And call Captivity a kindness—meant
To shield him from insanity or shame—
Such shall be his meek guerdon! who was sent
To be Christ's Laureate—they reward him well!
Florence dooms me but death or banishment,
Ferrara him a pittance and a cell,[1]
Harder to bear and less deserved, for I140
Had stung the factions which I strove to quell;
But this meek man who with a lover's eye
Will look on Earth and Heaven, and who will deign
To embalm with his celestial flattery,
As poor a thing as e'er was spawned to reign,[2]
What will he do to merit such a doom?
Perhaps he'll love—and is not Love in vain
Torture enough without a living tomb?
Yet it will be so—he and his compeer,
The Bard of Chivalry, will both consume[3]150
In penury and pain too many a year,
And, dying in despondency, bequeath
To the kind World, which scarce will yield a tear,
A heritage enriching all who breathe
With the wealth of a genuine Poet's soul,
And to their country a redoubled wreath,
Unmatched by time; not Hellas can unroll
Through her Olympiads two such names, though one[4]
Of hers be mighty;—and is this the whole
Of such men's destiny beneath the Sun?[5]160
- ↑ [See the Introduction to the Lament of Tasso, ante, p. 139, and Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza xxxvi. line 2, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 355, note 1.]
- ↑ [Alfonso d'Este (II.), Duke of Ferrara, died 1597.]
- ↑ [Compare the opening lines of the Orlando Furioso—
"Le Donne, i Cavalier'! l'arme, gli amori,
Le Cortesie, l'audaci imprese io canto."See Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanzas xl., xli.,
Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 359, 360, note 1.]
- ↑ [The sense is, "Ariosto may be matched with, perhaps excelled by, Homer; but where is the Greek poet to set on the same pedestal with Tasso?"]
- ↑ [Compare Churchill's Grave, lines 15-19—
"And is this all? I thought,—and do we rip
The veil of Immortality, and crave
I know not what of honour and of light
Through unborn ages, to endure this blight?
So soon, and so successless?"Vide ante, p. 47.]
