THE LAMENT OF TASSO.

BY LORD BYRON.

[Torquato Tasso, born at Sorrento, 1544; died at Rome, 25th April, 1595. The author of Jerusalem Delivered, and one of the most celebrated of the Italian poets, was long confined, by order of the Duke Alfonso, in a part of the monastery of St. Anne, designed for lunatics. A traditionary story attributes this step to some extravagancy on the part of the poet, evincing an attachment to the Princess Leonora, the duke's sister, in whose praise he had written some impassioned verses. 1 The confinement is said to have aggravated a constitutional disposition to madness. "At Ferrara," says Lord Byron, in his advertisement to the following poem, "are preserved the original MSS. of Tasso's Jerusalem 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 with posterity, and little or none for the contemporary, the cell where Tasso was confined in the hospital of St. Anne attracts a more fixed attention than the residence or the monument of Ariosto.]

I.

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, prisoned 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 eyeball to the brain,
With a hot sense of heaviness and pain;
And bare, at once, Captivity display'd
Stands scoffing through the never-opened 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;

'Tasso's biographer, the Abate Serassi, has ascertained beyond doubt that the first cause of the poet's imprisonment was his desire to be occasionally or altogether free from servitude at the court of Alfonso. The suspicion of this desire, aggravated by a visit which Tasso made to Rome in 1575, caused the duke to refuse him admission to the court; and none of the many promises which had been given to him were fulfilled. Exasperated by this treatment, Tasso publicly uttered the wildest invectives against the duke and all the house of Este. He was thereupon consigned to prison. The silence of the Princess Leonora is attributed to her fear of the consequences to herself and her lover of any discovery of their passion. Tasso was released in 1586, and died in 1595. Byron wrote The Lament in 1817, after a day's visit to Ferrara.

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 has strengthened me in heart and limb.
That through this sufferance I might be forgiven,
I have employed 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 wooed 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 spirit shall be found resource.

I have not sunk, for I had no remorse,

Nor cause for such: they called 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; 'tis 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-laboured 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.

IV.

I have been patient, let me be so yet;

I had forgotten half I would forget,

But it revives-Oh! would it were my lot

To be forgetful as I am forgot!—

Feel I not wroth with those who bade me dwell
In this vast lazar-house of many woes?

Where laughter is not mirth, nor thought the mind,
Nor words a language, nor even men mankind;
Where cries reply to curses, shrieks to blows,
And each is tortured in his separate hell-
For we are crowded in our solitudes-

Many, but each divided by the wall,

Which echoes Madness in her babbling moods;

While all can hear, none heed his neighbour's call-
None! save that One, the veriest wretch of all,
Who was not made to be the mate of these,
Nor bound between Distraction and Disease.
Feel I not wroth with those who placed me here?
Who have debased me in the minds of men,
Debarring me the usage of my own,
Blighting my life in best of its career,
Branding my thoughts as things to shun and fear?
Would I not pay them back these pangs again,
And teach them inward Sorrow's stifled groan?
The struggle to be calm, and cold distress,
Which undermines our Stoical success?
No!-still too proud to be vindictive-I
Have pardon'd princes' insults, and would die.
Yes, Sister of my Sovereign! for thy sake
I weed all bitterness from out my breast,
It hath no business where thou art a guest;
Thy brother hates-but I can not detest;
Thou pitiest not- but I can not forsake.

V.

Look on a love which knows not to despair,
But all unquench'd is still my better part,
Dwelling deep in my shut and silent heart,
As dwells the gathered lightning in its cloud,
Encompass'd with its dark and rolling shroud,
Till struck,-forth flies the all-ethereal dart!
And thus at the collision of thy name

The vivid thought still flashes through my frame,
And for a moment all things as they were
Flit by me;-they are gone-I am the same.
And yet my love without ambition grew;
I knew thy state, my station, and I knew
A princess was no love-mate for a bard;
I told it not, I breathed it not, it was
Sufficient to itself, its own reward;
And if my eyes reveal'd it, they, alas!
Were punish'd by the silentness of thine,
And yet I did not venture to repine.
Thou wert to me a crystal-girded shrine,
Worshipped at holy distance, and around
Hallow'd and meekly kiss'd the saintly ground;
Not for thou wert a princess, but that Love
Had robed thee with a glory, and arrayed
Thy lineaments in beauty that dismay'd—

Oh! not dismay'd-but awed, like One above!
And in that sweet severity there was

A something which all softness did surpass-
I know not how-thy genius master'd mine-
My star stood still before thee :-if it were
Presumptuous thus to love without design,
That sad fatality hath cost me dear;
But thou art dearest still, and I should be
Fit for this cell, which wrongs me-but for thee.
The very love which lock'd me to my chain
Hath lighten'd half its weight; and for the rest,
Though heavy, lent me vigour to sustain,
And look to thee with undivided breast,
And foil the ingenuity of Pain.

