I loved all Solitude—but little thought
To spend I know not what of life, remote
From all communion with existence, save
The maniac and his tyrant;—had I been
Their fellow, many years ere this had seen
My mind like theirs corrupted to its grave.[bh]
But who hath seen me writhe, or heard me rave?180
Perchance in such a cell we suffer more
Than the wrecked sailor on his desert shore;
The world is all before him—mine is here,
Scarce twice the space they must accord my bier.
What though he perish, he may lift his eye,
And with a dying glance upbraid the sky;
I will not raise my own in such reproof,
Although 'tis clouded by my dungeon roof.
VIII.
Yet do I feel at times my mind decline,[186]
But with a sense of its decay: I see190
Unwonted lights along my prison shine,
And a strange Demon,[187] who is vexing me
With pilfering pranks and petty pains, below
The feeling of the healthful and the free;
But much to One, who long hath suffered so,
Sickness of heart, and narrowness of place,
And all that may be borne, or can debase.
I thought mine enemies had been but Man,
But Spirits may be leagued with them—all Earth
Abandons—Heaven forgets me;—in the dearth200
Of such defence the Powers of Evil can—
It may be—tempt me further,—and prevail
Against the outworn creature they assail.
Why in this furnace is my spirit proved,
Like steel in tempering fire? because I loved?
Because I loved what not to love, and see,
Was more or less than mortal, and than me.
IX.
I once was quick in feeling—that is o'er;—
My scars are callous, or I should have dashed
My brain against these bars, as the sun flashed210
In mockery through them;—- If I bear and bore
The much I have recounted, and the more
Which hath no words,—'t is that I would not die
And sanction with self-slaughter the dull lie
Which snared me here, and with the brand of shame
Stamp Madness deep into my memory,
And woo Compassion to a blighted name,
Sealing the sentence which my foes proclaim.
No—it shall be immortal!—and I make
A future temple of my present cell,220
Which nations yet shall visit for my sake.[bi]
While thou, Ferrara! when no longer dwell
The ducal chiefs within thee, shall fall down,
And crumbling piecemeal view thy hearthless halls,
A Poet's wreath shall be thine only crown,—
A Poet's dungeon thy most far renown,
While strangers wonder o'er thy unpeopled walls!
And thou, Leonora!—thou—who wert ashamed
That such as I could love—who blushed to hear
To less than monarchs that thou couldst be dear,230
Go! tell thy brother, that my heart, untamed
By grief—years—weariness—and it may be
A taint of that he would impute to me—
From long infection of a den like this,
Where the mind rots congenial with the abyss,—
Adores thee still;—and add—that when the towers
And battlements which guard his joyous hours
Of banquet, dance, and revel, are forgot,
Or left untended in a dull repose,
This—this—shall be a consecrated spot!240
But Thou—when all that Birth and Beauty throws
Of magic round thee is extinct—shalt have
One half the laurel which o'ershades my grave.[188]
No power in death can tear our names apart,
As none in life could rend thee from my heart.[bj]
Yes, Leonora! it shall be our fate
To be entwined[189] for ever—but too late![190]
FOOTNOTES:
[173] {141}[A MS. of the Gerusalemme is preserved and exhibited at Sir John Soane's Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields.]
[174] [The original MS. of this poem is dated, "The Apennines, April 20, 1817.">[
[175] {143}[The MS. of the Lament of Tasso corresponds, save in three lines where alternate readings are superscribed, verbatim et literatim with the text. A letter dated August 21, 1817, from G. Polidori to John Murray, with reference to the translation of the Lament into Italian, and a dedicatory letter (in Polidori's handwriting) to the Earl of Guilford, dated August 3, 1817, form part of the same volume.]
[176] [In a letter written to his friend Scipio Gonzaga ("Di prizione in Sant' Anna, questo mese di mezzio l'anno 1579"), Tasso exclaims, "Ah, wretched me! I had designed to write, besides two epic poems of most noble argument, four tragedies, of which I had formed the plan. I had schemed, too, many works in prose, on subjects the most lofty, and most useful to human life; I had designed to unite philosophy with eloquence, in such a manner that there might remain of me an eternal memory in the world. Alas! I had expected to close my life with glory and renown; but now, oppressed by the burden of so many calamities, I have lost every prospect of reputation and of honour. The fear of perpetual imprisonment increases my melancholy; the indignities which I suffer augment it; and the squalor of my beard, my hair, and habit, the sordidness and filth, exceedingly annoy me. Sure am I, that, if she who so little has corresponded to my attachment—if she saw me in such a state, and in such affliction—she would have some compassion on me."—Lettere di Torouato Tasso, 1853, ii. 60.]