Paved with the image of the sky … the hoar
And aëry Alps towards the North appeared
Through mist, an heaven-sustaining bulwark reared
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Between the East and West; and half the sky
Was roofed with clouds of rich emblazonry
Dark purple at the zenith, which still grew
Down the steep West into a wondrous hue
Brighter than burning gold, even to the rent
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Where the swift sun yet paused in his descent
Among the many-folded hills: they were
Those famous Euganean hills, which bear,
As seen from Lido thro’ the harbour piles,
The likeness of a clump of peakèd isles—
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And then—as if the Earth and Sea had been
Dissolved into one lake of fire, were seen
Those mountains towering as from waves of flame
Around the vaporous sun, from which there came
The inmost purple spirit of light, and made,
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Their very peaks transparent. ‘Ere it fade,’
Said my companion, ‘I will show you soon
A better station’—so, o’er the lagune
We glided; and from that funereal bark
I leaned, and saw the city, and could mark
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How from their many isles, in evening’s gleam,
Its temples and its palaces did seem
Like fabrics of enchantment piled to Heaven.
I was about to speak, when—‘We are even
Now at the point I meant,’ said Maddalo,
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And bade the gondolieri cease to row.
‘Look, Julian, on the west, and listen well
If you hear not a deep and heavy bell.’
I looked, and saw between us and the sun
A building on an island; such a one
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As age to age might add, for uses vile,
A windowless, deformed and dreary pile;
And on the top an open tower, where hung
A bell, which in the radiance swayed and swung;
We could just hear its hoarse and iron tongue:
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The broad sun sunk behind it, and it tolled
In strong and black relief.—‘What we behold
Shall be the madhouse and its belfry tower,’
Said Maddalo, ‘and ever at this hour
Those who may cross the water, hear that bell
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Which calls the maniacs, each one from his cell,
To vespers.’—‘As much skill as need to pray
In thanks or hope for their dark lot have they
To their stern maker,’ I replied. ‘O ho!
You talk as in years past,’ said Maddalo.
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‘’Tis strange men change not. You were ever still
Among Christ’s flock a perilous infidel,
A wolf for the meek lambs—if you can’t swim
Beware of Providence.’ I looked on him,
But the gay smile had faded in his eye.
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‘And such,’—he cried, ‘is our mortality,
And this must be the emblem and the sign
Of what should be eternal and divine!—
And like that black and dreary bell, the soul,
Hung in a heaven-illumined tower, must toll
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Our thoughts and our desires to meet below
Round the rent heart and pray—as madmen do
For what? they know not,—till the night of death
As sunset that strange vision, severeth
Our memory from itself, and us from all
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We sought and yet were baffled.’ I recall
The sense of what he said, although I mar
The force of his expressions. The broad star
Of day meanwhile had sunk behind the hill,
And the black bell became invisible,
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And the red tower looked gray, and all between
The churches, ships and palaces were seen
Huddled in gloom;—into the purple sea
The orange hues of heaven sunk silently
We hardly spoke, and soon the gondola
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Conveyed me to my lodging by the way.
The following morn was rainy, cold and dim:
Ere Maddalo arose, I called on him,
And whilst I waited with his child I played;
A lovelier toy sweet Nature never made,
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A serious, subtle, wild, yet gentle being,
Graceful without design and unforeseeing,
With eyes—Oh speak not of her eyes!—which seem
Twin mirrors of Italian Heaven, yet gleam
With such deep meaning, as we never see
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But in the human countenance: with me
She was a special favourite: I had nursed
Her fine and feeble limbs when she came first
To this bleak world; and she yet seemed to know
On second sight her ancient playfellow,
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Less changed than she was by six months or so;
For after her first shyness was worn out
We sate there, rolling billiard balls about,
When the Count entered. Salutations past—
‘The word you spoke last night might well have cast
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A darkness on my spirit—if man be
The passive thing you say, I should not see
Much harm in the religions and old saws
(Tho’ I may never own such leaden laws)
Which break a teachless nature to the yoke:
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Mine is another faith’—thus much I spoke
And noting he replied not, added: ‘See
This lovely child, blithe, innocent and free;
She spends a happy time with little care,
While we to such sick thoughts subjected are
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As came on you last night—it is our will
That thus enchains us to permitted ill—
We might be otherwise—we might be all
We dream of happy, high, majestical.