VI.

It is no marvel-from my very birth

My soul was drunk with love,-which did pervade
And mingle with whate'er I saw on earth;
Of objects all inanimate I made
Idols, and out of wild and lonely flowers,
And rocks, whereby they grew, a paradise,
Where I did lay me down within the shade
Of waving trees, and dream'd uncounted hours,
Though I was chid for wandering; and the wise
Shook their white aged heads o'er me, and said,
Of such materials wretched men were made,
And such a truant boy would end in woe,
And that the only lesson was a blow;
And then they smote me, and I did not weep,
But cursed them in my heart, and to my haunt
Return'd and wept alone, and dream'd again
The visions which arise without a sleep.
And with my years my soul began to pant
With feelings of strange tumult and soft pain;
And the whole heart exhaled into One Want,
But undefined and wandering, till the day

I found the thing I sought-and that was thee;
And then I lost my being, all to be
Absorbed in thine; the world was past away;
Thou didst annihilate the earth to me!

VII.

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.
But who hath seen me writhe, or heard me rave?
Perchance in such a cell we suffer more
Than the wreck'd 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,
But with a sense of its decay: I see
Unwonted lights along my prison shine,
And a strange demon, 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 Eartha
Abandons-Heaven forgets me;-in the dearth
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 dash'd
My brain against these bars, as the sun flash'd
In mockery through them;-if I bear and bore
The much I have recounted, and the more
Which hath no words,'-tis 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,
Which nations yet shall visit for my sake.
While thou, Ferrara! when no longer dwell
The ducal chiefs within thee, shalt 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 blush'd to hear
To less than monarchs that thou couldst be dear,
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!

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.
VOL. III.

No power in death can tear our names apart, As none in life could rend thee from my heart. Yes, Leonora! it shall be our fate

To be entwined for ever-but too late!

THE GARDENS OF ARMIDA.1

BY TORQUATO TASSO. Still lakes of silver, streams that murm'ring crept, Hills, on whose sloping brows the sunbeams slept, Luxuriant trees, that various forms display'd, And valleys, grateful with refreshing shade, Herbs, flow'rets gay with many a gaudy dye, And woods, and arching grottoes met their eye. What more than all enhanc'd those beauties rare, Though art was all in all, no signs of art were there: Seem'd as if nature reign'd in every part, Such easy negligence was mixed with art; Nature herself, in frolic, might appear

To imitate her imitator here.

"Twas magic's spell call'd forth the genial breeze,
That fill'd with pregnant life the bursting trees;
Eternal bloom they yield, eternal fruit,

The fruitage rip'ning while the blossoms shoot.
The self-same tree on one o'erloaded twig
Bears the full-ripen'd and the nascent fig;
The apple hanging on one bow is seen
In ev'ry shade of golden and of green.
Where most the genial sun the garden cheer'd
Creeping aloft, the luscious vine appear'd;
Here clusters crude, there yellower grapes it bore,
Or ruby-red, and rich with nectar'd store.
Unnumber'd birds, the leafy boughs among,
Trill'd the wild music of their wanton song.
Murmur'd the undulating air around;
The rills, the leafy grots return'd the sound,
As loud or low the quiv'ring zephyrs rung:
When ceas'd the birds, an echo deep they flung,
But when the feather'd choir restored their lay,
The echo, gently whisp'ring, died away:
Or chance the concert made, or art design'd,
Each swelling song the music-breathing wind
Alternate answer'd, and alternate join'd.
Amid the rest one beauteous warbler flew
With purple bill, and plumes of various hue,
His pliant voice assum'd the human tone,
Each note, the shrill, the soft, the deep, his own.
With wond'rous skill, mellifluous, loud, and long,
Surpassing all belief, he pour'd his song.
Their meaner strains his list'ning fellows clos'd;
The whisp'ring winds grew silent, and repos'd:
"Behold how, bursting from its covert, blows
With virgin blushes deck'd, the modest rose;

