by Lord Byron
And now she spread her little store with smiles,
The happiest daughter of the loving isles.
IX.
She, as he gazed with grateful wonder, pressed
Her sheltered love to her impassioned breast; 190
And suited to her soft caresses, told
An olden tale of Love, — for Love is old,
Old as eternity, but not outworn
With each new being born or to be born:
How a young Chief, a thousand moons ago,
Diving for turtle in the depths below,
Had risen, in tracking fast his ocean prey,
Into the cave which round and o’er them lay;
How, in some desperate feud of after-time,
He sheltered there a daughter of the clime, 200
A foe beloved, and offspring of a foe,
Saved by his tribe but for a captive’s woe;
How, when the storm of war was stilled, he led
His island clan to where the waters spread
Their deep-green shadow o’er the rocky door,
Then dived — it seemed as if to rise no more:
His wondering mates, amazed within their bark,
Or deemed him mad, or prey to the blue shark;
Rowed round in sorrow the sea-girded rock,
Then paused upon their paddles from the shock; 210
When, fresh and springing from the deep, they saw
A Goddess rise — so deemed they in their awe;
And their companion, glorious by her side,
Proud and exulting in his Mermaid bride;
And how, when undeceived, the pair they bore
With sounding conchs and joyous shouts to shore;
How they had gladly lived and calmly died, —
And why not also Torquil and his bride?
Not mine to tell the rapturous caress
Which followed wildly in that wild recess 220
This tale; enough that all within that cave
Was love, though buried strong as in the grave,
Where Abelard, through twenty years of death,
When Eloïsa’s form was lowered beneath
Their nuptial vault, his arms outstretched, and pressed
The kindling ashes to his kindled breast.
The waves without sang round their couch, their roar
As much unheeded as if life were o’er;
Within, their hearts made all their harmony,
Love’s broken murmur and more broken sigh. 230
X.
And they, the cause and sharers of the shock
Which left them exiles of the hollow rock,
Where were they? O’er the sea for life they plied,
To seek from Heaven the shelter men denied.
Another course had been their choice — but where?
The wave which bore them still their foes would bear,
Who, disappointed of their former chase,
In search of Christian now renewed their race.
Eager with anger, their strong arms made way,
Like vultures baffled of their previous prey. 240
They gained upon them, all whose safety lay
In some bleak crag or deeply-hidden bay:
No further chance or choice remained; and right
For the first further rock which met their sight
They steered, to take their latest view of land,
And yield as victims, or die sword in hand;
Dismissed the natives and their shallop, who
Would still have battled for that scanty crew;
But Christian bade them seek their shore again,
Nor add a sacrifice which were in vain; 250
For what were simple bow and savage spear
Against the arms which must be wielded here?
XI.
They landed on a wild but narrow scene,
Where few but Nature’s footsteps yet had been;
Prepared their arms, and with that gloomy eye,
Stern and sustained, of man’s extremity,
When Hope is gone, nor Glory’s self remains
To cheer resistance against death or chains. —
They stood, the three, as the three hundred stood
Who dyed Thermopylæ with holy blood. 260
But, ah! how different! ‘tis the cause makes all,
Degrades or hallows courage in its fall.
O’er them no fame, eternal and intense,
Blazed through the clouds of Death and beckoned hence;
No grateful country, smiling through her tears,
Begun the praises of a thousand years;
No nation’s eyes would on their tomb be bent,
No heroes envy them their monument;
However boldly their warm blood was spilt,
Their Life was shame, their Epitaph was guilt. 270
And this they knew and felt, at least the one,
The leader of the band he had undone;
Who, born perchance for better things, had set
His life upon a cast which lingered yet:
But now the die was to be thrown, and all
The chances were in favour of his fall:
And such a fall! But still he faced the shock,
Obdurate as a portion of the rock
Whereon he stood, and fixed his levelled gun,
Dark as a sullen cloud before the sun. 280
XII.
The boat drew nigh, well armed, and firm the crew
To act whatever Duty bade them do;
Careless of danger, as the onward wind
Is of the leaves it strews, nor looks behind.
And, yet, perhaps, they rather wished to go
Against a nation’s than a native foe,
And felt that this poor victim of self-will,
Briton no more, had once been Britain’s still.
They hailed him to surrender — no reply;
Their arms were poised, and glittered in the sky. 290
They hailed again — no answer; yet once more
They offered quarter louder than before.
The echoes only, from the rock’s rebound,
Took their last farewell of the dying sound.
Then flashed the flint, and blazed the volleying flame,
And the smoke rose between them and their aim,
While the rock rattled with the bullets’ knell,
Which pealed in vain, and flattened as they fell;
Then flew the only answer to be given
By those who had lost all hope in earth or heaven. 300
After the first fierce peal as they pulled nigher,
They heard the voice of Christian shout, “Now, fire!”
And ere the word upon the echo died,
Two fell; the rest assailed the rock’s rough side,
And, furious at the madness of their foes,
Disdained all further efforts, save to close.
But steep the crag, and all without a path,
Each step opposed a bastion to their wrath,
While, placed ‘midst clefts the least accessible,
Which Christian’s eye was trained to mark full well, 310
The three maintained a strife which must not yield,
In spots where eagles might have chosen to build.
Their every shot told; while the assailant fell,
Dashed on the shingles like the limpet shell;
But still enough survived, and mounted still,
Scattering their numbers here and there, until
Surrounded and commanded, though not nigh
Enough for seizure, near enough to die,
The desperate trio held aloof their fate
But by a thread, like sharks who have gorged the bait; 320
Yet to the very last they battled well,
And not a groan informe
d their foes who fell.
