The Works of Lord Byron Complete in One Volume

Arnold (without attending to him). Yes! her heart beats.

Alas! that the first beat of the only heart I ever wish'd to beat with mine, should

vibrate

To an assassin's pulse.

Cæsar. A sage reflexion,

Arnold. Now onward, onward! Gently! [Exeunt, bearing Olimpia.-The Scene closes.

ACT III.

But somewhat late i' the day. Where shall SCENE 1.-4 Castle in the Apennines, sur

we bear her!

I say she lives.

Arnold. And will she live?

Caesar. Bah! bah! You are so,

And do not know it. She will come to life-
Such as you think so, such as you now are;
But we must work by human means.
Arnold. We will

Convey her unto the Colonna-palace,
Where I have pitched my banner.

Cæsar. Come then! raise her up.
Arnold. Softly!

Casar. As softly as they bear the dead,
Perhaps because they cannot feel the jolting.
Arnold. But doth she live indeed?
Cæsar. Nay, never fear!
But if you rue it after, blame not me.
Arnold. Let her but live!

Cæsar. The spirit of her life

Is yet within her breast, and may revive. Count! Count! I am your servant in all things,

And this is a new office:-'tis not oft
I am employed in such; but you perceive
How stanch a friend is what you call a fiend.
On earth you have often only fiends for
friends;

Now I desert not mine. Soft! bear her hence,
The beautiful half-clay, and nearly spirit!
I am almost enamoured of her, as
Of old the Angels of her earliest sex.
Arnold.

Thou!

Cæsar. I could be one right formidable; But since I slew the seven husbands of Tobia's future bride (and after all 'Twas sucked out by some incense) I have laid

Aside intrigue: 'tis rarely worth the trouble Of gaining, or-what is more difficultGetting rid of your prize again; for there's

The rub! at least to mortals.

Arnold. Prithee, peace! Softly! methinks her lips move, her eyes open!

Cæsar. Like stars, no doubt; for that's a metaphor

For Lucifer and Venus.
Arnold. To the palace
Colonna, as I told you!
Cæsar. Oh! I know

My way through Rome.

rounded by a wild but smiling country. Chorus of Peasants singing before the Gates.

Chorus.

The wars are over,

The spring is come;
The bride and her lover

Have sought their home:

They are happy, we rejoice;

Let their hearts have an echo in every voice!

The spring is come; the violet's gone,
The first-born child of the early sun;
With us she is but a winter's flower,
The snow on the hills cannot blast her
bower,

And she lifts up her dewy eye of blue
To the youngest sky of the self-same hue.

And when the spring comes with her host
Of flowers, that flower beloved the most
Shrinks from the crowd that may confusc
Her heavenly odour and virgin hues.

Pluck the others, but still remember
Their Herald out of dim December-
The morning-star of all the flowers,
The pledge of day-light's lengthen'd hours;
Nor, 'midst the roses, e'er forget
The virgin, virgin Violet.

Enter CESAR.

Cæsar (singing). The wars are all over, Our swords are all idle, The steed bites the bridle, The casque's on the wall.

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 eyeball 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.

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 spirit 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; '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.

Above me, hark! the long and maniac cry Of minds and bodies in captivity.

And hark! the lash and the increasing howl, | Dwelling deep in my shut and silent heart And the half-inarticulate blasphemy! As dwells the gather'd lightning in its cloud, There be some here with worse than frenzy Encompass'd with its dark and rolling foul, shroud,

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: I shall repose.

So let it be for then

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 hellFor we are crowded in our solitudesMany, but each divided by the wall, Which echoes Madness in her babbling moods;

While all can hear, none heeds 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.

Look on a love which knows not to despair, But all unquench'd is still my better part,

Till struck,-forth flies the all-etherial 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,
Worshipp'd 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 array'd
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.

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
Absorb'd in thine the world was past away-
Thou didst annihilate the earth to me!

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.

