In one part, a great tower rose into the
air; the only landmark in the melancholy view. In another, a
prodigious castle, with a moat about it, stood aloof: a sullen
city in itself. In the black dungeons of this castle, Parisina and
her lover were beheaded in the dead of night. The red light,
beginning to shine when I looked back upon it, stained its walls
without, as they have, many a time, been stained within, in old
days; but for any sign of life they gave, the castle and the city
might have been avoided by all human creatures, from the moment
when the axe went down upon the last of the two lovers: and might
have never vibrated to another sound
Beyond the blow that to the block
Pierced through with forced and sullen shock.
Coming to the Po, which was greatly swollen, and running fiercely,
we crossed it by a floating bridge of boats, and so came into the
Austrian territory, and resumed our journey: through a country of
which, for some miles, a great part was under water. The brave
Courier and the soldiery had first quarrelled, for half an hour or
more, over our eternal passport.
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