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11.
No record of his crime remains in story,
But if the morning bright as evening shone, 60
It was some high and holy deed, by glory
Pursued into forgetfulness, which won
From the blind crowd he made secure and free
The patriot’s meed, toil, death, and infamy.

12.
For when by sound of trumpet was declared
A price upon his life, and there was set 65
A penalty of blood on all who shared
So much of water with him as might wet
His lips, which speech divided not–he went
Alone, as you may guess, to banishment.

13.
Amid the mountains, like a hunted beast,
He hid himself, and hunger, toil, and cold, 70
Month after month endured; it was a feast
Whene’er he found those globes of deep-red gold
Which in the woods the strawberry-tree doth bear,
Suspended in their emerald atmosphere. 75

14.
And in the roofless huts of vast morasses,
Deserted by the fever-stricken serf,
All overgrown with reeds and long rank grasses,
And hillocks heaped of moss-inwoven turf,
And where the huge and speckled aloe made, 80
Rooted in stones, a broad and pointed shade,–

15.
He housed himself. There is a point of strand
Near Vado’s tower and town; and on one side
The treacherous marsh divides it from the land,
Shadowed by pine and ilex forests wide, 85
And on the other, creeps eternally,
Through muddy weeds, the shallow sullen sea.

16.
Here the earth’s breath is pestilence, and few
But things whose nature is at war with life–
Snakes and ill worms–endure its mortal dew.
The trophies of the clime’s victorious strife– 90
And ringed horns which the buffalo did wear,
And the wolf’s dark gray scalp who tracked him there.

17.
And at the utmost point…stood there
The relics of a reed-inwoven cot, 95
Thatched with broad flags. An outlawed murderer
Had lived seven days there: the pursuit was hot
When he was cold. The birds that were his grave
Fell dead after their feast in Vado’s wave.

18.
There must have burned within Marenghi’s breast 100
That fire, more warm and bright than life and hope,
(Which to the martyr makes his dungeon…
More joyous than free heaven’s majestic cope
To his oppressor), warring with decay,–
Or he could ne’er have lived years, day by day. 105

19.
Nor was his state so lone as you might think.
He had tamed every newt and snake and toad,
And every seagull which sailed down to drink
Those freshes ere the death-mist went abroad.
And each one, with peculiar talk and play, 110
Wiled, not untaught, his silent time away.