Classic Poem

Canto the Second

From all the hopes of love and liberty
O'erwhelmed in the vast ocean of her grief,
The wretched princess is constrained to be
A prisoner to her youth's first dreadful thief —

The cursed Almanzor; in whose dismal cell
She comments on the various texts of grief
In every form, till from the tip of hell,
When seeming darkest, just Heaven sent relief.

Distracted in the agony of love,
Pharonnida, whose sad complaints did prove
Her sorrow's true interpreters, had made
Argalia's name, wrapped up in sighs, invade
The ears of an unseen informer; whence,
Almanzor's thoughts, delivered from suspense,
Shake off their doubtful dress of fears, and teach
Hypocrisy by paths untrod to reach
The apex of his hopes. What not the fear
Of ills, whilst her own interest did appear
The only sharer, could perform, he now
Presumes affection to her friend would bow
With low submission, if by that she might
Aid his dim stars with a reserve of light.
With frequent visits, which on sin's dark text
Wrought a fair gloss, Almanzor oft had vext
The calmer passions of the princess in-
To ruffled anger; but when all could win
No entrance on her favor, fury tries
A harsher corrosive — Stern power denies
Her even of those poor narrow comforts which
Her soul's dark region, that was only rich
In sorrow's sables, could possess. Withdrew
Were all those slippery parasites that knew
To her no pity, but what did reflect
The rays o' the tyrant's favor, whose neglect
Taught them the lesson of disdain, whilst she
Her practised soul trained in humility.
Pensive as an unpractised convert, in
A bath of tears she shadowed lies within
The unfrequented room; a curtained bed
Her close retreat, till light's fair angel fled
The swarthy region. But whilst here she lies,
Like a dark lantern that in black disguise
Circles imprisoned light ........
Grief from the sullen world concealed: to turn
The troubled stream — as if the silent urn
Of some dead friend, to private sorrow had
Summoned her hither, entered was a sad
And sober matron; in her hands she bore
A light, whose feeble rays could scarce restore
The sick successor of the day unto
A cheerful smile. Sad pilgrims, that renew
Acquaintance with their better angels by
Harsh penitence, have of humility
Less in their looks than she; — her habit showed
Like costly ruins that for fashion owed
To elder pride, in whose reversion she
Appeared the noble choice of charity.
This shadow of religious virtue drawn
Near her disordered bed, a sickly dawn
Of light breaks through the princess' clouded eyes
To meet the welcome object; the disguise
Of sorrow, which at first appearance sat
Fixed on her brow, a partner of her fate
Making her seem. Nor was the fancy crushed
In the infancy of faith, fair truth first blushed
For verbal crimes. Near to the bed reposed
Where the sad lady lay, she thus disclosed
Her cause of entrance: — " Cease, fair stranger, to
Monopolize a sorrow, which not you
Here share alone; pity, instructed by
Experience in the rules of misery,
Hath brought me from complaining of my own
To comfort thine. This castle once hath known
Me for its mistress, though it now behold
Me (in the dress of poverty grown old)
Despised and poor, the scorn of those that were
Nursed into life by my indulgent care. "
This in her tears' o'erflowing language spoke,
Persuades the pensive princess to revoke
Depraved opinion's doom, confessing she
Wedded not grief to singularity.
