University of Virginia Library

I. PART THE FIRST.

I.

For ever and for ever shalt thou be
Unto the lover and the poet dear,
Thou land of sunlit skies and fountains clear,
Of temples, and gray columns, and waving woods,
And mountains, from whose rifts the bursting floods
Rush in bright tumult to the Adrian sea:
O thou romantic land of Italy!
Mother of painting and sweet sounds!—tho' now
The laurels are all torn from off thy brow—
Yet, tho' the shape of Freedom now no more
May walk in beauty on thy piny shore,
Shall I, upon whose soul thy poets' lays
And all thy songs and hundred stories fell,
Like dim Arabian charms, break the soft spell
That bound me to thee in mine earlier days?
Never, divinest Italy!—thou shalt be
For aye the watchword of the heart to me.

II.

III.

There is a lofty spot
Visible amongst the mountains Appennine,
Where once a hermit dwelt, not yet forgot
He or his famous miracles divine;
And there the Convent of Laverna stands
In solitude, built up by saintly hands,
And deemed a wonder in the elder time;
Chasms of the early world are yawning there,
And rocks are seen, craggy, and vast, and bare,
And many a dizzy precipice sublime,
And caverns dark as Death, where the wild air
Rushes from all the quarters of the sky:
Above, in all his old regality,
The monarch eagle sits upon his throne,
Or floats upon the desert winds, alone.
There, belted 'round and 'round by forests drear,
Black pine, and giant beech, and oaks that rear
Their brown diminished heads like shrubs between,
And guarded by a river that is seen
Flashing and wandering thro' the dell below,
Laverna stands.—It is a place of woe,
And, 'midst its cold dim aisles and cells of gloom,
The pale Franciscan meditates his doom.
An exile from his kind, save some sad few
(Like him imprison'd and devoted,) who,
Deserting their high natures for the creed
A bigot fashioned in his weaker dreams,
Left love and life, (yet love is life, indeed,)
And all the wonders of the world,—its gleams
Of joy, of sunshine, fair as those which spring
From the great poet's high imagining,
Sounds, and gay sights, and woman's words which bless
And carry on their echoes happiness,—
Left all that man inherits, and fell down
To worship in the dust, a demon's crown:
For there a phantom of a fearful size,
Shaped out of shadow and cloud, and nursed in pain,
And born of doubt and sorrow, and of the brain
The ever evil spirit, mocks man's eyes;
And they who worship it are cold and wan,
Timid and proud, envying while they despise
The wealth and wishes of their fellow man.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.

Now may we seek Colonna. When he found
Himself a prisoner in his cell, and bound,
And saw the eye-less skull and glass of sand
And ghastly crucifix before him, he
'Rose with a sudden shriek and burst the band
That tied him to his pallet, and stood free:
Not thus alone he stood, for the wild shock
Darted upon his brain and did unlock
The gates of memory, and from his soul
Gradual he felt the clouds of madness roll,
And with his mind's redemption every base
And darker passion fled—shrunk 'fore its light,
As at the glance of morning shrinks the night.
Not suddenly,—but slow, from day to day,
The shadow from his spirit passed away,
And sometimes would return, at intervals,
As blight upon the opening blossom falls.
—And then he pondered in his prison place,
On many an awful theme ne'er conn'd before,
Of darkness and decay, and of that shore
Upon whose shadowy strand pale spirits walk,
'Tis said, for many ages, and would talk
Right eloquent with every monk who there
Boasted of penitence, and felt despair,
In whose dull eye Hope shone not, and whose breath
Was one unvaried tale of Death and Death.

VIII.

IX.

