ADVERTISEMENT.

Ar 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 winder and the indignation of the spectator. Ferrara is mich decayed and depopulated; the castle still exists entie; and I saw the court where Parisina and Hugo were baeaded, according to the annal of Gibbon.

THE LAMENT OF TASSO.

I.

LONG years! It tries the thrilling frame to bear nd eagle-spirit of a Child of song

ong years of outrage, calumny and wrong; aputed madness, prison'd solitude, And the mind's canker in its savage mood, Then the impatient thirst of light and air arches the heart; and the abhorr'd grate, arring the sunbeams with its hideous shade, Porks 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 il 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.
Al this hath somewhat worn me, and may wear,
but must be borne. I stoop not to despair;
For I have battled with mine agony,

nd 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.

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 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 now?
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 love so lofty as thou art;

my

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; 't is 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-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:
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,

VOL. X.