The Plague, Pestilence & Apocalypse MEGAPACK™

by Robert Reed

  ground—because wild natural scenery reminded me less acutely of

  my hopeless state of loneliness . I counted the days, and bore with

  me a peeled willow-wand, on which, as well as I could remember,

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  I had notched the days that had elapsed since my wreck, and each

  night I added another unit to the melancholy sum .

  I had toiled up a hill which led to Spoleto . Around was spread a

  plain, encircled by the chestnut-covered Appennines . A dark ravine

  was on one side, spanned by an aqueduct, whose tall arches were

  rooted in the dell below, and attested that man had once deigned

  to bestow labour and thought here, to adorn and civilize nature .

  Savage, ungrateful nature, which in wild sport defaced his remains,

  protruding her easily renewed, and fragile growth of wild flowers

  and parasite plants around his eternal edifices. I sat on a fragment

  of rock, and looked round . The sun had bathed in gold the western

  atmosphere, and in the east the clouds caught the radiance, and bud-

  ded into transient loveliness . It set on a world that contained me

  alone for its inhabitant . I took out my wand—I counted the marks .

  Twenty-five were already traced—twenty-five days had already

  elapsed, since human voice had gladdened my ears, or human coun-

  tenance met my gaze. Twenty-five long, weary days, succeeded by

  dark and lonesome nights, had mingled with foregone years, and

  had become a part of the past—the never to be recalled—a real,

  undeniable portion of my life—twenty-five long, long days.

  Why this was not a month!—Why talk of days—or weeks—or

  months—I must grasp years in my imagination, if I would truly

  picture the future to myself—three, five, ten, twenty, fifty anni-

  versaries of that fatal epoch might elapse—every year containing

  twelve months, each of more numerous calculation in a diary, than

  the twenty-five days gone by—Can it be? Will it be?—We had been

  used to look forward to death tremulously— wherefore, but because

  its place was obscure? But more terrible, and far more obscure, was

  the unveiled course of my lone futurity . I broke my wand; I threw it

  from me . I needed no recorder of the inch and barley-corn growth

  of my life, while my unquiet thoughts created other divisions, than

  those ruled over by the planets—and, in looking back on the age that

  had elapsed since I had been alone, I disdained to give the name of

  days and hours to the throes of agony which had in truth portioned

  it out .

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  I hid my face in my hands . The twitter of the young birds go-

  ing to rest, and their rustling among the trees, disturbed the still

  evening-air—the crickets chirped—the aziolo cooed at intervals .

  My thoughts had been of death—these sounds spoke to me of life . I

  lifted up my eyes—a bat wheeled round—the sun had sunk behind

  the jagged line of mountains, and the paly, crescent moon was vis-

  ible, silver white, amidst the orange sunset, and accompanied by

  one bright star, prolonged thus the twilight . A herd of cattle passed

  along in the dell below, untended, towards their watering place—the

  grass was rustled by a gentle breeze, and the olive-woods, mellowed

  into soft masses by the moonlight, contrasted their sea-green with

  the dark chestnut foliage . Yes, this is the earth; there is no change—

  no ruin—no rent made in her verdurous expanse; she continues to

  wheel round and round, with alternate night and day, through the

  sky, though man is not her adorner or inhabitant . Why could I not

  forget myself like one of those animals, and no longer suffer the wild

  tumult of misery that I endure? Yet, ah! what a deadly breach yawns

  between their state and mine! Have not they companions? Have not

  they each their mate—their cherished young, their home, which,

  though unexpressed to us, is, I doubt not, endeared and enriched,

  even in their eyes, by the society which kind nature has created for

  them? It is I only that am alone—I, on this little hill top, gazing on

  plain and mountain recess—on sky, and its starry population, listen-

  ing to every sound of earth, and air, and murmuring wave,—I only

  cannot express to any companion my many thoughts, nor lay my

  throbbing head on any loved bosom, nor drink from meeting eyes

  an intoxicating dew, that transcends the fabulous nectar of the gods .

  Shall I not then complain? Shall I not curse the murderous engine

  which has mowed down the children of men, my brethren? Shall I

  not bestow a malediction on every other of nature’s offspring, which

  dares live and enjoy, while I live and suffer?

  Ah, no! I will discipline my sorrowing heart to sympathy in your

  joys; I will be happy, because ye are so . Live on, ye innocents, na-

  ture’s selected darlings; I am not much unlike to you . Nerves, pulse,

  brain, joint, and flesh, of such am I composed, and ye are organized

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  by the same laws . I have something beyond this, but I will call it

  a defect, not an endowment, if it leads me to misery, while ye are

  happy . Just then, there emerged from a near copse two goats and a

  little kid, by the mother’s side; they began to browze the herbage

  of the hill . I approached near to them, without their perceiving me;

  I gathered a handful of fresh grass, and held it out; the little one

  nestled close to its mother, while she timidly withdrew . The male

  stepped forward, fixing his eyes on me: I drew near, still holding out

  my lure, while he, depressing his head, rushed at me with his horns .

