Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars | |
Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar | |
15 | The watchdog bay’d beyond the Tiber; and |
More near from out the Caesars’ palace came | |
The owl’s long cry, and, interruptedly, | |
Of distant sentinels the fitful song | |
Begun and died upon the gentle wind. | |
20 | Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach |
Appear’d to skirt the horizon, yet they stood | |
Within a bowshot – Where the Cæsars dwelt | |
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst | |
A grove which springs through levell’d battlements, | |
25 | And twines its roots with the imperial hearths |
Ivy usurps the laurel’s place of growth; – | |
But the gladiators’ bloody Circus stands, | |
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection! | |
While Cæsar’s chambers, and the Augustan halls, | |
30 | Grovel on earth in indistinct decay. – |
And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon | |
All this, and cast a wide and tender light, | |
Which soften’d down the hoar austerity | |
Of rugged desolation, and fill’d up, | |
35 | As ’twere anew, the gaps of centuries; |
Leaving that beautiful which still was so, | |
And making that which was not, till the place | |
Became religion, and the heart ran o’er | |
With silent worship of the great of old! | |
40 | The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule |
Our spirits from their urns. – | |
’Twas such a night! | |
’Tis strange that I recall it at this time; | |
But I have found our thoughts take wildest flight | |
Even at the moment when they should array | |
45 | Themselves in pensive order. |
[ | |
ABBOT | |
I crave a second grace for this approach; | |
But yet let not my humble zeal offend | |
By its abruptness – all it hath of ill | |
Recoils on me; its good in the effect | |
50 | May light upon your head – could I say |
Could I touch | |
Recall a noble spirit which hath wander’d; | |
But is not yet all lost. | |
MANFRED | |
My days are number’d, and my deeds recorded: | |
55 | Retire, or ’twill be dangerous – Away! |
ABBOT | |
MANFRED | |
I simply tell thee peril is at hand, | |
And would preserve thee. | |
ABBOT | |
MANFRED | |
What dost thou see? | |
ABBOT | |
MANFRED | |
60 | And steadfastly; – now tell me what thou seest? |
ABBOT | |
I see a dusk and awful figure rise, | |
Like an infernal god, from out the earth; | |
His face wrapt in a mantle, and his form | |
65 | Robed as with angry clouds: he stands between |
Thyself and me - but I do fear him not. | |
MANFRED | |
His sight may shock thine old limbs into palsy. | |
I say to thee – Retire! | |
ABBOT | |
70 | Never - till I have battled with this fiend: - |
What doth he here? | |
MANFRED | |
I did not send for him, – he is unbidden. | |
ABBOT | |
Hast thou to do? I tremble for thy sake: | |
75 | Why doth he gaze on thee, and thou on him? |
Ah! he unveils his aspect: on his brow | |
The thunder-scars are graven; from his eye | |
Glares forth the immortality of hell – | |
Avaunt! — | |
MANFRED | |
SPIRIT | |
80 | ABBOT |
SPIRIT | |
MANFRED | |
The power which summons me. Who sent thee here? | |
SPIRIT | |
MANFRED | |
85 | Things of an essence greater far than thine, |
And striven with thy masters. Get thee hence! | |
SPIRIT | |
MANFRED | |
To render up my soul to such as thee: | |
90 | Away! I’ll die as I have lived – alone. |
SPIRIT | |
[ | |
ABBOT | |
Ye have no power where piety hath power, | |
And I do charge ye in the name — | |
SPIRIT | |
95 | We know ourselves, our mission, and thine order; |
Waste not thy holy words on idle uses, | |
It were in vain: this man is forfeited. | |
Once more I summon him – Away! away! | |
MANFRED | |
100 | Is ebbing from me, yet I do defy ye; |
Nor will I hence, while I have earthly breath | |
To breathe my scorn upon ye – earthly strength | |
To wrestle, though with spirits; what ye take | |
Shall be ta’en limb by limb. | |
SPIRIT | |
105 | Is this the Magian who would so pervade |
The world invisible, and make himself | |
Almost our equal? – Can it be that thou | |
Art thus in love with life? the very life | |
Which made thee wretched! | |
MANFRED | |
110 | My life is in its last hour, – |
Nor would redeem a moment of that hour; | |
I do not combat against death, but thee | |
And thy surrounding angels; my past power | |
Was purchased by no compact with thy crew, | |
115 | But by superior science – penance – daring – |
And length of watching – strength of mind – and skill | |
In knowledge of our fathers – when the earth | |
Saw men and spirits walking side by side, | |
And gave ye no supremacy: I stand | |
120 | Upon my strength – I do defy – deny – |
Spurn back, and scorn ye! - | |
SPIRIT | |
Have made thee — | |
MANFRED | |
Must crimes be punish’d but by other crimes, | |
And greater criminals? – Back to thy hell! | |
125 | Thou hast no power upon me, |
Thou never shalt possess me, | |
What I have done is done; I bear within | |
A torture which could nothing gain from thine: | |
The mind which is immortal makes itself | |
130 | Requital for its good or evil thoughts – |
Is its own origin of ill and end – | |
And its own place and time — its innate sense, | |
When stripp’d of this mortality, derives | |
No colour from the fleeting things without; | |
135 | But is absorb’d in sufferance or in joy, |
Born from the knowledge of its own desert. | |
Thou | |
I have not been thy dupe, nor am thy prey — | |
But was my own destroyer, and will be | |
140 | My own hereafter. — Back, ye baffled fiends! |
The hand of death is on me – but not yours! | |
[ | |
ABBOT | |
And thy breast heaves – and in thy gasping throat | |
The accents rattle — Give thy prayers to Heaven — | |
145 | Pray – albeit but in thought, – but die not thus. |
MANFRED | |
But all things swim around me, and the earth | |
Heaves as it were beneath me. Fare thee well – |