Some memory had he of Vitelli's child,
But gathered where he now remembered not;
Perhaps, like a faint dream or vision wild,
(Which, once beheld, may never be forgot,)
She floated in his fancy; and when pain
And fevers hot came thronging round his brain,
Her shape and voice fell like a balm upon
His sad and dark imagination.
A gentle minister she was, when he
Saw forms, 'twas said, which often silently
Passed by his midnight couch, and felt at times
Strange horror for imaginary crimes,
(Committed, or to be,) and in his walk
Of Fate and Death, and phantom things would talk.
Shrieks scared him from his sleep, and figures came
On his alarmed sight, and thro' the glades,
When evening filled the woods with trembling shades,
Followed his footsteps; and a star-like flame
Floated before his eyes palely by day,
And glared by night and would not pass away.
—At last his brother died. Giovanni fell
A victim in a cause he loved too well;
And the Colonna prince, without his heir,
Bethought him of the distant convent, where
A child had been imprison'd, that he might gain
Riches for one he better lov'd:—How vain,
And idle now! Dead was the favoured son,
And sad the father,—but the crime was done.

X.

Then Marcian sought his home. A ghastly gloom
Hung o'er the pillars and the wrecks of Rome,
And scarcely, as the clouds were swiftly driven
In masses shrouding the blue face of heaven,
Was seen, by tremulous glimpses, the pale moon,
Who looked abroad in fear and vanished soon.
The winds were loud amongst the ruins, where
The wild weeds shook abroad their ragged hair,
And sounds were heard, like sobs from some lone man,
And murmuring 'tween his banks the Tyber ran.
In the Colonna palace there were tears
Flowing from aged eyes that seldom wept;
Their son was gone—the hope of many years
Cold in his marble home for ever slept.
—The father met his child: with tremulous grasp
He pressed his hand, and he returned the clasp,
And spoke assuring words—‘that he was come
‘To soothe his grief and cheer his desolate home,’
And then he bade him quite forget the past.
Thus hand in hand they sate awhile; at last
A deep deep sob came bursting from the gloom
That hid the far part of the palace room,
And, after, all was silent as the grave.
Colonna 'rose, and by the lamp that gave
A feeble light, saw, like a shape of stone,
His mother couching in the dusk, alone:
Her hand was clenched, and her eye wandered wild
Like one who lost and sought, (in vain,) a child;
And now and then a smile, but not a tear,
Told that she fancied still her darling near;
And then she shook her head and crossed her arms
Over her breast, and turned her from the light,
And seemed as tho' she muttered inward charms,
To scare some doubtful phantom from her sight.
He spoke to her in vain: her heart was filled
With grief, and every passion else was stilled,
Was buried,—lost. Just as the mighty rains
Which, gathering, flood the valleys in the days
Of Autumn, or as rivers when snow decays
Sweep all things in their course, 'till nought remains
Distinguishable,—earth, and roots, and grass,
And stones, and casual things, a mingled mass,
Driven onwards by the waters, and o'erborne
'Till but the stream is seen: So they who mourn
Deeply, and they, 'tis said, who love the best
In one wild mastering passion lose the rest.

XI.

At last, the woes that wrapped the mother 'round
Broke and dissolved, and a serener day
Shone on her life; but never more the sound
Of noisy mirth or festal music gay
Was heard within Colonna's walls,—and yet
A calm and pleasant circle often met,
And the despised, neglected Marcian now
Wore the descended honours on his brow.
Unlike he was in boyhood,—yet so grave
They doubted sometimes if he quite forgave
The past; and then there played a moody smile
About his mouth, and he at times would speak
Of one with heavenly bloom upon her cheek,
Whose vision did his convent hours beguile;
A phantom shape, and which in sleep still came
And fanned the colour of his cheek to flame.
Sometimes has he been known to gaze afar
Watching the coming of the evening star,
And as it progress'd toward the middle sky,
Like the still twilight's lonely deity,
Would fancy that a spirit resided there,
A gentle spirit and young, with golden hair,
And eyes as blue as the blue dome above,
And a voice as tender as the sound of love.

XII.

