Here from myself with hurried footsteps flying,
I dared to treat this wilderness profound,
Beneath the mountain whose proud top defying
The pure bright sunbeam is with huge rocks crowned,
Hoping that here, as in its dark grave lying,
Never my sin could on the earth be found,
And I myself might find a port of peace
Where all the tempests of the world might cease.
No polar star had hostile fate decreed me,
As on my perilous path I dared to stray,
So great its pride, no hand presumed to lead me,
And guide my silent footstep on its way.
Not yet the aspect of the place has freed me
From the dread terror, anguish and dismay,
Which were awakened by this mountain's gloom,
And all the hidden wonders of its womb.
See ye not here this rock some power secureth,
That grasps with awful toil the hill-side brown,
And with the very anguish it endureth
Age after age seems slowly coming down?
Suspended there with effort, it obscureth
A mighty cave beneath, which it doth crown;—
An open mouth the horrid cavern shapes,
Wherewith the melancholy mountain gapes.*
[footnote] * "But I remember,
Two miles on this side of the fort, the road
Crosses a deep ravine; 'tis rough and narrow,
And winds with short turns down the precipice;
And in its depth there is a mighty rock
Which has from unimaginable years,
Sustained itself with terror and with toil
Over the gulf, and with the agony
With which it clings seems slowly coming down;
Even as a wretched soul hour after hour
Clings to the mass of life: yet, clinging, leans;
And leaning, makes more dark the dread abyss
In which it fears to fall. Beneath this crag,
Huge as despair, as if in weariness
The melancholy mountain yawns."—THE CENCI.
Shelly says, "An idea in this speech was suggested by a most sublime passage in 'El Purgatorio de San Patricio' of Calderon." The same idea is to be found in "Amor despues de la Muerte," "Los dos amantes del Cielo," and other dramas of Calderon. [end of footnote]
This, then, by mournful cypress trees surrounded,
Between the lips of rocks at either side,
Reveals a monstrous neck of length unbounded,
Whose tangled hair is scantily supplied
By the wild herbs that there the wind hath grounded,
A gloom whose depths no sun has ever tried,
A space, a void, the gladsome day's affright,
The fatal refuge of the frozen night.
I wished to enter there, to make my dwelling
Within the cave; but here my accents fail,
My troubled voice, against my will rebelling.
Doth interrupt so terrible a tale.—
What novel horror, all the past excelling,
Must I relate to you, with cheeks all pale,
Without cold terror on my bosom seizing,
And even my voice, my breath, my pulses freezing?
I scarcely had o'ercome my hesitation,
And gone within the cavern's vault profound,
When I heard wails of hopeless lamentation,
Despairing shrieks that shook the walls around,
Curses, and blasphemy, and desperation,
Dark crimes avowed that would even hell astound,
Which heaven, I think, in order not to hear,
Had hid within this prison dark and drear.
Let him come here who doubts what I am telling,
Let him here bravely enter who denies,
Soon shall he hear the sounds of dreadful yelling,
Soon shall the horrors gleam before his eyes.
For me, my voice is hushed, my bosom swelling,
Pants now with terror, now with strange surprise.
Nor is it right that human tongue should dare
High heaven's mysterious secrets to lay bare.
PATRICK. This cave, O king, which here you see, concealeth
The mysteries of life as well as death:
Not, I should say, for him whose bosom feeleth
No true repentance, or no real faith;
But he who boldly enters, who revealeth
His sins, confessing them with penitent breath,
Shall see them all forgiven, his conscience clear,
And have alive his Purgatory here.