That which once freely made itself our own
Bursts from us!—that which eagerly we press’d
We coldly loose! A treasure may be ours,
Only we know it not, or know, perchance,
Unconscious of its worth!
But the dark clouds are gathering within the spirit of Tasso itself, and the devotedness of affection would in vain avert their lightnings by the sacrifice of all its own pure enjoyments. In the solitary confinement to which the Duke has sentenced him, as a punishment for his duel with Antonio, his jealous imagination, like that of the self-torturing Rousseau, pictures the whole world as arrayed in one conspiracy against him, and he doubts even of her truth and gentleness whose watching thoughts are all for his welfare. The following passages affectingly mark the progress of the dark despondency which finally overwhelms him, though the concluding lines of the last are brightened by a ray of those immortal hopes, the light of which we could have desired to recognise more frequently in this deeply thoughtful work.
PRESENTIMENT OF HIS RUIN.
Alas! too well I feel, too true a voice
Within me whispers, that the Mighty Power
Which, on sustaining wings of strength and joy,