorrow
Of elderness, of used bones and wrinkles,
Who although was born at times forgotten
Always looked like a seventeen year-old.

He had heavy locks, more like wheat than gold.
He possessed a tanned hue and cheeks rosy
Kissed by the Zephyre and brought salt onto.
Pink and sweet lips that parted easily
And never spoke a word that wasn't true.
Eyes of the most gentle green looked at you
With innocence, wonder, but thoughts clever.
Ears elegant curled around sounds that flew,
Voices of bards singing near his river.
His name was not chosen all hastily ;
A mantel of wool, bright wool that he made
With no sleeves, no tie, a rag only,
Was here on his back for twenty decades.

Yes, Mincio doesn't need flourishes,
His simplicity makes him lead his life
In a bucolic way ; he needs kisses.
Of course he would stay out of a strife
And rather sing his poetry to us
But his rhapsodies sometimes are inspired
Of the greatest deeds, a greater chorus,
Of a nation loved, of a man admired.
But Nature, Oh ! our Nature is his love
He likes no art more than simply swimming
Waterweeds tangling, and a light above :
His love is deep as his river in spring.
Not seeking the life of a magistrate
Not wanting glory, laurels, he prefers
To the harships of Rome his tenderer fate
To the men's presence the one of his curs.
In everything perfection is his aim,
His goal is to see his life as a poem,
But not everyone can be as artful
As Mincio's friend, the perfect Virgil.
Like Alexis, Mincio is cruel
Without consciousness, which makes it double.

He has Æneas' pietas, devotion,
But believes in no gods and no canon ;
His faith is towards the society
And how all the gods organizes it,
It is for Cæsar's crown of laurel
And for the white rose of the Church's circle,
For Hyacinthus and the flower he left,
For the martyrs' deaths that kept us bereft.

For his banks saw Attila's withdrawing
When the Pope convinced him in a meeting
To leave here ; Italy didn't want him.
Mincio looked at the scene with vim,
He turned towards his very dear friends
Bénaque & Eridan, rivers, godsends,
And smiled at the two. Bénaque was furious ;
Eridan was looking down, majestuous,
At a scene he despised, straight as a trunk
Until the Huns departed from the banks.
The great Eridan trusted only Nature.
Mincio looked back at the departure.
Way later again he was the witness
Of two new battles, four armies dauntless ;
There was the Victory of Monzambano
Set in Varese, near the small Pozzolo ;
Then young Mincio, in eighteen-fourteen,
Saw the Austrians fall and the French win.
It was something else, to see it in real
And he now needed rest, a truce, a lull,
It was something else, than reading a verse
Of the great Virgil, it was far more terse.

Now my dear reader, forget my English,
I sure did my best to make it goodish
But the French frog that I am isn't Virgil
And on words can just hope and gamble.
I will leave you now to meet and enjoy
Sweet Mincio ; no power has the boy
But a natural charm, a great beauty
That puts one on his knee to make him say 'Si !'