Now at the point I meant,’ said Maddalo,
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
As age to age might add, for uses vile, 100
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;
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,
Which calls the maniacs each one from his cell 110
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.
‘‘T is 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, —
‘And such,’ he cried, ‘is our mortality; 120
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
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
We sought, and yet were baffled.’ I recall 130
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,
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
Conveyed me to my lodgings by the way. 140
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;
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
But in the human countenance. With me 150
She was a special favorite; 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,
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 words you spoke last night might well have cast
A darkness on my spirit. If man be 160
The passive thing you say, I should not see
Much harm in the religions and old saws,
(Though I may never own such leaden laws)
Which break a teachless nature to the yoke.
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
As came on you last night. It is our will 170
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,
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,’
I then rejoined, ‘and those who try may find 180
Brittle perchance as straw. We are assured
Much may be conquered, much may be endured
Of what degrades and crushes us. We know
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;
And those who suffer with their suffering kind 190
Yet feel this faith religion.’ ‘My dear friend,’
Said Maddalo, ‘my judgment will not bend
To your opinion, though I think you might
Make such a system refutation-tight
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,
We ‘ll visit him, and his wild talk will show 200
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,
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
Some living death? this is not destiny 210
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.
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
Into an old courtyard. I heard on high, 220
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,
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,
If music can thus move. But what is he, 230
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.
Some thought the loss of fortune wrought him woe;
But he was eve
r 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,
Or those absurd deceits (I think with you 240
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.’
‘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
Remaining; the police had brought him here; 250
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 one so gentle and unfortunate;
And those are his sweet strains which charm the weight
From madmen’s chains, and make this Hell appear 260
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
Fallen to such deep reverse. His melody
Of madmen, shriek on shriek, again begin.
Let us now visit him; after this strain
He ever communes with himself again,
And sees nor hears not any.’ Having said 270
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 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;
His lips were pressed against a folded leaf, 280
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 290
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;
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.
‘Month after month,’ he cried, ‘to bear this load, 300
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 — oh, 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 310
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 least be fled;
Let us not fear such pain can vex the dead.
‘What Power delights to torture us? I know 320
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,
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 330
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 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 — 340
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, though subdued — and I may well 350
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
In soorn or hate a medicine for the mind
Which soorn or hate have wounded — oh, 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
My heart must leave the understanding free, 360
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
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!
Till then the dungeon may demand its prey, 370
And Poverty and Shame may meet and say,
Halting beside me on the public way,
“That love-devoted youth is ours; let ‘s sit
Beside him; he may live some six months yet.”
Or the red scaffold, as our country bends,
May ask some willing victim; or ye, friends,
May fall under some sorrow, which this heart
Or hand may share or vanquish or avert;
I am prepared — in truth, with no
proud joy,
To do or suffer aught, as when a boy 380
I did devote to justice and to love
My nature, worthless now! —
‘I must remove
A veil from my pent mind. ‘T is torn aside!
O pallid as Death’s dedicated bride,
Thou mockery which art sitting by my side,
Am I not wan like thee? at the grave’s call
I haste, invited to thy wedding-ball,
To greet the ghastly paramour for whom
Thou hast deserted me — and made the tomb
Thy bridal bed — but I beside your feet 390
Will lie and watch ye from my winding-sheet —
Thus — wide-awake though dead — yet stay, oh, stay!
Go not so soon — know not what I say —
Hear but my reasons — I am mad, I fear,
My fancy is o’erwrought — thou art not here;
Pale art thou, ‘t is most true — but thou art gone,
Thy work is finished — I am left alone.
. . . . . . . . .
‘Nay, was it I who wooed thee to this breast,
Which like a serpent thou envenomest
As in repayment of the warmth it lent? 400
Didst thou not seek me for thine own content?
Did not thy love awaken mine? I thought
That thou wert she who said “You kiss me not
Ever; I fear you do not love me now” —
In truth I loved even to my overthrow
Her who would fain forget these words; but they
Cling to her mind, and cannot pass away.
. . . . . . . . .
‘You say that I am proud — that when I speak
My lip is tortured with the wrongs which break
The spirit it expresses. — Never one 410
Humbled himself before, as I have done!
Even the instinctive worm on which we tread
Turns, though it wound not — then with prostrate head
Sinks in the dust and writhes like me — and dies?
No: wears a living death of agonies!
As the slow shadows of the pointed grass
Mark the eternal periods, his pangs pass,
Slow, ever-moving, making moments be
As mine seem, — each an immortality!
. . . . . . . . .
‘That you had never seen me — never heard 420
My voice, and more than all had ne’er endured
The deep pollution of my loathed embrace —
That your eyes ne’er had lied love in my face —
That, like some maniac monk, I had torn out
The nerves of manhood by their bleeding root
With mine own quivering fingers, so that ne’er
Our hearts had for a moment mingled there
To disunite in horror — these were not
With thee like some suppressed and hideous thought
Which flits athwart our musings but can find 430