Where is the love, beauty, and truth we seek
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But in our mind? and if we were not weak
Should we be less in deed than in desire?’
‘Ay, if we were not weak—and we aspire
How vainly to be strong!’ said Maddalo:
‘You talk Utopia.’ ‘It remains to know,’
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I then rejoined, ‘and those who try may find
How strong the chains are which our spirit bind;
Brittle perchance as straw … We are assured
Much may be conquered, much may be endured,
Of what degrades and crushes us. We know
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That we have power over ourselves to do
And suffer—what, we know not till we try;
But something nobler than to live and die—
So taught those kings of old philosophy
Who reigned, before Religion made men blind;
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And those who suffer with their suffering kind
Yet feel their faith, religion.’ ‘My dear friend,’
Said Maddalo, ‘my judgement will not bend
To your opinion, though I think you might
Make such a system refutation-tight
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As far as words go. I knew one like you
Who to this city came some months ago,
With whom I argued in this sort, and he
Is now gone mad,—and so he answered me,—
Poor fellow! but if you would like to go
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We’ll visit him, and his wild talk will show
r /> How vain are such aspiring theories.’
‘I hope to prove the induction otherwise,
And that a want of that true theory, still,
Which seeks a “soul of goodness” in things ill
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Or in himself or others, has thus bowed
His being—there are some by nature proud,
Who patient in all else demand but this—
To love and be beloved with gentleness;
And being scorned, what wonder if they die
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Some living death? this is not destiny
But man’s own wilful ill.’
As thus I spoke
Servants announced the gondola, and we
Through the fast-falling rain and high-wrought sea
Sailed to the island where the madhouse stands.
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We disembarked. The clap of tortured hands,
Fierce yells and howlings and lamentings keen,
And laughter where complaint had merrier been,
Moans, shrieks, and curses, and blaspheming prayers
Accosted us. We climbed the oozy stairs
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Into an old courtyard. I heard on high,
Then, fragments of most touching melody,
But looking up saw not the singer there—
Through the black bars in the tempestuous air
I saw, like weeds on a wrecked palace growing,
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Long tangled locks flung wildly forth, and flowing,
Of those who on a sudden were beguiled
Into strange silence, and looked forth and smiled
Hearing sweet sounds.—Then I: ‘Methinks there were
A cure of these with patience and kind care,
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If music can thus move … but what is he
Whom we seek here?’ ‘Of his sad history
I know but this,’ said Maddalo: ‘he came
To Venice a dejected man, and fame
Said he was wealthy, or he had been so;
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Some thought the loss of fortune wrought him woe;
But he was ever talking in such sort
As you do—far more sadly—he seemed hurt,
Even as a man with his peculiar wrong,
To hear but of the oppression of the strong,
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Or those absurd deceits (I think with you
In some respects, you know) which carry through
The excellent impostors of this earth
When they outface detection—he had worth,
Poor fellow! but a humorist in his way’—
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‘Alas, what drove him mad?’ ‘I cannot say:
A lady came with him from France, and when
She left him and returned, he wandered then
About yon lonely isles of desert sand
Till he grew wild—he had no cash or land
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Remaining,—the police had brought him here—
Some fancy took him and he would not bear
Removal; so I fitted up for him
Those rooms beside the sea, to please his whim,
And sent him busts and books and urns for flowers,
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Which had adorned his life in happier hours,
And instruments of music—you may guess
A stranger could do little more or less
For one so gentle and unfortunate:
And those are his sweet strains which charm the weight
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From madmen’s chains, and make this Hell appear
A heaven of sacred silence, hushed to hear.’—
‘Nay, this was kind of you—he had no claim,
As the world says’—‘None—but the very same
Which I on all mankind were I as he
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Fallen to such deep reverse;—his melody
Is interrupted—now we hear the din
Of madmen, shriek on shriek, again begin;
Let us now visit him; after this strain
He ever communes with himself again,
270
And sees nor hears not any.’ Having said
These words we called the keeper, and he led
To an apartment opening on the sea—
There the poor wretch was sitting mournfully
Near a piano, his pale fingers twined
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One with the other, and the ooze and wind
Rushed through an open casement, and did sway
His hair, and starred it with the brackish spray;
His head was leaning on a music book,
And he was muttering, and his lean limbs shook;
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His lips were pressed against a folded leaf
In hue too beautiful for health, and grief
Smiled in their motions as they lay apart—
As one who wrought from his own fervid heart
The eloquence of passion, soon he raised
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His sad meek face and eyes lustrous and glazed
And spoke—sometimes as one who wrote, and thought
His words might move some heart that heeded not,
If sent to distant lands: and then as one
Reproaching deeds never to be undone
290
With wondering self-compassion; then his speech
Was lost in grief, and then his words came each
Unmodulated, cold, expressionless,—
But that from one jarred accent you might guess
It was despair made them so uniform:
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And all the while the loud and gusty storm
Hissed through the window, and we stood behind
Stealing his accents from the envious wind
Unseen. I yet remember what he said
Distinctly: such impression his words made.
