THE MAREMMA.
[“Nello della Pietra had espoused a lady of noble family at Sienna, named Madonna Pia. Her beauty was the admiration of Tuscany, and excited in the heart of her husband a jealousy, which, exasperated by false reports and groundless suspicions, at length drove him to the desperate resolution of Othello. It is difficult to decide whether the lady was quite innocent, but so Dante represents her. Her husband brought her into the Maremma, which, then as now, was a district destructive of health. He never told his unfortunate wife the reason of her banishment to so dangerous a country. He did not deign to utter complaint or accusation. He lived with her alone, in cold silence, without answering her questions, or listening to her remonstrances. He patiently waited till the pestilential air should destroy the health of this young lady. In a few months she died. Some chronicles, indeed, tell us that Nello used the dagger to hasten her death. It is certain that he survived her, plunged in sadness and perpetual silence. Dante had, in this incident, all the materials of an ample and very poetical narrative. But he bestows on it only four verses. He meets in Purgatory three spirits. One was a captain who fell fighting on the same side with him in the battle of Campaldino; the second, a gentleman assassinated by the treachery of the House of Este; the third was a woman unknown to the poet, and who, after the others had spoken, turned towards him with these words:—
Recorditi di me; che son la Pia,
Sienna mi fe, disfecerni Maremma,
Salsi colui che inanellata pria
Disposando m’ avea con la sua gemma.’”
Purgatorio, cant. v.
—Edinburgh Review, No. lvii.]
There are bright scenes beneath Italian skies,
Where glowing suns there purest light diffuse,
Uncultured flowers in wild profusion rise,
And nature lavishes her warmest hues;
But trust thou not her smile, her balmy breath—
Away! her charms are but the pomp of Death!
He in the vine-clad bowers, unseen, is dwelling,
Where the cool shade its freshness round thee throws;
His voice, in every perfumed zephyr swelling,
With gentlest whisper lures thee to repose;
And the soft sounds that through the foliage sigh
But woo thee still to slumber and to die.
Mysterious danger lurks, a syren there,
Not robed in terrors, or announced in gloom,
But stealing o’er thee in the scented air,
And veil’d in flowers, that smile to deck thy tomb;
How may we deem, amidst their deep array,
That heaven and earth but flatter to betray?
Sunshine, and bloom, and verdure! Can it be
That these but charm us with destructive wiles?
Where shall we turn, O Nature, if in thee
Danger is mask’d in beauty—death in smiles?
Oh! still the Circe of that fatal shore,
Where she, the Sun’s bright daughter, dwelt of yore!
There, year by year, that secret peril spreads,
Disguised in loveliness, its baleful reign,
And viewless blights o’er many a landscape sheds,
Gay with the riches of the south, in vain;
O’er fairy bowers and palaces of state
Passing unseen, to leave them desolate.
And pillar’d halls, whose airy colonnades
Were form’d to echo music’s choral tone,
Are silent now, amidst deserted shades,
Peopled by sculpture’s graceful forms alone;
And fountains dash unheard, by lone alcoves,
Neglected temples, and forsaken groves.
And there, where marble nymphs, in beauty gleaming,
Midst the deep shades of plane and cypress rise.
By wave or grot might Fancy linger, dreaming
Of old Arcadia’s woodland deities.
Wild visions!—there no sylvan powers convene:
Death reigns the genius of th’ Elysian scene.
Ye, too, illustrious hills of Rome! that bear
Traces of mightier beings on your brow,
O’er you that subtle spirit of the air
Extends the desert of his empire now;
Broods o’er the wrecks of altar, fane, and dome,
And makes the Cæsars’ ruin’d halls his home.
Youth, valour, beauty, oft have felt his power.
His crown’d and chosen victims: o’er their lot
Hath fond affection wept—each blighted flower
In turn was loved and mourn’d, and is forgot.
But one who perish’d, left a tale of woe,
Meet for as deep a sigh as pity can bestow.
A voice of music, from Sienna’s walls,
Is floating joyous on the summer air;
And there are banquets in her stately halls,
And graceful revels of the gay and fair,
And brilliant wreaths the altar have array’d,
Where meet her noblest youth and loveliest maid.
