Man in the Iron Mask; A Poetical Romance in Four Books - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1873. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... His tablets and two saintly medals blest By our Most Holy Pontiff; all are gone, And I am left without one souvenir. Alas! and yet again, alas! My task Needs all my care, while I have head for it. While sense remains, the chamber of the dead Must all be changed, and I myself perform My part in this most sacrilegious deed. This to forgetfulness!" he said, and flung The lute the " Mask" so loved in prison-life Into the chimney's jaws, where tongues of flame Curled round, and round it, breathing words of fire Into the circled hollow of its ear. It was a Mantuan instrument of price, A " long 'Theorbo'" it's Italian name, Or what in chapel services in France They call the "arch-lute." One whose deep rich tones Sound best in company with psalmody, Or the sad voice that improvises words Fraught with the music of an aching heart. » » # # When the grand double-headed lute was gone And all its fretted splendours of fine pearl And silver serpentined in endless threads Were blackened or destroyed, and all the strings Curled up like tendrils of a blasted vine, He turned away and wept; while in his ears Rang well-remembered strains of love and woe, And, most reproachfully, one cadence gay Of a sweet madrigal the " Mask" composed And sang (his theme a sunbeam visitant That sought him out, one spring in Pignerol). Now--while this memory dwelt with him, he called Two trusty workmen in, and gave them charge With all imaginable speed to break And make away with such like garniture As the poor chamber had, and bade them burn The wreck and splinters in the inner court, Upon a heap of strange debris that he Had piled with raiment that the dead had worn, Long hose and shoon, and trunks of velvet laced With "point "--and 'neath it all the fatal mask, That hid for years benea...