Italy : 40. Banditti

'Tis a wild life, fearful and full of change,
The mountain-robber's. On the watch he lies,
Levelling his carbine at the passenger;
And, when his work is done, he dares not sleep.
Time was, the trade was nobler, if not honest;
When they that robbed, were men of better faith
Than kings or pontiffs; when, such reverence
The Poet drew among the woods and wilds,
A voice was heard, that never bade to spare,
Crying aloud, 'Hence to the distant hills!
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 amoury,
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 that 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,
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 band
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 cruse, an ample gourd,
(Duly replenished from the vinter'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. No noise is heard,
Save when the rugged bear and the gaunt wolf
Howl in the upper region, or a fish
Leaps in the gulf beneath. And 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. ---- Two Monks,
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 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.---- He moves his lips
As with a curse -- 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. He turns and aims
Then checks himself, unwilling to disturb
The sleeping echoes. ---- Once again he earths;
Slipping away to house with them beneath,
His old companions in that hiding-place,
The bat, the toad, the blind-worm, and the newt;
And hark, a footstep, firm and confident,
As of a man in haste. Nearer it draws;
And now is at the entrance of the den.
Ha! 'tis a comrade, sent to gather in
The band for some great enterprise.-----Who wants
A sequel may read on. The unvarnished tale,
That follows, will supply the place of one.
'Twas told me by the Count St. Angelo,
When in a blustering night he sheltered me
In that brave castle of his ancestors
O'er Garigliano, and in such indeed
As every day brings with it -- in a land
Where laws are trampled on, and lawless men
Walk in the sun; but it should not be lost,
For it may serve to bind us to our Country.