With half her beauties hid, and half reveal'd
More lovely still she seems, the more conceal'd.
Grown bolder soon, her bosom she displays
All naked to the winds; then soon decays,
And seems the same enchanting flow'r no more,
Which youths and virgins fair admir'd before.
Thus transient and ephem'ral fades away
The flow'r, the verdure, of man's short-lived day;
And though the year bring back the vernal hour,
No more his verdure blooms, no more his flow'r.
Cull we the rose, while laughs the auspicious morn
Of that bright day, which must no more return:
Cull we the rose; love's transports let us prove,
While love may answer and reward our love.'
He ceas'd; with one accord the feather'd throng
Join'd in applausive chorus to his song,
The playful doves renew'd their am'rous kiss;
Each living thing was melted into bliss.
Seem'd as th' unbending oak, the laurel chaste,
And ev'ry tree amid that flow'ry waste,
Seem'd as the earth, the waves, imbib'd the charm,
And lifeless Nature's self with love grew warm."

A POET'S ROMANCE.

[James Sheridan Knowles, born at Cork, Ireland, 1784; died 1st December, 1862. Actor, lecturer, drama

tist, novelist, and Baptist minister. It is as a drama

tist his fame will live longest. He wrote upwards of twenty plays, of which the best known are:-Virginius (see Library, vol. ii. p. 253); William Tell; The Hunchback: The Love Chase; The Wife, a tale of Mantua; and Love. His novels are: Fortescue; George Lovell: The Rock of Rome; and The Idol Demolished by its own Priest. He

contributed largely to the annuals and other periodicals. "His strength lies in home-bred affections," wrote Allan Cunningham; "his Virginius, his Beggar's Daughter, and his Wife of Mantua, all bear evidence of this, and contain scenes of perfect truth and reality, such as no modern dramatist surpasses. He touches the heart and

is safe." The following little romance has been evidently suggested by incidents in the life of the poet

Tasso.]

Bright was the saloon of the ducal palace. It had been a fete-day. At the head of the apartment sat its princely master; around it were distributed in groups the shining company; the buzz of satisfaction filled it. A Frenchman and one of the courtiers held each other in converse. Surprise was painted upon the countenance of the former.

"The fairest woman in Padua," he exclaimed, "without a lover!-I mean an accepted one, for all Italy rings with the praises of the lovely Victoria 'Tis very strange! Has she not a heart?"

"If she has, signor, it is yet to be found; nor is the search an easy one-at least if we

take into account the many accomplished cavaliers who have failed in it."

66

She seems a very scornful lady." "She is so.

"And yet," resumed the other, "her form and countenance are the very mould of sweetness!"

"You read her to admiration, signor," replied the courtier. "Till the age of sixteen she was the soul of frankness and simple bearing; then, however, a mood came on, the fruit of which you see. Upon that face, which used to be nothing but sun, the cloud which then settled has remained for the last three years without moving. Observe the cavalier who approaches her with a basket of fruit. the son of the Duke of Milan, and a candidate for the honour of her hand. Mark, I pray you, how she will receive him:-there are wages for a prince to play the lacquey for!"

He is

"Wages, indeed! Methinks the haughty bow with which she declines his attentions should be sufficient to extinguish his love." "Nay, signor," resumed the courtier, "frost, you know, makes the fire burn brighter."

"And yet, if, after all," exclaimed the other, as if a thought had suddenly struck him-" if, after all, that very suitor should be the object of her choice! I have met with as strange a thing. He hath a truly princely presence!"

"And a princely heart and mind, signor! with endowments of a corresponding quality. He is every way her match, saving that the lady is not more haughty than the gentleman is affable. The youth who approaches her now is the bearer, I suspect, of a message to her from the duke, with whom I remarked him a moment ago conversing. Observe how she will receive him—as I expected, she neither lifts her eyes nor gives any other notice of recognition. Ha! she rises and approaches Ler harp; the duke has doubtless desired her to sing. Now shall you hear music, signor! If she freezes you with her looks she will melt you with her voice."

A prelude arose from the harp, such as one would imagine a seraph in adoration to awaken. The strain which that prelude introduced was accompanied by the lady in the following

verses:

"She lived a nun !-no convent wall
Entomb'd her; she was woman-all
That man in woman seeks !-not one
More fond; and yet she lived a nun!
"She lived a nun for love! Her soul
Had met a kindred one-her whole
Of wishes-hopes-the maid had given
To him who own'd that soul-and Heaven.