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THE RELEASE OF TASSO, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: There came a bard to rome; he brought a lyre
Last Line: He leaves to man the ruin man hath made.
Alternate Author Name(s): Browne, Felicia Dorothea
Subject(s): Tasso, Torquato (1544-1595)


THERE came a bard to Rome; he brought a lyre
Of sounds to peal through Rome's triumphant sky,
To mourn a hero on his funeral pyre,
Or greet a conqueror with its war-notes high;
For on each chord had fallen the gift of fire,
The living breath of Power and Victory, --
Yet he, its lord, the sovereign city's guest,
Sighed but to flee away and be at rest.

He brought a spirit whose ethereal birth
Was of the loftiest, and whose haunts had been
Amidst the marvels and the pomps of earth,
Wild fairy bowers, and groves of deathless green,
And fields where mail-clad bosoms prove their worth,
When flashing swords light up the stormy scene:
He brought a weary heart, a wasted frame. --
The Child of Visions from a dungeon came.

On the blue waters, as in joy they sweep,
With starlight floating o'er their swells and falls --
On the blue waters of the Adrian deep
His numbers had been sung; and in the halls,
Where, through rich foliage if a sunbeam peep,
It seems Heaven's wakening to the sculptured walls,
Had princes listened to those lofty strains,
While the high soul they burst from pined in chains.

And in the summer gardens, where the spray
Of founts, far glancing from their marble bed,
Rains on the flowering myrtles in its play,
And the sweet limes, and glassy leaves that spread
Round the deep golden citrons, o'er his lay
Dark eyes, dark soft Italian eyes, had shed
Warm tears, fast glittering in that sun whose light
Was a forbidden glory to his sight.

Oh! if it be that wizard sign, and spell,
And talisman, had power of old to bind,
In the dark chambers of some cavern-cell,
Or knotted oak, the spirits of the wind,
Things of the lightning-pinion, wont to dwell
High o'er the reach of eagles, and to find
Joy in the rush of storms, -- even such a doom
Was that high minstrel's in his dungeon-gloom.

But he was free at last! -- the glorious land
Of the white Alps and pine-crowned Apennines,
Along whose shore the sapphire seas expand,
And the wastes teem with myrtle, and the shrines
Of long-forgotten Gods from Nature's hand
Receive bright offerings still -- with all its vines,
And rocks, and ruins, clear before him lay; --
The seal was taken from the founts of day.

The winds came over his cheek -- the soft winds, blending
All summer sounds and odors in their sigh;
The orange-groves waved round; the hills were sending
Their bright streams down; the free birds darting by,
And the blue festal heavens above him bending,
As if to fold a world where none could die.
And who was he that looked upon these things?
-If but of earth, yet one whose thoughts were wings.

To bear him o'er creation; and whose mind
Was an air harp, awakening to the sway
Of sunny Nature's breathings unconfined,
With all the mystic harmonies that lay
Far in the slumber of its chords enshrined,
Till the light breeze went thrilling on its way.
-- There was no sound that wandered through the sky
But told him secrets in his melody.

Was the deep forest lonely unto him,
With all its whispering leaves? Each dell and glade
Teemed with such forms as on the moss-clad brim
Of fountains, in their sparry grottoes, played.
Seen by the Greek of yore through twilight dim,
Or misty noontide in the laurel shade.
-- There is no solitude on earth so deep
As that where man decrees that man should weep!

But oh! the life in Nature's green domains,
The breathing sense of joy! where flowers are springing
By starry thousands on the slopes and plains,
And the gray rocks -- and all the arched woods ringing,
And the young branches trembling to the strains
Of wild-born creatures, through the sunshine winging
Their fearless flight, -- and sylvan echoes round,
Mingling all tones to one AEolian sound.

And the glad voice, the laughing voice of streams,
And the low cadence of the silvery sea,
And reed-notes from the mountains, and the beams
Of the warm sun -- all these are for the free!
And they were his once more, the bard whose dreams
Their spirit still have haunted. Could it be
That he had borne the chain? Oh! who shall dare
To say how much Man's heart uncrushed may bear?

So deep a root hath hope! but woe for this
Our frail mortality, that aught so bright,
So almost burthened with excess of bliss,
As the rich hour which back to summer's light
Calls the worn captive, with the gentle kiss
Of winds, and gush of waters, and the sight
Of the green earth, must so be bought with years
Of the heart's fever, parching up its tears,

And feeding, a slow fire, on all its powers,
Until the boon for which we gasp in vain,
If hardly won at length, too late made ours,
When the soul's wing is broken, comes like rain
Withheld till evening, on the stately flowers
Which withered in the noontide, ne'er again
To lift their heads in glory. So doth Earth
Breathe on her gifts, and melt away their worth.

The sailor dies in sight of that green shore,
Whose fields, in slumbering beauty, seemed to lie
On the deep's foam, amidst its hollow roar
Called up to sunlight by his fantasy.
And when the shining desert-mists that wore
The lake's bright semblance, have been all passed by,
The pilgrim sinks beside the fountain wave,
Which dashes from its rock, too late to save.

Or if we live, if that too dearly bought,
And made too precious by long hopes and fears,
Remain our own -- love, darkened and o'erwrought
By memory of privation -- love, which wears
And casts o'er life a troubled hue of thought,
Becomes the shadow of our closing years,
Making it almost misery to possess
Aught watched with such unquiet tenderness.

Such unto him, the Bard, the worn and wild,
And sick with hope deferred, from whom the sky,
With all its clouds in burning glory piled,
Had been shut out by long captivity.
Such freedom was to Tasso. As a child
Is to the mother, whose foreboding eye
In its too radiant glance from day to day,
Reads that which calls the brightest first away.

And he became a wanderer -- in whose breast
Wild fear which, e'en when every sense doth sleep,
Clings to the burning heart, a wakeful guest,
Sat brooding as a spirit, raised to keep
Its gloomy vigil of intense unrest
O'er treasures burthening life, and buried deep
In cavern-tomb, and sought through shades and stealth,
By some pale mortal, trembling at his wealth.

But woe for those who trample o'er a mind!
A deathless thing! They know not what they do,
Nor what they deal with. Man perchance may bind
The flower his step hath bruised; or light anew
The torch he quenches; or to music wind
Again the lyre-string from his touch that flew: --
But for the soul! -- oh! tremble, and beware
To lay rude hands upon God's mysteries there!

For blindness wraps that world -- our torch may turn
Some balance fearfully and darkly hung;
Or put out some bright spark whose ray should burn
To point the way a thousand rocks among;
Or break some subtle chain which none discern,
Though binding down the terrible, the strong,
The o'ersweeping passions, which to loose on life
Is to set free the elements for strife.

Who then to power and glory shall restore
That which our evil rashness hath undone!
Who unto mystic harmony once more
Attune those viewless chords? -- There is but One!
He that through dust the stream of life can pour,
The Mighty and the Merciful alone.
-- Yet oft His paths have midnight for their shade --
He leaves to Man the ruin Man hath made.





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