To that young bride each grace hath Nature given
Which glows on Art’s divinest dream: her eye
Hath a pure sunbeam of her native heaven—
Her cheek a tinge of morning’s richest dye;
Fair as that daughter of the south, whose form
Still breathes and charms, in Vinci’s colours warm.[195]
But is she blest?—for sometimes o’er her smile
A soft sweet shade of pensiveness is cast;
And in her liquid glance there seems awhile
To dwell some thought whose soul is with the past;
Yet soon it flies—a cloud that leaves no trace,
On the sky’s azure, of its dwelling-place.
Perchance, at times, within her heart may rise
Remembrance of some early love or woe,
Faded, yet scarce forgotten—in her eyes
Wakening the half-formed tear that may not flow,
Yet radiant seems her lot as aught on earth,
Where still some pining thought comes darkly o’er our mirth.
The world before her smiles—its changeful gaze
She hath not proved as yet; her path seems gay
With flowers and sunshine, and the voice of praise
Is still the joyous herald of her way;
And beauty’s light around her dwells, to throw
O’er every scene its own resplendent glow.
Such is the young Bianca—graced with all
That nature, fortune, youth, at once can give;
Pure in their loveliness, her looks recall
Such dreams as ne’er life’s early bloom survive;
And when she speaks, each thrilling tone is fraught
With sweetness, born of high and heavenly thought.
And he to whom are breathed her vows of faith
Is brave and noble—child of high descent,
He hath stood fearless in the ranks of death,
Mid slaughter’d heaps, the warrior’s monument;
And proudly marshall’d his carroccio’s[196] way
Amidst the wildest wreck of war’s array.
And his the chivalrous commanding mien,
Where high-born grandeur blends with courtly grace;
Yet may a lightning glance at times be seen,
Of fiery passions, darting o’er his face,
And fierce the spirit kindling in his eye—
But e’en while yet we gaze, its quick wild flashes die.
And calmly can Pietra smile, concealing,
As if forgotten, vengeance, hate, remorse;
And veil the workings of each darker feeling,
Deep in his soul concentrating its force;
But yet he loves—Oh! who hath loved, nor known
Affection’s power exalt the bosom all its own?
The days roll on—and still Bianca’s lot
Seems as a path of Eden. Thou mightst deem
That grief, the mighty chastener, had forgot
To wake her soul from life’s enchanted dream;
And, if her brow a moment’s sadness wear,
It sheds but grace more intellectual there.
A few short years, and all is changed; her fate
Seems with some deep mysterious cloud o’ercast.
Have jealous doubts transform’d to wrath and hate,
The love whose glow expression’s power surpass’d?
Lo! on Pietra’s brow a sullen gloom
Is gathering day by day, prophetic of her doom.
Oh! can he meet that eye, of light serene,
Whence the pure spirit looks in radiance forth,
And view that bright intelligence of mien
Form’d to express but thoughts of loftiest worth,
Yet deem that vice within that heart can reign?
—How shall he e’er confide in aught on earth again?
In silence oft, with strange vindictive gaze.
Transient, yet fill’d with meaning, stern and wild,
Her features, calm in beauty, he surveys,
Then turns away, and fixes on her child
So dark a glance as thrills a mother’s mind
With some vague fear scarce own’d, and undefined.
There stands a lonely dwelling, by the wave
Of the blue deep which bathes Italia’s shore,
Far from all sounds, but rippling seas that lave
Gray rocks with foliage richly shadow’d o’er,
And sighing winds, that murmur through the wood,
Fringing the beach of that Hesperian flood.
Fair is that house of solitude—and fair
The green Maremma, far around it spread,
A sun-bright waste of beauty; yet an air
Of brooding sadness o’er the scene is shed,
No human footstep tracks the lone domain,
The desert of luxuriance glows in vain.
And silent are the marble halls that rise
’Mid founts, and cypress walks and olive groves:
All sleep in sunshine, ’neath cerulean skies,
And still around the sea-breeze lightly roves;
Yet every trace of man reveals alone,
That there life once hath flourish’d—and is gone.
There, till around them slowly, softly stealing,
The summer air, deceit in every sigh,
Came fraught with death, its power no sign revealing,
Thy sires, Pietra, dwelt in days gone by;
And strains of mirth and melody have flow’d
Where stands, all voiceless now, the still abode.