But comfort in the julep of her words
Was scarce dissolved, ere a reply affords
Conceived requital, striving to prevent
The oft more forward thanks. " Rise to content
Fair soul, (she cries); be but so wise to let
Sick passion die with just neglect, I 'll set
Thy dropped stars in their orbs again. I have,
Forced by command, a late attendance gave
Unto a wounded stranger, that remains
Within this castle in the heavy chains
Of cruel bondage; from whose weight unless
Your love redeem him, dark forgetfulness
Will draw the curtains of the grave about
His dull mortality, and the sick doubt
Of hope resolve in death. This evening I
O'erheard his heavy doom, from which to fly
He hath no refuge but your mercy; which
Stripped of light passion, must be clothed in rich
But graver robes of reason, when it sits
In council how to reconcile the fits
Of feverish love — when, being most propense
To passion's heat, a frost of abstinence
Benumbs it to a lethargy. In brief,
'Tis he, whose prosperous tyranny the chief
Command within this castle gave, that in
His swift destruction doth attempt to win
Free passage to enjoying you, then prove
He friend to him that begs you to change love
For now more useful pity, and so save
A life that must no longer live to crave,
If now denied. This ring (with that presents
A jewel, that, when love's first elements
The harmony of faith united, she
Gave to confirm her vows) he sends to be
A note that he denies whate'er was made
Authentic, when your mixed vows did invade
Unwilling Heaven, which in your sufferance shows
We may intend, but wiser powers dispose. "
Pharonnida, whose fears confirmed, did need
No more to wound a fancy that did bleed
At all the springs of passion, being by
The fatal present taught, whose liberty
Her love's exchange must purchase, with a sad
Reverse of the eye beholding it, unclad
Her sorrow thus: — " And did, oh, did this come
By thy commands, Argalia? no; by some
Unworthy hand thou'rt robbed of it — I know
Thou sooner wouldst be tempted to let go
Relics of thy protecting saint. — Oh cease,
Whate'er you are, to wrong him; the calm peace
He wears to encounter death in, cannot be
Scattered by any storm of fear. Would he,
That hath affronted death in every shape
Of horror, tamely yield unto the rape
Of's virgin honor, and not stand the shock
Of a base tyrant's anger? But I mock
My hopes with vain phantasms; 'tis the love
He bears to me, carries his fear above
The orb of his own noble temper to
An unknown world of passions, in whose new
Regions ambitious grown, it scorns to fall
Back to its centre — reason, whither all
The lines of action until now did bend
From 's soul's circumference. Yet know, his end,
If doomed unto this cursed place, shall tell
The bloody tyrant that my passing bell
Tolls in his dying groans, and will ere long
Ring out in death — if sorrow, when grown strong
As fate, can raise the strokes of grief above
The strength of nature; which if not, yet love
Will find a passage, where our souls shall rest
In an eternal union, — whilst opprest
With horror, he, by whose command he dies,
Falls to the infernal powers a sacrifice.
" If that your pity were no fiction, to
Betray my feeble passions, and undo
The knots of resolution, tell my friend —
I live but to die his, and will attend
Him with my prayers, those verbal angels, till
His soul's on the wing, then follow him, and fill
Those blanks our fate left in the lines of life
Up with eternal bliss, where no harsh strife
Of a dissenting parent shall destroy
The blooming springs of our conjugal joy. "
Vexed by this brave display of fortitude
To sullen anger, with a haste more rude
Than bold intrusions, lust's sly advocate
Forsakes her seat, and though affronts too late
Came to create a blush, yet passion had
Her cheeks in red revenge's livery clad;
Her eyes, like Saturn's in the house of death,
Heavy with ills to come; her tainted breath
Scattering infectious murmurs: with a look
Oblique and deadly, the cursed hag forsook
That ebon cabinet of grief, and hastes
To tell Almanzor how his passion wastes
More spirits in persuasion's hectic, than
If power had quenched ambition's fever when
'Twas first inflamed with hope, whose cordials prove
Oft slow as opiates in the heat of love.
This, with a heat that spoiled digestion, by
The angry tyrant heard, rage did untie
The curls of passion, whose soft trammels had
Crisped smooth hypocrisy; from which unclad,
Developed nature shows her unfiled dress
Rough as an angry friend, by no distress
Of beauty to be calmed. Since sly deceit
Virtue had now unmasked, no candid bait
Conceals his thoughts, which soon in public shows
From what black sea those mists of passion rose.