  I was a very fool; I knew it, yet I yielded to my rage . I snatched up a

  huge fragment of rock; it would have crushed my rash foe . I poized

  it—aimed it—then my heart failed me . I hurled it wide of the mark;

  it rolled clattering among the bushes into dell . My little visitants, all

  aghast, galloped back into the covert of the wood; while I, my very

  heart bleeding and torn, rushed down the hill, and by the violence of

  bodily exertion, sought to escape from my miserable self .

  No, no, I will not live among the wild scenes of nature, the en-

  emy of all that lives . I will seek the towns—Rome, the capital of

  the world, the crown of man’s achievements . Among its storied

  streets, hallowed ruins, and stupendous remains of human exertion,

  I shall not, as here, find every thing forgetful of man; trampling on

  his memory, defacing his works, proclaiming from hill to hill, and

  vale to vale,—by the torrents freed from the boundaries which he

  imposed—by the vegetation liberated from the laws which he en-

  forced—by his habitation abandoned to mildew and weeds, that his

  power is lost, his race annihilated for ever .

  I hailed the Tiber, for that was as it were an unalienable pos-

  session of humanity . I hailed the wild Campagna, for every rood

  had been trod by man; and its savage uncultivation, of no recent

  date, only proclaimed more distinctly his power, since he had given

  an honourable name and sacred title to
what else would have been

  a worthless, barren track . I entered Eternal Rome by the Porta del

  Popolo, and saluted with awe its time-honoured space . The wide

  square, the churches near, the long extent of the Corso, the near

  eminence of Trinita de’ Monti appeared like fairy work, they were

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  so silent, so peaceful, and so very fair . It was evening; and the popu-

  lation of animals which still existed in this mighty city, had gone to

  rest; there was no sound, save the murmur of its many fountains,

  whose soft monotony was harmony to my soul . The knowledge that

  I was in Rome, soothed me; that wondrous city, hardly more illustri-

  ous for its heroes and sages, than for the power it exercised over the

  imaginations of men . I went to rest that night; the eternal burning of

  my heart quenched,—my senses tranquil .

  The next morning I eagerly began my rambles in search of

  oblivion . I ascended the many terraces of the garden of the Colonna

  Palace, under whose roof I had been sleeping; and passing out from

  it at its summit, I found myself on Monte Cavallo . The fountain

  sparkled in the sun; the obelisk above pierced the clear dark-blue

  air . The statues on each side, the works, as they are inscribed, of

  Phidias and Praxiteles, stood in undiminished grandeur, represent-

  ing Castor and Pollux, who with majestic power tamed the rearing

  animal at their side . If those illustrious artists had in truth chiselled

  these forms, how many passing generations had their giant propor-

  tions outlived! and now they were viewed by the last of the species

  they were sculptured to represent and deify . I had shrunk into insig-

  nificance in my own eyes, as I considered the multitudinous beings

  these stone demigods had outlived, but this after-thought restored

  me to dignity in my own conception . The sight of the poetry eter-

  nized in these statues, took the sting from the thought, arraying it

  only in poetic ideality .

  I repeated to myself,—I am in Rome! I behold, and as it were,

  familiarly converse with the wonder of the world, sovereign mis-

  tress of the imagination, majestic and eternal survivor of millions

  of generations of extinct men . I endeavoured to quiet the sorrows of

  my aching heart, by even now taking an interest in what in my youth

  I had ardently longed to see . Every part of Rome is replete with rel-

  ics of ancient times . The meanest streets are strewed with truncated

  columns, broken capitals—Corinthian and Ionic, and sparkling

  fragments of granite or porphyry . The walls of the most penurious

  dwellings enclose a fluted pillar or ponderous stone, which once

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  made part of the palace of the Caesars; and the voice of dead time,

  in still vibrations, is breathed from these dumb things, animated and

  glorified as they were by man.

  I embraced the vast columns of the temple of Jupiter Stator,

  which survives in the open space that was the Forum, and leaning

  my burning cheek against its cold durability, I tried to lose the sense

  of present misery and present desertion, by recalling to the haunted

  cell of my brain vivid memories of times gone by . I rejoiced at my

  success, as I figured Camillus, the Gracchi, Cato, and last the heroes

  of Tacitus, which shine meteors of surpassing brightness during the

  murky night of the empire;—as the verses of Horace and Virgil, or

  the glowing periods of Cicero thronged into the opened gates of

  my mind, I felt myself exalted by long forgotten enthusiasm . I was

  delighted to know that I beheld the scene which they beheld—the

  scene which their wives and mothers, and crowds of the unnamed

  witnessed, while at the same time they honoured, applauded, or wept

  for these matchless specimens of humanity . At length, then, I had

  found a consolation . I had not vainly sought the storied precincts of

  Rome—I had discovered a medicine for my many and vital wounds .

