Analysis of The Troubadour. Canto 3 C (The Aged Man)

'Tis strange how much I still retain
    Of these wild tortures of my brain,
    Though now they but to memory seem
    A curse, a madness, and a dream;
    But well I can recall the hour
    When first the fever lost its power;
    As one whom heavy opiates steep,
    Rather in feverish trance than sleep,
    I waken'd scarce to consciousness,—
    Memory had fainted with excess:
    I only saw that I was laid
    Beneath an olive tree's green shade;
    I knew I was where flowers grew fair,
    I felt their balm upon the air,
    I drank it as it had been wine;
    I saw a gift of red sunshine
    Glittering upon a fountain's brim;
    I heard the small birds' vesper hymn,
    As they a vigil o'er me kept,—
    I heard their music, and I wept.
    I felt a friendly arm upraise
    My head, a kind look on me gaze!

RAYMOND, it has been mine to see
    The godlike heads which Italy
    Has given to prophet and to saint,
    All of least earthly art could paint!
    But never saw I such a brow
    As that which gazed upon me now;—
    It was an aged man, his hair
    Was white with time, perhaps with care;
    For over his pale face were wrought
    The characters of painful thought;
    But on that lip and in that eye
    Were patience, peace, and piety,
    The hope which was not of this earth,
    The peace which has in pangs its birth,
    As if in its last stage the mind,
    Like silver seven times refined
    In life's red furnace, all its clay,
    All its dross purified away,
    Paused yet a little while below,
    Its beauty and its power to show.
    As if the tumult of this life,
    Its sorrow, vanity, and strife,
    Had been but as the lightning's shock
    Shedding rich ore upon the rock,
    Though in the trial scorch'd and riven,
    The gold it wins is gold from heaven.
    He watch'd, he soothed me day to day,
    How kindly words may never say:
    All angel ministering could be
    That old man's succour was to me;
    I dwelt with him; for all in vain
    He urged me to return again
    And mix with life:—and months past on
    Without a trace to mark them gone;
    I had one only wish, to be
    Left to my grief's monotony.
    There is a calm which is not peace,
    Like that when ocean's tempests cease,
    When worn out with the storm, the sea
    Sleeps in her dark tranquillity,
    As dreading that the lightest stir
    Would bring again the winds on her.
    I felt as if I could not brook
    A sound, a breath, a voice, a look,
    As I fear'd they would bring again
    Madness upon my heart and brain.
    It was a haunting curse to me,
    The simoom of insanity.
    The links of life's enchanted chain,
    Its hope, its pleasure, fear or pain,
    Connected but with what had been,
    Clung not to any future scene.
    There is an indolence in grief
    Which will not even seek relief:
    I sat me down, like one who knows
    The poison tree above him grows,
    Yet moves not; my life-task was done
    With that hour which left me alone.

It was one glad and glorious noon,
    Fill'd with the golden airs of June,
    When leaf and flower look to the sun
    As if his light and life were one,—
    A day of those diviner days
    When breath seems only given for praise
    Beneath a stately tree which shed
    A cool green shadow over-head;
    I listen'd to that old man's words
    Till my heart's pulses were as chords
    Of a lute waked at the command
    Of some thrice powerful master's hand.
    He paused: I saw his face was bright
    With even more than morning's light,
    As his cheek felt the spirit's glow;
    A glory sate upon his brow,
    His eye flash'd as to it were given
    A vision of his coming heaven.
    I turn'd away in awe and fear,
    My spirit was not of his sphere;
    Ill might an earthly care intrude
    Upon such high and holy mood:
    I felt the same as I had done
    Had angel face upon me shone,
    When sudden, as sent from on high,
    Music came slowly sweeping by.
    It was not harp, it was not song,
    Nor aught that might to earth belong!
    The birds sang not, the leaves were still,
    Silence was sleeping on the rill;
    But with a deep and solemn sound
    The viewless music swept around.
    Oh never yet was such a tone
    To hand or lip of mortal known!
    It was as if a hymn were sent
    From heaven's starry instrument,
    In joy, such joy as seraphs feel
    For some pure soul's immortal weal,
    When that its human task is done,
    Earth's trials past, and heaven won.
    I felt, before I fear'd, my dread,
    I turn'd and saw the old man dead!
    Without a struggle or a sigh,
    And is it thus the righteous die?
    There he lay in the sun, calm, pale,
    As if life had been like a tale
    Which, whatsoe'er its sorrows past,
    Breaks off in hope and peace at last.

I stretch'd him by the olive tree,
    Where his death, there his grave should be;
    The place was a thrice hallowed spot,
    There had he drawn his golden lot
    Of immortality; 'twas blest,
    A green and holy place of rest.

But ill my burthen'd heart could bear
    Its after loneliness of care;
    The calmness round seem'd but to be
    A mockery of grief and me,—
    The azure flowers, the sunlit sky,
    The rill, with its still melody,
    The leaves, the birds,--with my despair,
    The light and freshness had no share:
    The one unbidden of them all
    To join in summer's festival.

I wander'd first to many a shrine
    By zeal or ages made divine;
    And then I visited each place
    Where valour's deeds had left a trace;
    Or sought the spots renown'd no less
    For nature's lasting loveliness.
    In vain that all things changed around,
    No change in my own heart was found.
    In sad or gay, in dark or fair,
    My spirit found a likeness there.

At last my bosom yearn'd to see
    My EVA'S blooming infancy;
    I saw, myself unseen the while,
    Oh, God! it was her mother's smile!
    Wherefore, oh, wherefore had they flung
    The veil just as her mother's hung!—
    Another look I dared not take,
    Another look my heart would break!
    I rush'd away to the lime grove
    Where first I told my tale of love;
    And leaves and flowers breathed of spring
    As in our first sweet wandering.
    I look'd towards the clear blue sky,
    I saw the gem-like stream run by;
    How did I wish that, like these, fate
    Had made the heart inanimate.
    Oh! why should spring for others be,
    When there can come no spring to thee.

Again, again, I rush'd away;
    Madness was on an instant's stay!
    And since that moment, near and far,
    In rest, in toil, in peace, in war,
    I've wander'd on without an aim
    In all, save lapse of years the same.
    Where was the star to rise and shine
    Upon a night so dark as mine?—
    My life was as a frozen stream,
    Which shares but feels not the sun-beam,
    All careless where its course may tend,
    So that it leads but to an end.
    I fear my fate too much to crave
    More than it must bestow—the grave.