Day's sepulchre, the ebon-arched night,
Was raised above the battlements of light;
The phrenzied world's allaying opiate, sleep,
O'ertaking action, did in silence steep
The various fruits of labor, and from thence
Recovers what pays for her time's expense:
In which slow calm, whilst half the drowsy earth
Lay in the shade of nature, to give birth
Unto the burthen of sick fancy — fear,
Groans, deep as death's alarums, through her ear
Fly toward the throne of reason, to inform
The pensive princess, that the last great storm
Of fate was now descending, beyond which
Her eyes, o'erwhelmed in sorrow, must enrich
Their orbs with love no more, but in the dawn
Of life behold her friend's destruction drawn,
Since threatened danger sad assurance gives —
In those deep groans he now but dying lives.
More swiftly to destroy the falling leaves
Of blasted hope, with horror she receives,
By a convey of wearied light, that strook
Through rusty gates, intelligence which shook
The strength of fortitude — There was a room,
Deep and obscure, where, in a heavy gloom,
The unstirred air in such a darkness dwelt
As masked Egyptians from Heaven's vengeance felt,
Till by the struggling rays of a faint lamp
Forced to retreat, and the quicksilver damp
Shed on the sweaty walls, which hid within
That glittering veil, worn figures that had been
The hieroglyphic epitaphs of those
Which charity did to the earth dispose
In friendship's last of legacies, except
What is to cure loose fame's diseases kept.
Here, 'mongst the ruins of mortality,
In blood disfigured, she beholds one lie,
Who, though disguised in death's approach, appears
By's habit, that confirmer of her fears
Her gentle love, alone and helpless, in
The grasp of death, striving in vain to win
The field from that grim tyrant; who had now
Embalmed him in his blood, and did allow
Him no more spirits, but what in that strife
Served to groan out the epilogue of life
And then depart nature's cold stage, to be
Sucked up from time into eternity.
When thus the everlasting silence had
Locked up his voice, and death's rude hand unclad
His hovering soul, whose elemental dress
Is left to dust and dark forgetfulness;
When nature's lamps being snuffed to death, he lay
A night-pieced draught of once well modelled clay:
With such a silent pace as witches use
To tread o'er graves, when their black arts abuse
Their cold inhabitants, his murderers were
Entered the vault, from the stained floor to bear
The cold stiff corpse; which having softly laid
In 's doomsday's bed, unto the royal maid,
Whose beauty, in this agony defaced,
Grief's emblem sat, with eager speed they haste.
Either a guilty shame, or fear to be
Converted by her form's divinity,
Made them choose darkness for protection; in
Whose hideous shade, she of herself unseen
Is hurried thence unto that dreadful place
Where he entombed lay, whom she must embrace
In death's dark lodgings; and, ere life was fled,
Remain a sad companion of the dead —
Confining beauty, in youth's glorious bloom,
To the black prison of a dismal tomb:
Where, fast enclosed, earth's fairest blossom must
Unnaturally be planted in the dust;
Where life's bright star, Heaven's glorious influence,
Her soul, in labor with the slow suspense
Of lingering torments, must expecting lie,
Till famine nature's ligatures untie.
And can, oh, can we ever hope to save
Her that's in life a tenant of the grave!
Can aught redeem one that already lies
Within the bed of death, whose hot lust fries
In the enjoyment of all beauties that
The aged world ere had to wonder at!
To feed whose riot, the well-tempered blood,
That sanguine youth's smooth cheek mixed with a flood
Of harsh distemperatures, o'erflows, and brings
Some to their lodgings on the flaming wings
Of speedy fevers; whilst the others creep
On slow consumptions, millions from the steep
And dangerous precipice of war: some in
A stream of their own humors that have been
Swelled to a dropsy, being even pressed to death
By their own weight; whilst others part with breath
From bodies worn so thin, they seemed to be
Grown near the soul's invisibility.