Some months thus passed among the wrecks of Rome,
And seldom thought he of the fearful doom
On which he used to ponder: still he felt
That he alone amidst the many dwelt,
Lonely; but why he cared not, or forgot
The jibings cast upon his early lot.
—One morning as he lay half listlessly
Within the shadow of a column, where
His forehead met such gusts of cooling air
As the bright summer knows in Italy,
A gorgeous cavalcade went thundering by,
Dusty and worn with travel: As it passed
Some said the great Count had returned, at last,
From his long absence upon foreign lands:
'Twas told that many countries he had seen,
(He and his lady daughter,) and had been
A long time journeying on the Syrian sands,
And visited holy spots, and places where
The Christian roused the Pagan from his lair,
And taught him charity and creeds divine,
By spilling his bright blood in Palestine.

XIII.

Vitelli and his child returned at last,
After some years of wandering. Julia
Had been betrothed and widow'd: she had passed
From bondage into liberty, and they
Who knew the bitter husband she had wed,
Rejoiced to learn that he indeed was dead.
She had been sacrificed in youth, to one
She never loved; but he she loved was gone,
And so it matter'd not: 'tis true some tears
Stained her pale cheek at times in after years,
And much unkindness from the man on whom
She had bestowed her beauty, drew a gloom
Around her face, and curtained up in shade
The eyes that once like sunny spirits played.
But he was dead:—Sailing along the sea,
His pleasure barque was gliding pleasantly,
When sudden winds arose, and mighty waves
Were put in motion, and deep yawning graves
Opened on every side with hideous roar:
He screamed and struggled, and was seen no more.
This was the tale.—Orsini's titles fell
Upon a student youth, scarce known before,
Who took the princely name and wore it well.

XIV.

And Julia saw the youth she loved again:
But he was now the great Colonna's heir,
And she whom he had left so young and fair,
A few short years ago, was grown, with pain
Of thoughts unutter'd (a heart-eating care,)
Pale as a statue. When he met her first
He gazed and gasped as tho' his heart would burst.
Her figure came before him like a dream
Revealed at morning, and a sunny gleam
Broke in upon his soul and lit his eye
With something of a tender prophecy.
And was she then the shape he oft had seen,
By day and night,—she who had such strange power
Over the terrors of his wildest hour?
And was it not a phantom that had been
Wandering about him? Oh with what deep fear
He listened now, to mark if he could hear
The voice that lulled him,—but she never spoke;
For in her heart her own young love awoke
From its long slumber, and chained down her tongue,
And she sate mute before him: he, the while,
Stood feasting on her melancholy smile,
Till o'er his eyes a dizzy vapour hung
And he rushed forth into the freshning air,
Which kissed and played about his temples bare,
And he grew calm. Not unobserved he fled,
For she who mourned him once as lost and dead,
Saw with a glance, as none but women see,
His secret passion, and home silently
She went rejoicing, 'till Vitelli asked
‘Wherefore her spirit fell,’—and then she tasked
Her fancy for excuse wherewith to hide
Her thoughts and turn his curious gaze aside.

XV.

That fateful day passed by; and then there came
Another and another, and the flame
Of love burned brightly in Colonna's breast,
But while it filled it robbed his soul of rest:
At home, abroad, at morning, and at noon
In the hot sultry hours, and when the moon
Shone in the cool fresh sky, and shaped those dim
And shadowy figures once so dear to him,—
Wheree'er he wandered, she would come upon
His mind, a phantom like companion;
Yet, with that idle dread with which the heart
Stifles its pleasures, he would ever depart
And loiter long amongst the streets of Rome,
When she, he feared, might visit at his home.
A strange and sad perverseness; he did fear
To part with that pale hope which shone at last
Glimmering upon his fortunes. Many a year
Burthen'd with evil o'er his head had passed,
And stamped upon his brow the marks of care,
And so he seemed as old before his time:
And many would pretend that in his air
There was a gloom that had its birth in crime.
—'Tis thus the wretched are trod down. Despair
Doth strike as deep a furrow in the brain,
As mischief or remorse; and doubt will pain
And sear the heart like sin accomplished.
But slander ever hath hung upon the head
Of silent sorrow, and corroding shame
Preys on its heart, and its defenceless name
Is blotted by the bad, until it flies
From the base world a willing sacrifice.