Christian died last — twice wounded; and once more
Mercy was offered when they saw his gore;
Too late for life, but not too late to die,
With, though a hostile hand, to close his eye.
A limb was broken, and he drooped along
The crag, as doth a falcon reft of young.
The sound revived him, or appeared to wake
Some passion which a weakly gesture spake: 330
He beckoned to the foremost, who drew nigh,
But, as they neared, he reared his weapon high —
His last ball had been aimed, but from his breast
He tore the topmost button from his vest,
Down the tube dashed it — levelled — fired, and smiled
As his foe fell; then, like a serpent, coiled
His wounded, weary form, to where the steep
Looked desperate as himself along the deep;
Cast one glance back, and clenched his hand, and shook
His last rage ‘gainst the earth which he forsook; 340
Then plunged: the rock below received like glass
His body crushed into one gory mass,
With scarce a shred to tell of human form,
Or fragment for the sea-bird or the worm;
A fair-haired scalp, besmeared with blood and weeds,
Yet reeked, the remnant of himself and deeds;
Some splinters of his weapons (to the last,
As long as hand could hold, he held them fast)
Yet glittered, but at distance — hurled away
To rust beneath the dew and dashing spray. 350
The rest was nothing — save a life mis-spent,
And soul — but who shall answer where it went?
‘Tis ours to bear, not judge the dead; and they
Who doom to Hell, themselves are on the way,
Unless these bullies of eternal pains
Are pardoned their bad hearts for their worse brains.
XIII.
The deed was over! All were gone or ta’en,
The fugitive, the captive, or the slain.
Chained on the deck, where once, a gallant crew,
They stood with honour, were the wretched few 360
Survivors of the skirmish on the isle;
But the last rock left no surviving spoil.
Cold lay they where they fell, and weltering,
While o’er them flapped the sea-birds’ dewy wing,
Now wheeling nearer from the neighbouring surge,
And screaming high their harsh and hungry dirge:
But calm and careless heaved the wave below,
Eternal with unsympathetic flow;
Far o’er its face the Dolphins sported on,
And sprung the flying fish against the sun, 370
Till its dried wing relapsed from its brief height,
To gather moisture for another flight.
XIV.
‘Twas morn; and Neuha, who by dawn of day
Swam smoothly forth to catch the rising ray,
And watch if aught approached the amphibious lair
Where lay her lover, saw a sail in air:
It flapped, it filled, and to the growing gale
Bent its broad arch: her breath began to fail
With fluttering fear, her heart beat thick and high,
While yet a doubt sprung where its course might lie. 380
But no! it came not; fast and far away
The shadow lessened as it cleared the bay.
She gazed, and flung the sea-foam from her eyes,
To watch as for a rainbow in the skies.
On the horizon verged the distant deck,
Diminished, dwindled to a very speck —
Then vanished. All was Ocean, all was Joy!
Down plunged she through the cave to rouse her boy;
Told all she had seen, and all she hoped, and all
That happy love could augur or recall; 390
Sprung forth again, with Torquil following free
His bounding Nereid over the broad sea;
Swam round the rock, to where a shallow cleft
Hid the canoe that Neuha there had left
Drifting along the tide, without an oar,
That eve the strangers chased them from the shore;
But when these vanished, she pursued her prow,
Regained, and urged to where they found it now:
Nor ever did more love and joy embark,
Than now were wafted in that slender ark. 400
XV.
Again their own shore rises on the view,
No more polluted with a hostile hue;
No sullen ship lay bristling o’er the foam,
A floating dungeon: — all was Hope and Home!
A thousand Proas darted o’er the bay,
With sounding shells, and heralded their way;
The chiefs came down, around the people poured,
And welcomed Torquil as a son restored;
The women thronged, embracing and embraced
By Neuha, asking where they had been chased, 410
And how escaped? The tale was told; and then
One acclamation rent the sky again;
And from that hour a new tradition gave
Their sanctuary the name of “Neuha’s Cave.”
A hundred fires, far flickering from the height,
Blazed o’er the general revel of the night,
The feast in honour of the guest, returned
To Peace and Pleasure, perilously earned;
A night succeeded by such happy days
As only the yet infant world displays. 420
J. 10th 1823.
THE LAMENT OF TASSO
INTRODUCTION
The MS. of the Lament of Tasso is dated April 20, 1817. It was despatched from Florence April 23, and reached England May 12 (see Memoir of John Murray, 1891, i. 384). Proofs reached Byron June 7, and the poem was published July 17, 1817.
“It was,” he writes (April 26), “written in consequence of my having been lately in Ferrara.” Again, writing from Rome (May 5, 1817), he asks if the MS. has arrived, and adds, “I look upon it as a ‘These be good rhymes,’ as Pope’s papa said to him when he was a boy” (Letters, 1900, iv. 112-115). Two months later he reverted to the theme of Tasso’s ill-treatment at the hands of Duke Alphonso, in the memorable stanzas xxxv.-xxxix. of the Fourth Canto of Childe Harold (Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 354-359; and for examination of the circumstances of Tasso’s imprisonment in the Hospital of Sant’ Anna, vide ibid., pp. 355, 356, note 1).
Notices of the Lament of Tasso appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine, August, 1817, vol. 87, pp. 150, 151; in The Scot’s Magazine, August, 1817, N.S., vol. i. pp. 48, 49; and a eulogistic but uncritical review in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, November, 1817, vol. ii. pp. 142-144.
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 cotemporary, 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 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; 10
And bare, at once, Captivity displayed
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; 20
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 revelled among men and things divine,
And poured 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, 30
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: 40
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 50
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