But whither strays our fancy? have we left
The woful lady in a tomb, bereft
Of all society, and shall I let
My wandering pen forsake her? Such a debt
Would bankrupt pity. The undistinguished day,
Whose new-born light did but e'en then display
Its dewy wings, when first she was confined
To the dark tomb, was now grown almost blind
With age, when thus through fate's black curtain broke
Unlooked-for light: that darkness — which did choak
All passages by which the thin air held
Commerce with neighbouring rooms, being now expelled
By the dim taper's glimmering beams — let fall
Part of the rays through an old ruined wall
That fenced an ugly dungeon, where the night
Dwelt safe as in the centre. By the sight
Of which unlooked-for guest, some prisoners, who
Had there been staid, even till despairing to
Be e'er released, in eager fury tries
To force their way, where their directing eyes,
Led by the light, should guide them; come at length
Where, with time's burden tired, the building's strength,
Losing its first firm union, was divorced
With gaping clefts, an easy strength enforced
Those feeble guards: but come into the room
Where, o'er the living lady's sable tomb,
Hung the directing light, they there in vain
For further passage seeking, were again
To the black dungeon, horror's dismal seat,
In sad despair making their slow retreat.
Now near departing, a deep doleful groan
Reversed their eyes, amazement almost grown
To stupefaction stays them, whilst they hear
New sighs confirm their wonder, not their fear;
Till thus Euriolus, whose bold look spoke
The braver soul, the dismal silence broke.
" Whate'er thou art that hoverest here within
This gloomy shadow, speak what wrong hath been
Thy troubled ghost's tormentor? art thou fled
From woe to stir the dust o' the peaceful dead?
Or com'st from sacred shadows to lament
Some friend's dead corpse, which this dark tenement
Hath lodged in dust? " The trembling lady, hearing
A human voice again, and now not fearing
The approaches of a greater danger, cries: —
" Whate'er you are, fear mocks your faith; here lies
A woful wretch entombed alive, that ne'er
Must look on light again; my spirit were
Blest if resolved to air, but here it must
A sad companion, in the silent dust,
To loathed corruption be, until the pale
Approaching fiend, harsh famine, shall exhale,
In dews of blood, the purple moisture, that
Fed life's fresh springs: — but none shall tremble at
My doleful story, 'tis enough that fate
Hath for this tomb exchanged a throne of state. "
To active pity stirred, the valiant friends
Attempt her rescue, but their labor ends
In fruitless toils, the ponderous marble lies
With too much weight to let the weak supplies
Of human strength remove 't; which whilst they tried
To weary sweats, kind fortune lends this guide
To their masked virtue — The informing ear
Proclaims approaching steps, which ushered fear
Into Ismander's breast; but his brave friend,
The bold Euriolus, resolved to end
By death or victory their bondage, goes
Near to the gate, where soon were entered those
Which in Pharonnida's restraint had been
The active engines of that hateful sin,
With them, that hag whose cursed invention had
Revenge in such an uncouth dressing clad.
Whilst her Ismander seized, and with a charm
Of nimble strength commands, the active arm
Of fierce Euriolus, directed by
Victorious valour, purchased liberty
By strokes whose weight to dark destruction sunk
His worthless foes, and sent their pale souls, drunk
With innocent blood, staggering from earth, to be
Masked in the deserts of eternity.
This being beheld by her whose hopes of life
With them departed, she concludes the strife
Of inquisition by directing to
An engine, which but touched would soon undo
That knot which puzzled all their strength, and give
The captive princess hopes again to live
Within the reach of light; whose beams, whilst she
Unfolds her eyes — those dazzled stars, to see,
Dark misty wonder in a cloud o'erspread
His faith that raised her from that gloomy bed,
Amazed Euriolus; whose zeal-guided eyes
Soon know the princess through grief's dark disguise.
Could his inflamed devotion into one
Great blast of praises be made up, 't had gone
Toward heavenly bowers on the expanded wings
Of his exalted joy; nor are the springs
Of life less raised with wonder in the breast
Of's royal mistress, whose free soul exprest
As much of joy as, in her clouded fate,
With reason at the helm of action sat.
