| |
| WHOSO 1 would know the power of God’s dominion, | |
| And how a man resembles that high good, | |
| Must lie in prison, is my firm opinion: | |
| | |
| On grievous thoughts and cares of home must brood, | 5 |
| Oppressed with carking pains in flesh and bone, | |
| Far from his native land full many a rood. | |
| | |
| If you would fain by worthy deeds be known, | |
| Seek to be prisoned without cause, lie long, | 10 |
| And find no friend to listen to your moan. | |
| | |
| See that men rob you of your all by wrong; | |
| Add perils to your life; be used with force, | |
| Hopeless of help, by brutal foes and strong. | 15 |
| | |
| Be driven at length to some mad desperate course; | |
| Burst from your dungeon, leap the castle wall; | |
| Recaptured, find the prison ten times worse. | |
| | 20 |
| Now listen, Luca, to the best of all! | |
| Your leg’s been broken; you’ve been bought and sold; | |
| Your dungeon’s dripping; you’ve no cloak or shawl. | |
| | |
| Never one friendly word; your victuals cold | 25 |
| Are brought with sorry news by some base groom | |
| Of Prato—soldier now—druggist of old. | |
| | |
| Mark well how Glory steeps her sons in gloom! | |
| You have no seat to sit on, save the stool: | 30 |
| Yet were you active from your mother’s womb. | |
| | |
| The knave who serves hath orders strict and cool | |
| To list no word you utter, give you naught, | |
| Scarcely to ope the door; such is their rule. | 35 |
| | |
| These toys hath Glory for her nursling wrought! | |
| No paper, pens, ink, fire, or tools of steel, | |
| To exercise the quick brain’s teeming thought. | |
| | 40 |
| Alack that I so little can reveal! | |
| Fancy one hundred for each separate ill: | |
| Full space and place I’ve left for prison weal! | |
| | |
| But now my former purpose to fulfil, | 45 |
| And sing the dungeon’s praise with honour due— | |
| For this angelic tongues were scant of skill. | |
| | |
| Here never languish honest men and true, | |
| Except by placemen’s fraud, misgovernment, | 50 |
| Jealousies, anger, or some spiteful crew. | |
| | |
| To tell the truth whereon my mind is bent, | |
| Here man knows God, nor ever stints to pray, | |
| Feeling his soul with hell’s fierce anguish rent. | 55 |
| | |
| Let one be famed as bad as mortal may, | |
| Send him in jail two sorry years to pine, | |
| He’ll come forth holy, wise, beloved alway. | |
| | 60 |
| Here soul, flesh, clothes their substance gross refine; | |
| Each bulky lout grows light like gossamere; | |
| Celestial thrones before purged eyeballs shine. | |
| | |
| I’ll tell thee a great marvel! Friend, give ear! | 65 |
| The fancy took me on one day to write: | |
| Learn now what shifts one may be put to here. | |
| | |
| My cell I search, prick brows and hair upright, | |
| Then turn me toward a cranny in the door, | 70 |
| And with my teeth a splinter disunite; | |
| | |
| Next find a piece of brick upon the floor, | |
| Crumble a part thereof to powder small, | |
| And form a paste by sprinkling water o’er. 2 | 75 |
| | |
| Then, then came Poesy with fiery call | |
| Into my carcass, by the way methought | |
| Whence bread goes forth—there was none else at all. | |
| | 80 |
| Now to return unto my primal thought: | |
| Who wills to know what weal awaits him, must | |
| First learn the ill that God for him hath wrought. | |
| | |
| The jail contains all arts in act and trust; | 85 |
| Should you but hanker after surgeon’s skill, | |
| ’Twill draw the spoiled blood from your veins adust. | |
| | |
| Next there is something in itself that will | |
| Make you right eloquent, a bold brave spark, | 90 |
| Big with high-soaring thoughts for good and ill. | |
| | |
| Blessed is the man who lies in dungeon dark, | |
| Languishing many a month, then takes his flight | |
| Of war, truce, peace he knows, and tells the mark. | 95 |
| | |
| Needs be that all things turn to his delight; | |
| The jail has crammed his brains so full of wit, | |
| They’ll dance no morris to upset the wight. | |
| | 100 |
| Perchance thou’lt urge: “Think how thy life did flit; | |
| Nor is it true the jail can teach thee lore, | |
| To fill thy breast and heart with strength of it!” | |
| | |
| Nay, for myself I’ll ever praise it more: | 105 |
| Yet would I like one law passed—that the man | |
| Whose acts deserve it should not scape this score. | |
| | |
| Whoso hath gotten the poor folk in ban, | |
| I’d make him learn those lessons of the jail; | 110 |
| For then he’d know all a good ruler can: | |
| | |
| He’d act like men who weigh by reason’s scale, | |
| Nor dare to swerve from truth and right aside, | |
| Nor would confusion in the realm prevail. | 115 |
| | |
| While I was bound in prison to abide, | |
| Foison of priests, friars, soldiers I could see; | |
| But those who best deserved it least I spied. | |
| | 120 |
| Ah! could you know what rage came over me, | |
| When for such rogues the jail relaxed her hold! | |
| This makes one weep that one was born to be! | |
| | |
| I’ll add no more. Now I’m become fine gold, | 125 |
| Such gold as none flings lightly to the wind, | |
