Poems of James Clarence Mangan (Many hitherto uncollected): Centenary edition: Edited, with preface and notes by D. J. O'Donoghue: Introduction by John Mitchel |
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 | Poems of James Clarence Mangan |  |
GASPARÓ BANDOLLO.
AN ANECDOTE OF THE SOUTH OF ITALY. (1820.)
I.
Once—twice—the stunning musquetryPeals echoing down the dark ravine.
Sevrini's blood wells forth like wine.
Weak—footsore—faint as faint may be,
And powerless to resist or flee,
He drags him to a peasant's hovel.
“Ha! Giambattista!—thou, good boy?
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Unseen beneath yon scattered sheaves.
So!—there! Departing Daylight leaves
This nook dark; and, methinks, the spot
Is safe if thou betray me not.
Let me but baffle those base hounds!
If mine plead not, Italia's wounds
May—that Italia they destroy!”
—He speaks, and crouches down, and gathers
Around his limbs the light loose litter,
With one deep groan—O God, how bitter!—
Given to the lost land of his fathers.
II.
Hark! his pursuers follow after—On by the bloody track they follow.
Rings their fierce yell of demon laughter
Upon the winds, adown the hollow.
Rings loud exulting yell on yell.
—“By Heaven!—See!—here the miscreant fell
And rose again!—and, if these black
Leaves mock us not, here fails the track!
Ha, so!—a hut! The hunted rebel
Hath earthed him here. Now, comrades, treble
Your care! A thousand gold zecchini
Are on the head, alive or dead,
Of the outlaw, Vascoló Sevrini!”
III.
Half loth alike to leave or linger,In burst the slaves of Alien Law.—
O! ruefullest of sights to see!
Mute stands yon trembler, but his finger
Points to the blood-bedabbled straw,
That blushes for his perfidy.
Ill-starred Sevrini, woe for thee!
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Strong hands and many are on thee now;
Through the long gorge of that steep valley
They drag thee up Mount Bruno's brow,
And thy best bravery little skills!
O! stood'st thou on Calabria's hills,
With nought beside thine own good sword,
With nothing save the soul that slumbers
Within thee now, to quell this horde!—
But, bleeding—bound—o'erborne by numbers,
Thy day is by to strike and rally!
Thou fallest by the hands of cravens
Rock-hardened against all remorse;
And Morn's red rays shall see the ravens
Fleshing their foul beaks in thy corse!
IV.
But Heaven and Earth are hushed once more.Young Giambattista's eyes are bent
In fearful glances on the floor.
But little weeneth he or weeteth
Of the deep cry his land repeateth
In million tones of one lament.
Nought pondereth he of wars of yore,
Of battling Ghibelline and Guelph,
And bootless fights and trampled lands,
And Gallic swords and Teuton chains,
His eye but marks yon dark-red stains.
Those red stains now burn on himself,
And in his heart, and on his hands!
V.
But sky and sea once more are still;The duskier shades of Eventide
Are gathering round Mount Bruno's hill.
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He hears a low, quick sound outside.
Was it the running valley-stream?
No! 'twas his father's foot that trod.
Alas, poor nerveless youth! denied
The kindling blood that fires thy race,
Dost thou not weep, and pray thy God
That Earth might ope its depths, and hide
Thee from that outraged father's face?
VI.
The eye is dark, the cheek is hollow,To-night of Gasparó Bandollo,
And his high brow shows worn and pale.
Slight signs all of the inward strife—
Of the soul's lightning, swift to strike
And sure to slay, but flashing never!
For Man and Earth and Heaven alike
Seem for him voiceful of a tale
That robs him of all rest for ever,
And leaves his own right hand to sever
The last link binding him to Life!
Calm even to marble, stern and sad,
He eyes the spots of tell-tale hue,
Then, turning to the cowering lad,
With stirless lips but asks him, “Who?”
VII.
“Oh, father!” cried the boy—then, wildWith terror of some dreadful doom,
He gasped for breath.—“Speak, wretched child!
Who sought my asylum, and from whom?”
—“O God! Sevrini!”—“From—” “The Sbirri.”
“The fugitive was wounded, weary?”—
—“O, father! I—this dreary room—”
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—“And thou betrayedst him?”—“I—only—”
—“And thou betrayedst him?” “O! hear me,
My father! I watch here so lonely
All day, and feel, oh! so bereaven,
With not a sight or sound to cheer me!
My mind—my—But, I only pointed—
I spake not!”—And, with such disjointed
And feeble phrases, the poor youth,
Powerless to gloss the ghastly truth,
Sank on his knees with shrieks and tears
Before the author of his years.
—And he? What throes his breast might stifle
Were hidden as beneath a pall.
He merely turned him to the wall,
And, with closed eyes, took down his rifle.
VIII.
“Go forth, boy!”—“Father! father!—spare”——“Go forth, boy! So! Now kneel in prayer!”
—“My God!—my father!”—“Ay, boy, right!
Hast now none other!”—There is light
Enough still for a deed of blood.
Stern man, whose sense of nationhood
So vanquishes thy love paternal,
And wilt thou, then, pollute this vernal
And virgin sod with gore even now,
And a son's gore? What answerest thou?
—“Kneel down!” Ay! he will kneel—and fall,
Will kneel, and fall to rise no more;
But not by thee shall thus be sped
The spirit of yon trembling thrall!
Didst thou dream nought of this before?
Fate slayeth him. Thy child is dead.
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IX.
The child is dead of old Bandollo,And he, the sire, hath scarce to follow
His offspring to the last dark barrow,
So much hath Grief's long-rankling arrow
Forestalled for him that doom of Death
Which takes from Suffering nought save breath—
A grief that speaks, albeit untold,
And lives, where all seems dead and cold,
And finds no refuge in the Past,
And sees the Future overcast
With broader gloom than even the Present.
Better that thou, unhappy peasant,
Hadst died in youth and made no sign,
Nor dreamt Life's Day must have an Even.
Better thy child's lot had been thine—
The best lot after all! for Heaven
Most careth for such weakling souls.—
Onwards in power the wide flood rolls
Whose thunder-waves wake evermore
The caverned soul of each far shore,
But when the midnight storm-wind sweeps
In wrath above its broken deeps,
What heart but ponders darkly over
The myriad wrecks those waters cover!
It is the lonely brook alone
That winds its way with Music's tone
By orange bower and lily-blossom,
And sinks into the Parent Wave,
Not as worn Age into its grave,
But as pure Childhood on God's bosom.
| Poems of James Clarence Mangan | |