Here had they, masked in mutual wonder, staid
To unriddle fate, had not wise fear obeyed
Reason's grave dictates, and with eager speed
Urged their departure; for whose guide they need
No more but her directions, who then lay
Taught by the fear of vengeance to obey
Their just demands. By whom informed of all
That might within the castle's circuit fall
With weights of danger, and taught how to free
Confined Florenza, to meet liberty
They march in triumph, leaving none to take
Possession there, but her whose guilt would make
The torment just, though there constrained to dwell
Till death prepared her for a larger hell.
Whilst sleep's guards, doubled by intemperance, reigned
Within the walls, with happy speed they gained
The castle's utmost ward; and furnished there
With such choice horses, as provided were
For the outlaws next day's scouts, a glad adieu
Of their loathed jail they take. Ismander knew
Each obscure way that in their secret flight
Might safety promise; so that sullen night
Could not obstruct their passage, though, through ways
So full of dark meanders, not the day's
Light could assist a stranger. Ere the dawn
O' the wakeful morn had spread her veils of lawn
O'er the fair virgins of the spring, they're past
That sylvan labyrinth, and with that had cast
Their greatest terror off, and taught their eyes
The welcome joys of liberty to prize.
And now the spangled squadrons of the night,
Encountering beams, had lost the field to light,
The morning proud in beauty grown, whilst they
With cheerful speed passed on the levelled way
By solitude secure; of all unseen,
Save early laborers that resided in
Dispersed poor cottages, by whom they 're viewed
With humble reverence, such as did delude
Sharp-eyed suspicion, they are now drawn near
Ismander's palace; whose fair towers appear
Above the groves, whose green enamel lent
The neighbouring hills their prospects' ornament.
A river, whose unwearied bounty brings
The hourly tribute of a thousand springs
From several fragrant vallies here, as grown
So rich, she now strove to preserve her own
Streams from the all-devouring sea, did glide
Betwixt two hills, which nature did divide
To entertain the smiling nymph, till to
An entrance where her silver eye did view
A wealthy vale she came — a vale in which
All fruitful pleasures did content enrich;
Where all so much deserved the name of best,
Each, took apart, seemed to excel the rest.
Rounded with spacious meads, here scattered stood
Fair country farms, whose happy neighbourhood,
Though not so near as justling palaces
Which troubled cities, yet had more to please
By a community of goodness in
That separation. Nature's hand had been
To all too liberal, to let any want
The treasures of a free inhabitant;
Each in his own unracked inheritance
Where born expired, not striving to advance
Their levelled fortunes to a loftier pitch
Than what first styled them honest, after rich;
Sober and sweet their lives, in all things blest
Which harmless nature, living unopprest
With surfeits, did require; their own flocks bred
Their homespun garments, and on that they fed
Which from their fields' or dairies' plenteous store
Had fresh supplies: what fortune lent them more
Than an indifferent mean, was sent to be
The harbingers of hospitality.
Fair virgins, in their youth's fresh April drest,
Courted by amorous swains, were unopprest
By dark suspicion, age's sullen spies,
Whose spleen would have the envious counted wise.
Love was religious here, and for to awe
Their wilder passions, conscience was their law.
More to complete this rural happiness,
They were protected from the harsh distress
Of long-winged power by the blest neighbourhood
Of brave Ismander; whose known greatness stood
Not to eclipse their humble states, although
It shadowed them when injured power did grow
To persecution, by which means he proved —
Not feared for greatness, but for goodness loved.
Which gentle passion his unhappy loss
Had soured to grief, and made their joy their cross.