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 hearth-
less 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!
who wert

And thou, Leonora! thou

ashamed

What though he perish, he may lift his eye
And with a dying glance upbraid the sky-That such as I could love—who blush'd to
I will not raise my own in such reproof,
Although 'tis clouded by my dungeon-roof. To less than monarchs that thou couldst

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 suffer'd so
Sickness of heart, and narrowness of place,
And all that may be borne, or can debase.
I thought mine enemies had been but men,
But spirits may be leagued with them-all
Earth

Abandons - Heaven forgets me; — in the
dearth

hear

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.

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, Yes, Leonora! it shall be our fate
Was more or less than mortal, and than me. [ To be entwined for ever-but too late!

No power in death can tear our names apart,
As none in life could rend thee from my
heart.

THE PROPHECY OF DANTE.

Tis the sunset of life gives me mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadows before.

CAMPBELL.

DEDICATION.

LADY! if for the cold and cloudy clime Where I was born, but where I would not die,

Of the great Poet-Sire of Italy

I dare to build the imitative rhyme,
Harsh Runic copy of the South's sublime,
Thou art the cause; and, howsoever I
Fall short of his immortal harmony,
Thy gentle heart will pardon me the crime.
Thou, in the pride of beauty and of youth,
Spak'st; and for thee to speak and be
obey'd

Are one; but only in the sunny South
Such sounds are utter'd, and such charms
display'd,

So sweet a language from so fair a mouth-
Ah! to what effort would it not persuade?

Ravenna, June 21, 1819.

PREFACE.

In the course of a visit to the city of Ravenna, in the summer of 1819, it was suggested to the author that, having composed something on the subject of Tasso's confinement, he should do the same on Dante's exile the tomb of the poet forming one of the principal objects of interest in that city, both to the native and to the stranger.

in our language, except it may be by Mr. Hayley, of whose translation I never saw but one extract, quoted in the notes to Caliph Vathek; so that-if I do not err-this poem may be considered as a metrical experiment. The cantos are short, and about the same

length of those of the poet whose name I have borrowed, and most probably taken in vain.

Amongst the inconveniences of authors in the present day, it is difficult for any who have a name, good or bad, to escape trans

lation. I have had the fortune to see the fourth canto of Childe Harold translated

into Italian versi sciolti—that is, a poem
written in the Spensercan stanza into blank
verse, without regard to the natural di-
visions of the stanza, or of the sense.
the present poem, being on a national topic,
should chance to undergo the same fate, I
would request the Italian reader to remem-
ber, that when I have failed in the imita-
tion of his great "Padre Alighier," I have
failed in imitating that which all study and
few understand, since to this very day it is
not yet settled what was the meaning of
the allegory in the first canto of the Inferno,
unless Count Marchetti's ingenious and pro-
bable conjecture may be considered as hav-
ing decided the question.

He may also pardon my failure the more, as I am not quite sure that he would be pleased with my success, since the Italians, "On this hint I spake," and the result with a pardonable nationality, are partihas been the following four cantos, in terza cularly jealous of all that is left them as rima, now offered to the reader. If they a nation-their literature; and, in the preare understood and approved, it is my pur- sent bitterness of the classic and romantic pose to continue the poem in various other war, are but ill disposed to permit a foreigncantos to its natural conclusion in the pre-er even to approve or imitate them, without sent age. The reader is requested to sup- finding some fault with his ultramontane pose that Dante addresses him in the inter-presumption. I can easily enter into all val between the conclusion of the Divina this, knowing what would be thought in Commedia and his death, and shortly before England of an Italian imitator of Milton, the latter event, foretelling the fortunes of or if a translation of Monti, or Pindemonte, Italy in general in the ensuing centuries.or Arici, should be held up to the rising In adopting this plan I have had in my generation as a model for their future poctmind the Cassandra of Lycophron, and the ical essays. But I perceive that I am Prophecy of Nereus by Horace, as well as deviating into an address to the Italian the Prophecies of Holy Writ. The measure reader, when my business is with the Engadopted is the terza rima of Dante, which lish one, and be they few or many, I must I am not aware to have seen hitherto tried | take my leave of both.

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