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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=396216" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Lament Of Tasso</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I. <br>Long years!--It tries the thrilling frame to bear <br>And eagle-spirit of a child of Song-- <br>Long years of outrage, calumny, and wrong; <br>Imputed madness, prison'd solitude, <br>And the mind's canker in its savage mood, <br>When the impatient thirst of light and air <br>Parches the heart; and the abhorred grate, <br>Marring the sunbeams with its hideous shade, <br>Works through the throbbing eyeball to the brain, <br>With a hot sense of heaviness and pain; <br>And bare, at once, Captivity display'd <br>Stands scoffing through the never-open'd gate, <br>Which nothing through its bars admits, save day, <br>And tasteless food, which I have eat alone <br>Till its unsocial bitterness is gone; <br>And I can banquet like a beast of prey, <br>Sullen and lonely, crouching in the cave <br>Which is my lair, and--it may be--my grave. <br>All this hath somewhat worn me, and may wear, <br>But must be borne. I stoop not to despair; <br>For I have battled with mine agony, <br>And made me wings wherewith to overfly <br>The narrow circus of my dungeon wall, <br>And freed the Holy Sepulchre from thrall, <br>And revell'd among men and things divine, <br>And pour'd my spirit over Palestine, <br>In honour of the sacred war for Him, <br>The God who was on earth and is in heaven, <br>For He has strengthen'd me in heart and limb. <br>That through this sufferance I might be forgiven, <br>I have employ'd my penance to record <br>How Salem's shrine was won and how adored. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">II. <br>But this is o'er--my pleasant task is done:--<br>My long-sustaining friend of many years! <br>If I do blot thy final page with tears, <br>Know, that my sorrows have wrung from me none. <br>But thou, my young creation! my soul's child! <br>Which ever playing round me came and smiled, <br>And woo'd me from myself with thy sweet sight, <br>Thou too art gone--and so is my delight: <br>And therefore do I weep and inly bleed <br>With this last bruise upon a broken reed. <br>Thou too art ended--what is left me now? <br>For I have anguish yet to bear--and how? <br>I know not that--but in the innate force <br>Of my own spirit shall be found resource. <br>I have not sunk, for I had no remorse, <br>Nor cause for such: they call'd me mad — and why? <br>O Leonora! wilt not thou reply? <br>I was indeed delirious in my heart <br>To lift my love so loft as thou art; <br>But still my frenzy was not of the mind; <br>I knew my fault, and feel my punishment <br>Not less because I suffer it unbent. <br>That thou wert beautiful, and I not blind, <br>Hath been the sin which shuts me from mankind; <br>But let them go, or torture as they will, <br>My heart can multiply thine image still; <br>Successful love may sate itself away, <br>The wretched are the faithful; 'tis their fate <br>To have all feeling save the one decay, <br>And every passion into one dilate, <br>As rapid rivers into ocean pour; <br>But ours is fathomless, and hath no shore. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">III. <br>Above me, hark! the long and maniac cry <br>Of minds and bodies in captivity, <br>And hark! the lash and the increasing howl, <br>And the half-inarticulate blasphemy! <br>There be some here with worse than frenzy foul, <br>Some who do still goad on the o'erlabour'd mind, <br>And dim the little light that's left behind <br>With needless torture, as their tyrant will <br>Is wound up to the lust of doing ill: <br>With these and with their victims am I class'd, <br>'Mid sounds and sights like these long years have passed; <br>'Mid sounds and sights like these my life may close: <br>So let it be--for then I shall repose. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">IV. <br>I have been patient, let me be so yet; <br>I had forgotten half I would forget, <br>But it revives--oh! I would it were my lot <br>To be forgetful as I am forgot!--<br>Feel I not wroth with those who bade me dwell <br>In this vast lazar-house of many woes? <br>Where laughter is not mirth, nor thought the mind, <br>Nor words a language, nor even men mankind; <br>Where cries reply to curses, shrieks to blows, <br>And each is tortured in his separate hell-- <br>For we are crowded in our solitudes-- <br>Many, but each divided by the wall, <br>Which echoes Madness in her babbling moods;-- <br>While all can hear, none heed his neighbour's call-- <br>None! save that One, the veriest wretch of all, <br>Who was not made to be the mate of these, <br>Nor bound between Distraction and Disease. <br>Feel I not wroth with those who placed me here? <br>Who have debased me in the minds of men, <br>Debarring me the usage of my own, <br>Blighting my life in best of its career, <br>Branding my thoughts as things to shun and fear? <br>Would I not pay them back these pangs again, <br>And teach them inward Sorrow's stifled groan? <br>The struggle to be calm, and cold distress, <br>Which undermines our Stoical success? <br>No!--still too proud to be vindictive--I <br>Have pardon'd princes' insults, and would die. <br>Yes, Sister of my Sovereign! for thy sake <br>I week all bitterness from out my breast, <br>It hath no business where thou art a guest; <br>Thy brother hates--but I can not detest; <br>Though pitiest not--but I can not forsake. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">V. <br>Look on a love which knows not to despair, <br>But all unquench'd is still my better part, <br>Dwelling deep in my shut and silent heart, <br>As dwells the gather'd lightning in its cloud, <br>Encompass'd with its dark and rolling shroud, <br>Till struck--forth flies the all-ethereal dart! <br>And thus at the collision of thy name <br>The vivid thought still flashes through my frame, <br>And for a moment all things as they were <br>Flit by me;--they are gone--I am the same. <br>And yet my love without ambition grew; <br>I knew thy state, my station, and I knew <br>A Princess was no love-mate for a bard; <br>I told it not, I breathed it not, it was <br>Sufficient to itself, its own reward; <br>And if my eyes reveal'd it, they, alas! <br>Were punish'd by the silentness of thine, <br>And yet I did not venture to repine. <br>Thou wert to me a crystal-girded shrine <br>Worshipp'd at holy distance, and around <br>Hallow'd and meekly kiss'd the saintly ground; <br>Nor for thou wert a princess, but that Love <br>Had robed thee with a glory, and array'd <br>Thy lineaments in a beauty that dismay'd-- <br>Oh! not dismay'd--but awed, like One above! <br>And in that sweet severity there was <br>A something which all softness did surpass-- <br>I know not how--thy genius master'd mine-- <br>My star stood still before thee:--if it were <br>Presumptuous thus to love without design, <br>That sad fatality hath cost me dear; <br>But thou art dearest still, and I should be <br>Fit for this cell, which wrongs me--but for thee. <br>The very love which lock'd me to my chain <br>Hath lighten'd half its weight; and for the rest, <br>Though heavy, lent me vigour to sustain, <br>And look to thee with undivided breast, <br>And foil the ingenuity of Pain. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">VI. <br>It is no marvel--from my very birth <br>My soul was drunk with love--which did pervade <br>And mingle with whate'er I saw on earth; <br>Of objects all inanimate I made <br>Idols, and out of wild and lonely flowers, <br>And rocks, whereby they grew, a paradise, <br>Where I did lay me down within the shade <br>Of waving trees, and dream'd uncounted hours, <br>Though I was chid for wandering; and the Wise <br>Shook their white aged heads o'er me, and said <br>Of such materials wretched men were made, <br>And such a truant boy would end in woe. <br>And that the only lesson was a blow; <br>And then they smote me, and I did not weep, <br>But cursed them in my heart, and to my haunt <br>Return'd and wept alone, and dream'd again <br>The visions which arise without a sleep. <br>And with my years my soul began to pant <br>With feelings of strange tumult and soft pain; <br>And the whole heart exhaled into One Want, <br>But undefined and wandering, till the day <br>I found the thing I sought--and that was thee; <br>And then I lost my being all to be <br>Absorb'd in thine--the world was pass'd away-- <br>Thou didst annihilate the earth to me! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">VII. <br>I loved all Solitude--but little thought <br>To spend I know not what of life, remote <br>From all communion with existence, save <br>The maniac and his tyrant;--had I been <br>Their fellow, many years ere this had seen <br>My mind like theirs corrupted to its grave, <br>But who hath seen me writhe, or heard me rave? <br>Perchance in such a cell we suffer more <br>Than the wreck'd sailor on his desert shore: <br>The world is all before him--mine is here, <br>Scarce twice the space they must accord my bier. <br>What though he perish, he may lift his eye <br>And with a dying glance upbraid the sky-- <br>I will not raise my own in such reproof, <br>Although 'tis clouded by my dungeon roof. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">VIII. <br>Yet do I feel at times my mind decline, <br>But with a sense of its decay:--I see <br>Unwonted lights along my prison shine, <br>And a strange demon, who is vexing me <br>With pilfering pranks and petty pains, below <br>The feeling of the healthful and the free; <br>But much to One, who long hath suffer'd so, <br>Sickness of heart, and narrowness of place, <br>And all that must be borne, or can debase. <br>I thought my enemies had been but Man, <br>But spirits may be leagued with them--all Earth <br>Abandons--Heaven forgets me--in the dearth <br>Of such defence the Powers of Evil can, <br>It may be, tempt me further--and prevail <br>Against the outworn creature they assail. <br>Why in this furnace is my spirit proved <br>Like steel in tempering fire?--because I loved? <br>Because I loved what not to love, and see, <br>Was more or less than mortal, and than me. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">IX.<br>I once was quick in feeling--that is o'er;--<br>My scars are callous, or I should have dash'd <br>My brain against these bars, as the sun flash'd <br>In mockery through them;--If I bear and bore <br>The much I have recounted, and the more <br>Which hath no words,--'tis that I would not die <br>And sanction with self-slaughter the dull lie <br>Which snared me here, and with the brand of shame <br>Stamp Madness deep into memory, <br>And woo Compassion to a blighted name, <br>Sealing the sentence which my foes proclaim. <br>No — it shall be immortal!--and I make <br>A future temple of my present cell, <br>Which nations yet shall visit for my sake. <br>While thou, Ferrara! when no longer dwell <br>The ducal chiefs within thee, shalt fall down, <br>And crumbling piecemeal view thy hearthless halls. <br>A poet's wreath shall be thine only crown-- <br>A poet's dungeon thy most far renown, <br>While strangers wander o'er thy unpeopled walls! <br>And thou, Leonora!--thou--who wert ashamed <br>That such as I could love--who blush'd to hear <br>To less than monarchs that thou couldst be dear, <br>Go! tell thy brother, that my heart, untamed <br>By grief, years, weariness--and it may be <br>A taint of that he would impute to me, <br>From long infection of a den like this, <br>Where the mind rots congenial with the abyss--<br>Adores thee still;--and add--that when the towers <br>And battlements which guard his joyous hours <br>Of banquet, dance, and revel are forgot, <br>Or left untended in a dull repose, <br>This--this--shall be a consecrated spot! <br>But thou--when all that Birth and Beauty throws <br>Of magic round thee is extinct--shalt have <br>One half the laurel which o'ershades my grave. <br>No power in death can tear our names apart, <br>As none in life could rend thee from my heart. <br>Yes, Leonora! it shall be our fate <br>To be entwined for ever--but too late!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Byron">Byron</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=396216" data-title="The Lament Of Tasso de Byron" data-description="I. 
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, prison'd solitude, 
And the mind's canker in its savage mood, 
When the impatient thirst of ..."></div>
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