TASSO approaches; he, whose song beguiles
The day of half its hours; whose sorcery
Dazzles the sense, turning our forest-glades
To lists that blaze with gorgeous armoury,
Our mountain-caves to regal palaces.
Hence, nor descend till he and his are gone.
Let him fear nothing.'-When along the shore,
And by the path that, wandering on its way,
Leads through the fatal grove where TULLY fell,
(Grey and o'ergrown, an ancient tomb is there)
He came and they withdrew, they were a race
Careless of life in others and themselves,
For they had learnt their lesson in a camp;
But not ungenerous. 'Tis no longer so.
Now crafty, cruel, torturing ere they slay
The unhappy captive, and with bitter jests
Mocking Misfortune; vain, fantastical,
Wearing whatever glitters in the spoil;
And most devout, though, when they kneel and pray,
With every bead they could recount a murder,
As by a spell they start up in array,*
As by a spell they vanish-theirs a band,
Not as elsewhere of outlaws, but of such
As sow and reap, and at the cottage-door
Sit to receive, return the traveller's greeting;
Now in the garb of peace, now silently
Arming and issuing forth, led on by men
Whose names on innocent lips are words of fear,
Whose lives have long been forfeit.-Some there are
That, ere they rise to this bad eminence,
Lurk, night and day, the plague-spot visible,
*Cette race de bandits a ses racines dans la population même du pays. La police ne sait où les trouver.'-Lettres de Chateauvieux.
The guilt that says, Beware; and mark we now
Him, where he lies, who couches for his prey
At the bridge-foot in some dark cavity
Scooped by the waters, or some gaping tomb,
Nameless and tenantless, whence the red fox
Slunk as he entered.
There he broods, in spleen
Gnawing his beard; his rough and sinewy frame
O'erwritten with the story of his life :
On his wan cheek a sabre-cut, well earned
In foreign warfare; on his breast the brand
Indelible, burnt in when to the port
He clanked his chain, among a hundred more
Dragged ignominiously; on every limb
Memorials of his glory and his shame,
Stripes of the lash and honourable scars,
And channels here and there worn to the bone By galling fetters.
He comes slowly forth,
Unkennelling, and up that savage dell
Anxiously looks; his cruise, an ample gourd,
(Duly replenished from the vintner's cask) Slung from his shoulder; in his breadth of belt
Two pistols and a dagger yet uncleansed,
A parchment scrawled with uncouth characters,
And a small vial, his last remedy,
His cure, when all things fail.
Save when the rugged bear and the gaunt wolf
Howl in the upper region, or a fish
Leaps in the gulf beneath. But now he kneels ;
And (like a scout, when listening to the tramp
Of horse or foot) lays his experienced ear
Close to the ground, then rises and explores,
Then kneels again, and, his short rifle-gun
Against his cheek, waits patiently.
Portly, grey-headed, on their gallant steeds,
Descend where yet a mouldering cross o'erhangs
The grave of one that from the precipice
Fell in an evil hour. Their bridle-bells
Ring merrily; and many a loud, long laugh
Re-echoes; but at once the sounds are lost.
Unconscious of the good in store below,
The holy fathers have turned off, and now
Cross the brown heath, ere long to wag their beards
Before my lady-abbess, and discuss
Things only known to the devout and pure
O'er her spiced bowl-then shrive the sister-hood,
Sitting by turns with an inclining ear
In the confessional.
As with a curse-1
-then paces up and down,
Now fast, now slow, brooding and muttering on;
Gloomy alike to him Future and Past.
But hark, the nimble tread of numerous feet! 'Tis but a dappled herd, come down to slake Their thirst in the cool wave.
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