But now their antidote approaches, he
From heavy bondage is returned to be
Their joyful wonder. At his palace-gate
Being now arrived, his palace, that of late
With 's absence dimmed in her most beauteous age,
Stood more neglected than a hermitage,
Or sacred buildings, when the sinful times
To persecution aggravate their crimes:
But being entered, sadder objects took
Those outside wonders off; each servant's look
Spoke him a sullen mourner, grave and sad
Their sober carriage, in no liveries clad
But doleful sable, all their acts like those
Of weeping wives, when they t' the grave dispose
Their youthful husbands. Yet all these were but
Imperfect shadows of a sorrow, put
In distant landscape, when to trial brought
Near his fair Ammida's; whose grief had sought
As dark a region for her sad retreat
As desperate grief e'er made pale sorrow's seat:
In sacred temples the neglected lamp
So wastes its oil, when heresies do cramp
Religion's beams; with such a heavy look
Monarchs deposed behold themselves forsook
By those that flattered greatness; shut from all
Those glorious objects of the world that call,
Our souls in admiration forth, her time
Being spent in grief, made life but nature's crime.
The rough disguise of time, assisted by
The meager gripe of harsh captivity,
Had now expunged those characters by which
Ismander once was known, and even the rich
In love and duty rendered strangers to
Their honored master; from whose serious view
Neglective grief withdraws them, so that he
An unknown pilgrim might have gone to be
Their's and his own afflicter, had that fear
Not thus been cured: — A spaniel, being of dear
Esteem to Ammida, since the delight
Of her Ismander once, come to the sight
Of's first protector, stays not till a call
Invites acquaintance, but preventing all
The guides of reason by the sleights of sense,
Fawning on 's master, checks the intelligence
Of's more forgetful followers. Which being seen
By an old servant, (whose firm youth had been
Spun out amongst that family, till by
Grave age surprised), it led his sober eye
To stricter observations, such as brought
Him near to truth, and on contracted thought
Raised a belief, which though it durst conclude
Nought on the dark text, yet, i' the magnitude
Of hope exalted, by his joy he hastes
To 's mourning mistress, tells her that she wastes
Each minute more she spends in grief, if he
Dares trust his eyes to inform his memory.
Contracted spirits, starting from the heart
Of doubtful Ammida, to every part
Post through the troubled blood; a combat, fought
Betwixt pale fear and sanguine hope, had oft
Won and lost battles in her cheeks, whilst she,
Leaving her sullen train, did haste to see
Those new come guests. But the first interview
Unmasks Ismander; winged with love she flew
To his embraces: 'twas no faint disguise
Of a coarse habit could betray those eyes
Into mistakes, that for directors had
Love's powerful optics; nuptial joys unclad
In all their naked beauties — no delight
So full of pleasure, the first active night
Being but a busy and laborious dream
Compared with this — this, that had swelled the stream
Of joy to fainting serfeits; whose hot strife
Had overflowed the crimson sea of life,
If not restrained by a desire to keep —
What each had lost in the eternal sleep.
But now broke through the epileptic mist
Of amorous rapture, rallied spirits twist
Again their optic cordage; whose mixed beams
Now separate, and on collateral streams
Dispersed expressions of affection bore
To each congratulating friend, that wore
Not out those favors with neglect, but by
A speedy, though unpractic sympathy,
Met their full tide of bliss. Glad fame, which brings
Truth's messages upon her silver wings,
In private whisper hovers for awhile
Within the palace; every servant's smile
Invites a new spectator; who from thence
(Proud to be author of intelligence
So welcome) hastes, till knowledge ranged through all,
Diffusive joy made epidemical:
For though that noble family alone
Afforded pleasure a triumphant throne,
Yet frolic mirth did find a residence
In every neighbour's bosom. They dispense
With their allegiance to their labor, and
Revel in lusty cups; the brown bowls stand
With amber liquor filled, whose fruitful tears
Dropped loved Ismander's health, till it appears
In sanguine tincture on their cheeks. All now
Had, if not calmed their passions, smoothed a brow
To temporize with pleasure. The sad story
Of his own fortune, and that age's glory,
Pharonnida, whilst each attentive dwells
On expectation, brave Ismander tells.