THE

LAMENT OF TASSO.

ADVERTISEMENT.

AT Ferrara (in the library) are preserved the original MSS. of Tasso's Gierusalemme and of Guarini's Pastor Fido, with letters of Tasso, one from Titian to Ariosto, and the inkstand and chair, the tomb and the house of the latter. But as misfortune has a greater interest for posterity, and little or none for the conteinporary, the cell where Tasso was confined in the hospital of St. Anna attracts a more fixed attention than the residence or the monument of Ariosto-at least it had this effect on me. There are two inscriptions, one on the outer gate, the second over the cell itself, inviting, unnecessarily, the wonder and the indignation of the spectator. Ferrara is much decayed and depopulated; the castle still exists entire; and I saw the court where Parisina and Hugo were beheaded, according to the annal of Gibbon.

THE LAMENT OF TASSO.

1. .

LONG years! It tries the thrilling frame to bear,
And eagle-spirit of a child of song-

Long years of outrage, calumny, and wrong;
Imputed madness, prison'd solitude,

And the mind's canker in its savage mood,
When the impatient thirst of light and air
Parches the heart; and the abhorred grate,
Marring the sunbeams with its hideous shade,
Works through the throbbing eye-ball to the brain
With a hot sense of heaviness and pain ;
And bare, at once, captivity display'd

Stands scoffing through the never-open'd gate,
Which nothing through its bars admits, save day
And tasteless food, which I have eat alone

Till its unsocial bitterness is gone;

And I can banquet like a beast of

prey,

Sullen and lonely, couching in the cave,
Which is my lair, and-it may be-my grave.
All this hath somewhat worn me, and may wear,
But must be borne. I stoop not to despair;
For I have battled with mine agony,
And made me wings wherewith to overfly
The narrow circus of my dungeon-wall,
And freed the Holy-Sepulchre from thrall;
And revell'd among men and things divine,
And pour'd my spirit over Palestine,
In honour of the sacred war for him,
The God who was on earth and is in heaven,
For he hath strengthen'd me in heart and limb.
That through this sufferance I might be forgiven,
I have employ'd my penance to record
How Salem's shrine was won, and how adored.

II.

But this is o'er-my pleasant task is done :
My long-sustaining friend of many years!
If I do blot thy final page with tears,

Know that my sorrows have wrung from me none.
But thou, my young creation! my soul's child!
Which ever playing round me came and smiled,
And woo'd me from myself with thy sweet sight,
Thou too art gone-and so is my delight:
And therefore do I weep and inly bleed
With this last bruise upon a broken reed.
Thou too art ended-what is left me now?
For I have anguish yet to bear—and how!
I know not that-but in the innate force
Of my own spirits shall be found resource.
I have not sunk, for I had no remorse,

Nor cause for such: they call'd me mad—and why?
Oh Leonora! wilt not thou reply?

I was indeed delirious in my heart

To lift my love so lofty as thou art;
But still my frenzy was not of the mind;
I knew my fault, and feel my punishment
Not less because I suffer it unbent.

That thou wert beautiful, and I not blind

Hath been the sin which shuts me from mankind;

But let them go, or torture as they will,

My heart can multiply thine image still;
Successful love may sate itself away,

The wretched are the faithful; 't is their fate
To have all feeling save the one decay,

And

every passion into one dilate,

As rapid rivers into ocean pour;

But ours is fathomless, and hath no shore.

III.

Above me, hark! the long and maniac cry

Of minds and bodies in captivity,

And hark! the lash and the increasing howl,

And the half-inarticulate blasphemy!

There be some here with worse than frenzy foul,

Some who do still goad on the o'er-labour'd mind,

And dim the little light that's left behind

With needless torture, as their tyrant will

Is wound up to the lust of doing ill:

With these and with their victims am I class'd,

'Mid sounds and sights like these long years have pass'd;

'Mid sights and sounds like these my life may close: So let it be for then I shall repose,