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‘Month after month,’ he cried, ‘to bear this load
And as a jade urged by the whip and goad To drag life on,
which like a heavy chain Lengthens behind with many a
link of pain!—
And not to speak my grief—O, not to dare
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To give a human voice to my despair,
But live and move, and, wretched thing! smile on
As if I never went aside to groan,
And wear this mask of falsehood even to those
Who are most dear—not for my own repose—
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Alas! no scorn or pain or hate could be
So heavy as that falsehood is to me—
But that I cannot bear more altered faces
Than needs must be, more changed and cold embraces,
More misery, disappointment, and mistrust
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To own me for their father … Would the dust
Were covered in upon my body now!
That the life ceased to toil within my brow!
And then these thoughts would at the least be fled;
Let us not fear such pain can vex the dead.
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‘What Power delights to torture us? I know
That to myself I do not wholly owe
What now I suffer, though in part I may.
Alas! none strewed sweet flowers upon the way
Where wandering heedlessly, I met pale Pain
325
My shadow, which will leave me not again—
If I have erred, there was no joy in error,
But pain and insult and unrest and terror;
I have not as some do, bought penitence
With pleasure, and a dark yet sweet offence,
330
For them,—if love and tenderness and truth
Had overlived hope’s momentary youth,
My creed should have redeemed me from repenting;
But loathèd scorn and outrage unrelenting
Met love excited by far oth
er seeming
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Until the end was gained … as one from dreaming
Of sweetest peace, I woke, and found my state
Such as it is.—
‘O Thou, my spirit’s mate
Who, for thou art compassionate and wise,
Wouldst pity me from thy most gentle eyes
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If this sad writing thou shouldst ever see—
My secret groans must be unheard by thee,
Thou wouldst weep tears bitter as blood to know
Thy lost friend’s incommunicable woe.
‘Ye few by whom my nature has been weighed
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In friendship, let me not that name degrade
By placing on your hearts the secret load
Which crushes mine to dust. There is one road
To peace and that is truth, which follow ye!
Love sometimes leads astray to misery.
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Yet think not though subdued—and I may well
Say that I am subdued—that the full Hell
Within me would infect the untainted breast
Of sacred nature with its own unrest;
As some perverted beings think to find
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In scorn or hate a medicine for the mind
Which scorn or hate have wounded—O how vain!
The dagger heals not but may rend again …
Believe that I am ever still the same
In creed as in resolve, and what may tame
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My heart, must leave the understanding free,
Or all would sink in this keen agony—
Nor dream that I will join the vulgar cry;
Or with my silence sanction tyranny;
Or seek a moment’s shelter from my pain
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In any madness which the world calls gain,
Ambition or revenge or thoughts as stern
As those which make me what I am; or turn
To avarice or misanthropy or lust …
Heap on me soon, O grave, thy welcome dust!
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Till then the dungeon may demand its prey,