  I sat at the foot of these vast columns . The Coliseum, whose na-

  ked ruin is robed by nature in a verdurous and glowing veil, lay in

  the sunlight on my right . Not far off, to the left, was the Tower of the

  Capitol . Triumphal arches, the falling walls of many temples, strewed

  the ground at my feet . I strove, I resolved, to force myself to see the

  Plebeian multitude and lofty Patrician forms congregated around;

  and, as the Diorama of ages passed across my subdued fancy, they

  were replaced by the modern Roman; the Pope, in his white stole,

  distributing benedictions to the kneeling worshippers; the friar in his

  cowl; the dark-eyed girl, veiled by her mezzera; the noisy, sun-burnt

  rustic, leading his herd of buffaloes and oxen to the Campo Vaccino .

  The romance with which, dipping our pencils in the rainbow hues of

  sky and transcendent nature, we to a degree gratuitously endow the

  Italians, replaced the solemn grandeur of antiquity . I remembered

  the dark monk, and floating figures of “The Italian,” and how my

  boyish blood had thrilled at the description . I called to mind Corinna

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  ascending the Capitol to be crowned, and, passing from the heroine

  to the author, reflected how the Enchantress Spirit of Rome held

  sovereign sway over the minds of the imaginative, until it rested on

  me—sole remaining spectator of its wonders .

  I was long wrapt by such ideas; but the soul wearies of a pause-

  less flight; and, stooping from its wheeling circuits round and round

  this spot, suddenly it fell ten thousand fathom deep, into the abyss

  of the present— into self-knowledge—into tenfold sadness . I roused

  myself—I cast off my waking dreams; and I, who just now could

  almost hear the shouts of the Roman throng, and was hustled by

  countless multitudes, now beheld the desart ruins of Rome sleeping

  under its own blue sky; the shadows lay tranquilly on the ground;

  sheep were grazing untended on the Palatine, and a buffalo stalked

  down the Sacred Way that led to the Capitol . I was alone in the Fo-

  rum; alone in Rome; alone in the world . Would not one living man

  —one companion in my weary solitude, be worth all the glory and

  remembered power of this time-honoured city? Double sorrow—

  sadness, bred in Cimmerian caves, robed my soul in a mourning

  garb . The generations I had conjured up to my fancy, contrasted

  more strongly with the end of all —the single point in which, as

  a pyramid, the mighty fabric of society had ended, while I, on the

  giddy height, saw vacant space around me .

  From such vague laments I turned to the contemplation of the

  minutiae of my situation . So far, I had not succeeded in the sole

  object of my desires, the finding a companion for my desolation.

  Yet I did not despair . It is true that my inscriptions were set up for

  the most part, in insignificant towns and villages; yet, even without

  these memorials, it was possible that the person, who like me should

  find himself alone in a depopulate land, should, like me, come to

  Rome . The more slender my exp
ectation was, the more I chose to

  build on it, and to accommodate my actions to this vague possibility .

  It became necessary therefore, that for a time I should domes-

  ticate myself at Rome . It became necessary, that I should look my

  disaster in the face— not playing the school-boy’s part of obedience

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  without submission; enduring life, and yet rebelling against the laws

  by which I lived .

  Yet how could I resign myself? Without love, without sympathy,

  without communion with any, how could I meet the morning sun,

  and with it trace its oft repeated journey to the evening shades? Why

  did I continue to live— why not throw off the weary weight of time,

  and with my own hand, let out the fluttering prisoner from my ago-

  nized breast?—It was not cowardice that withheld me; for the true

  fortitude was to endure; and death had a soothing sound accompany-

  ing it, that would easily entice me to enter its demesne . But this I

  would not do . I had, from the moment I had reasoned on the subject,

  instituted myself the subject to fate, and the servant of necessity, the

  visible laws of the invisible God—I believed that my obedience was

  the result of sound reasoning, pure feeling, and an exalted sense of

  the true excellence and nobility of my nature . Could I have seen in

  this empty earth, in the seasons and their change, the hand of a blind

  power only, most willingly would I have placed my head on the sod,

  and closed my eyes on its loveliness for ever . But fate had adminis-

  tered life to me, when the plague had already seized on its prey—she

  had dragged me by the hair from out the strangling waves—By such

  miracles she had bought me for her own; I admitted her authority,

  and bowed to her decrees . If, after mature consideration, such was

  my resolve, it was doubly necessary that I should not lose the end of

  life, the improvement of my faculties, and poison its flow by repin-

  ings without end . Yet how cease to repine, since there was no hand

  near to extract the barbed spear that had entered my heart of hearts?

  I stretched out my hand, and it touched none whose sensations were

  responsive to mine . I was girded, walled in, vaulted over, by seven-

  fold barriers of loneliness . Occupation alone, if I could deliver my-

  self up to it, would be capable of affording an opiate to my sleepless