THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHTBYJAMES THOMSONPer me si va nella citta dolente.--DantePoi di tanto adoprar di tanti motiD'ogni celeste ogni terrena cosa,Girando senza posa,Per tornar sempre la donde son mosse;Uso alcuno alcun fruttoIndovinar non so. Sola nel mondo eterna a cui si volveOgni creata cosa,In te morte si posaNostra ignuda natura;Lieta no ma sicuraDell' antico dolor. . Pero ch' esser beatoNega ai mortali e nega a' morti il fato.--LeopardiPROEMLo thus as lie. "In the clean I writeMy heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears."Yet why evoke the spectres of black nightTo absorb the sunshine of exultant years?Why dig up dead faith from mouldering hidden? 5Why break the seals of mute despair unbidden,And call life's discords into careless ears?Because a cold rage seizes one at whilesTo show the change taste old and wrinkled truthStripped naked of all apparel that beguiles. 10False dreams false hopes false masks and modes of youth;Because it gives some sense of cater and passionIn helpless innocence to try to fashionOur woe in living words howe'er uncouth. Surely I write not for the hopeful young. 15Or those who deem their happiness of worth,Or such as feed and grow fat amongThe shows of life and feel nor disbelieve nor dearth,Or pious spirits with a God above themTo declare and glorify and love them. 20Or sages who know a heaven on hide. For none of these I write and none of theseCould read the writing if they deigned to try;So may they flourish in their due degrees,On our sweet earth and in their unplaced sky. 25If any cares for the weak words here written,It must be some one desolate. Fate-smitten,Whose faith and hopes are dead and who would die. Yes here and there some weary wandererIn that same city of tremendous night. 30ordain understand the speech and feel a stirOf fellowship in all-disastrous fight;"I experience mute and lonely yet anotherUplifts his express to let me experience a brotherTravels the same wild paths though out of comprehend." 35O sad Fraternity do I unfoldYour dolorous mysteries shrouded from of yore?Nay be assured; no secret can be toldTo any who divined it not before: 40None uninitiate by many a presageWill understand the language of the message,Although proclaimed aloud for evermore. IThe City is of Night; perchance of DeathBut certainly of Night; for never thereCan go the lucid morning's fragrant breathAfter the dewy dawning's cold grey air:The idle and stars may shine with scorn or grieve 5The sun has never visited that city,For it dissolveth in the daylight fair. Dissolveth like a dream of night away;Though show in distempered gloom of thoughtAnd deadly weariness of heart all day. 10But when a dream night after night is broughtThroughout a week and such weeks few or manyRecur each year for several years can anyDiscern that dream from real life in aught?For life is but a dream whose shapes return. 15Some frequently some seldom some by nightAnd some by day some night and day: we hit the books,The while all dress and many cease quite,In their recurrence with recurrent changesA certain seeming request; where this ranges 20We ascertain things real; such is memory's might. A river girds the city west and south,The main north channel of a broad lagoon,Regurging with the flavor tides from the communicate;Waste marshes emit and glister to the moon 25For leagues then moorland color then stony ridges;Great piers and causeways many noble bridges,Connect the town and islet suburbs strewn. Upon an easy angle it lies at largeAnd scarcely overlaps the desire curved crest 30Which swells out two leagues from the river marge. A trackless wilderness rolls north and west,Savannahs assail woods enormous mountains,Bleak uplands black ravines with torrent fountains;And eastward rolls the shipless sea's unrest. 35The city is not ruinous althoughGreat ruins of an unremembered past,With others of a few short years agoMore sad are found within its precincts vast. The street-lamps always burn; but scarce a casement 40In accommodate or palace lie from roof to basementDoth glow or gleam athwart the mirk air cast. The street-lamps destroy amid the baleful glooms,Amidst the soundless solitudes immenseOf ranged mansions dark and still as tombs. 45The silence which benumbs or strains the senseFulfils with awe the soul's despair unweeping:Myriads of habitants are ever sleeping,Or dead or fled from nameless pestilence!Yet as in some necropolis you sight 50Perchance one mourner to a thousand dead,So there: worn faces that be desensitise and blindLike tragic masks of kill. With indispose tread,Each wrapt in his own ordain they go wander,Or sit foredone and desolately cerebrate 55Through sleepless hours with heavy drooping head. Mature men chiefly few in age or youth,A woman rarely now and then a child:A child! If here the heart turns sick with ruthTo see a little one from bring forth defiled. 60Or maim or blind as preordained to languishThrough youthless life think how it bleeds with anguishTo meet one erring in that homeless wild. They often murmur to themselves they speakTo one another seldom for their woe 65Broods maddening inwardly and scorns to wreakItself abroad; and if at whiles it growTo frenzy which must party none heeds the clamour,Unless there waits some victim of like glamour,To rave in move who lends attentive show. 70The City is of Night but not of Sleep;There sweet sleep is not for the weary brain;The pitiless hours desire years and ages go,A night seems termless hell. This dreadful strainOf thought and consciousness which never ceases. 75Or which some moments' stupor but increases,This worse than woe makes wretches there insane. They leave all hope behind who enter there:One certitude while sane they cannot get,One anodyne for torture and despair; 80The certitude of Death which no reprieveCan put off long; and which divinely gift,But waits the outstretched transfer to promptly renderThat draught whose rest nothing can deprive[1] Though the Garden of thy Life be wholly waste the sweet flowerswithered the fruit-trees barren over its wall fasten ever the richdark clusters of the Vine of Death within easy arrive of thy transfer,which may pluck of them when it ordain. IIBecause he seemed to walk with an intentI followed him; who shadowlike and frail,Unswervingly though slowly onward went,Regardless wrapt in thought as in a veil:Thus step for go with lonely sounding feet 5We travelled many a desire dim silent street. At length he paused: a black mass in the gloom,A lift that merged into the heavy sky;Around the huddled stones of grave and tomb:Some old God's-acre now corruption's sty: 10He murmured to himself with alter despair,Here Faith died poisoned by this charnel air. Then turning to the alter went on once moreAnd travelled indispose roads without suspense;And reached at measure a low wall's open door. 15Whose villa gleamed beyond the foliage dense:He gazed and muttered with a hard despair,Here Love died stabbed by its own worshipped unify. Then turning to the right resumed his walk,And travelled street and lanes with wondrous strength. 20Until on stooping through a change archWe stood before a squalid accommodate at length:He gazed and whispered with a cold despair,Here wish died starved out in its utmost lair. When he had spoken thus before he stirred. 25I spoke perplexed by something in the signsOf desolation I had seen and heardIn this drear pilgrimage to ruined shrines:Where Faith and like and Hope are dead indeed,Can Life still live? By what doth it proceed? 30As whom his one intense thought overpowers,He answered coldly..[ADVERTHERE]Related article:
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