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, 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 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;
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 hath 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.

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 classed,

'Mid sounds and sights like these long years have

passed;

'Mid sights and sounds like these my life may close:

So let it be for then I shall repose.