| Fit for the best work eyes shall e’er behold. | |
| | |
| Another point hath passed into my mind, | |
| Which I’ve not told thee, Luca; where I wrote, | 130 |
| Was in the book of one our kith and kind. 3 | |
| | |
| There down the margins I was wont to note | |
| Each torment grim that crushed me like a vice: | |
| The paste my hurrying thoughts could hardly float. | 135 |
| | |
| To make an O, I dipped the splinter thrice | |
| In that thick mud; worse woe could scarcely grind | |
| Spirits in hell debarred from Paradise. | |
| | 140 |
| Seeing I’m not the first by fraud confined, | |
| This I’ll omit; and once more seek the cell | |
| Wherein I rack for rage both heart and mind. | |
| | |
| I praise it more than other tongues will tell; | 145 |
| And, for advice to such as do not know, | |
| Swear that without it none can labour well. | |
| | |
| Yet oh! for one like Him I learned but now, | |
| Who’d cry to me as by Bethesda’s shore: | 150 |
| Take thy clothes, Benvenuto, rise and go! | |
| | |
| Credo I’d sing, Salve reginas pour | |
| And Paternosters; alms I’d then bestow | |
| Morn after morn on blind folk, lame, and poor. | 155 |
| | |
| Ah me! how many a time my cheek must grow | |
| Blanched by those lilies! Shall I then forswear | |
| Florence and France through them for evermore? 4 | |
| | 160 |
| If to the hospital I come, and fair | |
| Find the Annunziata limned. I’ll fly: | |
| Else shall I show myself a brute beast there. 5 | |
| | |
| These words flout not Her worshipped sanctity, | 165 |
| Nor those Her lilies, glorious, holy, pure, | |
| The which illumine earth and heaven high! | |
| | |
| But for I find at every coign obscure | |
| Base lilies which spread hooks where flowers should blow | 170 |
| Needs must I fear lest these to ruin lure. 6 | |
| | |
| To think how many walk like me in woe! | |
| Born what, how slaved to serve that hateful sign! | |
| Souls lively, graceful, like to gods below! | 175 |
| | |
| I saw that lethal heraldry decline | |
| From heaven like lightning among people vain; | |
| Then on the stone I saw strange lustre shine. | |
| | 180 |
| The castle’s bell must break ere I with strain | |
| Thence issued; and these things Who speaketh true | |
| In heaven on earth, to me made wondrous plain. 7 | |
| | |
| Next I beheld a bier of sombre hue | 185 |
| Adorned with broken lilies; crosses, tears; | |
| And on their beds a lost woe-stricken crew. 8 | |
| | |
| I saw the Death who racks our souls with fears; | |
| This man and that she menaced, while she cried: | 190 |
| “I clip the folk who harm thee with these shears!” | |
| | |
| That worthy one then on my brow wrote wide | |
| With Peter’s pen words which—for he bade shun | |
| To speak them thrice—within my breast I hide. 9 | 195 |
| | |
| Him I beheld who drives and checks the sun, | |
| Clad with its splendour ’mid his court on high, | |
| Seld-seen by mortal eyes, if e’er by one. 10 | |
| | 200 |
| Then did a solitary sparrow cry | |
| Loud from the keep; hearing which note, I said: | |
| “He tells that I shall live and you must die!” | |
| | |
| I sang, and wrote my hard case, head by head, | 205 |
| Asking from god pardon and aid in need, | |
| For now If felt mine eyes outworn and dead. | |
| | |
| Ne’er lion, tiger, wolf, or bear knew greed | |
| Hungrier than that man felt for human blood; | 210 |
| Nor viper with more venomous fang did feed. 11 | |
| | |
| The cruel chief was he of robbers’ brood, | |
| Worst of the worst among a gang of knaves; | |
| Hist! I’ll speak soft lest I be understood! | 215 |
| | |
| Say, have ye seen catchpolls, the famished slaves, | |
| In act a poor man’s homestead to distrain, | |
| Smashing down Christs, Madonnas, with their staves? | |
| | 220 |
| So on the first of August did that train | |
| Dislodge me to a tomb more foul, more cold:— | |
| “November damns and dooms each rogue to pain!” 12 | |
| | |
| I at mine ears a trumpet had which told | 225 |
| Truth; and each word to them I did repeat, | |
| Reckless, if but grief’s load from me were rolled. | |
| | |
| They, when they saw their final hope retreat, | |
| Gave me a diamond, pounded, no fair ring, | 230 |
| Deeming that I must die if I should eat. | |
| | |
| That villain churl whose office ’twas to bring | |
| My food, I bade taste first; but meanwhile thought: | |
| “Not here I find my foe Durante’s sting!” | 235 |
| | |
| Yet erst my mind unto high God I brought | |
| Beseeching Him to pardon all my sin, | |
| And spoke a Miserere sorrow-fraught. | |
| | 240 |
| Then when I gained some respite from that din | |
| Of troubles, and had given my soul to God, | |
| Contented better realms and state to win, | |
| | |
| I saw along the path which saints have trod, | 245 |
| From heaven descending, glad, with glorious palm, | |
| An angel: clear he cried, “Upon earth’s sod | |
| | |
| Live longer thou! Through Him who heard thy psalm, | |
| Those foes shall perish, each and all, in strife, | 250 |
| While thou remainest happy, free, and calm, | |
| Blessed by our Sire in heaven on earth for life!” | |
