To love and be beloved with gentleness:
And being scorned, what wonder if they die.
Some living death? This is not destiny,
But man's own wilful ill."-
Servants announced the gondola, and we
Through the fast-falling rain and high-wrought sea
Sailed to the island where the madhouse stands.
We disembarked. The clap of tortured hands,
Fierce yells, and howlings, and lamentings keen,
And laughter where complaint had merrier been,
Accosted us. We climbed the oozy stairs
Into an old court-yard. I heard on high,
Then, fragments of most touching melody,
But looking up saw not the singer there.-
Thro' the black bars in the tempestuous air
I saw, like weeds on a wreck'd palace growing,
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 :-
A cure of these with patience and kind care,
I know but this," said Maddalo: “he came
To Venice a dejected man, and fame
Said he was wealthy, or he had been so.
Some thought the loss of fortune wrought him woe;
But he was ever talking in such sort
As you do, but more sadly;-he seem'd hurt,
Even as a man with his peculiar wrong,
To hear but of the oppression of the strong,
Or those absurd deceits (I think with you
In some respects, you know) which carry thro'
The excellent impostors of this earth
When they outface detection. He had worth,
Poor fellow! but a humourist in his way."-
-"Alas, what drove him mad!"
A lady came with him from France, and when
She left him and returned, he wander'd then
About yon lonely isles of desart sand,
Till he grew wild. He had no cash or land
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, Which had adorned his life in happier hours,
And instruments of music. You may guess
A stranger could do little more or less
For oneso gentle and unfortunate—
And those are his sweet strains which charm the weight 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."
Which I on all mankind, were I, as he,
Fall'n 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,
And sees and hears not any."
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
One with the other; and the ooze and wind
Rushed thro' 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;
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
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,
With wondering self-compassion;-then his speech
Was lost in grief, and then his words came each
Unmodulated and expressionless,—
But that from one jarred accent you might guess
It was despair made them so uniform:
And all the while the loud and gusty storm
Hissed thro' 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.
"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
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-
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
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 last be fled:
Let us not fear such pain can vex the dead.
"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 fresh flowers upon the way
Where, wandering heedlessly, I met pale Pain,
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;
For then if love, and tenderness, and truth
Had overlived Hope's momentary youth,
My creed should have redeemed me from repenting;
But loathed scorn and outrage unrelenting
Met love excited by far other seeming
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
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
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.
Yet think not, tho' subdued (and I may well
Say that I am subdued)-that the full hell
Within me would infect the untainted breast
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