And thither doth her Lord remorseless bear
Bianca with her child. His alter’d eye
And brow a stern and fearful calmness wear,
While his dark spirit seals their doom—to die;
And the deep bodings of his victim’s heart
Tell her from fruitless hope at once to part.
It is the summer’s glorious prime—and blending
Its blue transparence with the skies, the deep,
Each tint of heaven upon its breast descending,
Scarce murmurs as it heaves in glassy sleep,
And on its wave reflects, more softly bright,
That lovely shore of solitude and light.
Fragrance in each warm southern gale is breathing,
Deck’d with young flowers the rich Maremma glows,
Neglected vines the trees are wildly wreathing,
And the fresh myrtle in exuberance blows,
And, far around, a deep and sunny bloom
Mantles the scene, as garlands robe the tomb.
Yes! ’tis thy tomb, Bianca! fairest flower!
The voice that calls thee speaks in every gale,
Which, o’er thee breathing with insidious power,
Bids the young roses of thy cheek turn pale;
And fatal in its softness, day by day,
Steals from that eye some trembling spark away.
But sink not yet; for there are darker woes,
Daughter of Beauty! in thy spring-morn fading—
Sufferings more keen for thee reserved, than those
Of lingering death, which thus thine eye are shading!
Nerve then thy heart to meet that bitter lot:
’Tis agony—but soon to be forgot!
What deeper pangs maternal hearts can wring,
Than hourly to behold the spoiler’s breath
Shedding, as mildews on the bloom of spring,
O’er Infancy’s fair cheek the blight of death?
To gaze and shrink, as gathering shades o’ercast
The pale smooth brow, yet watch it to the last!
Such pangs were thine, young mother! Thou didst bend
O’er thy fair boy, and raise his drooping head;
And faint and hopeless, far from every friend,
Keep thy sad midnight vigils near his bed,
And watch his patient, supplicating eye
Fix’d upon thee—on thee!—who couldst no aid supply!
There was no voice to cheer thy lonely woe
Through those dark hours: to thee the wind’s low sigh,
And the faint murmur of the ocean’s flow,
Came like some spirit whispering—“He must die!”
And thou didst vainly clasp him to the breast,
His young and sunny smile so oft with hope had blest.
’Tis past—that fearful trial!—he is gone!
But thou, sad mourner! hast not long to weep;
The hour of nature’s charter’d peace comes on,
And thou shalt share thine infant’s holy sleep.
A few short sufferings yet—and death shall be
As a bright messenger from heaven to thee.
But ask not—hope not—one relenting thought
From him who doom’d thee thus to waste away,
Whose heart, with sullen, speechless vengeance fraught,
Broods in dark triumph o’er thy slow decay;
And coldly, sternly, silently can trace
The gradual withering of each youthful grace.
And yet the day of vain remorse shall come,
When thou, bright victim! on his dreams shalt rise
As an accusing angel—and thy tomb,
A martyr’s shrine, be hallow’d in his eyes!
Then shall thine innocence his bosom wring,
More than thy fancied guilt with jealous pangs could sting.
Lift thy meek eyes to heaven—for all on earth,
Young sufferer! fades before thee. Thou art lone:
Hope, Fortune, Love, smiled brightly on thy birth,
Thine hour of death is all Affliction’s own!
It is our task to suffer—and our fate
To learn that mighty lesson, soon or late.
The season’s glory fades—the vintage lay
Through joyous Italy resounds no more;
But mortal loveliness hath pass’d away,
Fairer than aught in summer’s glowing store.
Beauty and youth are gone—behold them such
As death hath made them with his blighting touch!
The summer’s breath came o’er them—and they died!
Softly it came to give luxuriance birth,
Call’d forth young nature in her festal pride,
But bore to them their summons from the earth!
Again shall blow that mild, delicious breeze,
And wake to life and light all flowers—but these.
No sculptured urn, nor verse thy virtues telling,
O lost and loveliest one! adorns thy grave;
But o’er that humble cypress-shaded dwelling
The dew-drops glisten and the wild-flowers wave—
Emblems more meet, in transient light and bloom,
For thee, who thus didst pass in brightness to the tomb!
[195] An allusion to Leonardo da Vinci’s picture of his wife Mona Lisa, supposed to be the most perfect imitation of nature ever exhibited in painting.
[196] A sort of consecrated war-chariot.