Fausta

On Count Mosca's orders, Fausta was taken to the Citadel. The Duchess laughed a good deal at the little act of injustice which the Count was obliged to commit in order to arrest the curiosity of the Prince, who might otherwise have managed to discover Fabrizio's name. 

    – Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma (Richard Howard trans.)

My god that's cold; and how differently
The tale could have been told!
For what provoked the Duchess's mirth
Was for you, Fausta, an abduction and curse 
Confined and immured—what Hardy termed
the fate of being "alive" yet—

"ensepulchred." Where, Fausta, is

The novel for you?

The tale that makes our heroes' glee

Into the villains' croak

And passes over their cruel smiling

As swiftly as they do your plight? 

The tale that sheds the tear you deserve,

To take the place of jests? 

It exists not—for so the world has always passed

Into the hands of the beautiful and saved

Who among them spares 

A thought for the damned in their caves? 

How many stories have been

Written down through the ages

Of bright and fine-eyed people; how few

Of the victims strewn at their feet? 

How is it, Fausta, that laughter there could be

Parties, mirth, or levity

While the universe yet contains

Your suffering vile? 

How can the story move 

Before you are set free? 

How was it that the tale did not 

Stop right then and there—unable to progress

While you languished still 

In bitterest distress?

How was it I

Did not break open while

They were tearing infants from mothers' arms

Right here in the USA

Or immuring those prisoners in 

A Cuban bay? 

Was I like that Duchess, laughing,

While such horrors occurred beneath

Convinced they had no reality

So long as they touched not me? 

Oblivious of all the pain

That should have shattered the universe? 

Oh god, that which passes in one, 

A brief thought in the mind,

Can be for another an eon 

Of unending torment

And jailers can never know 

The infinity of what they have done.

I should stop

The tale right there

And refuse to go on

Until you fare 

Better at the angels' hands

And make my efforts always

To keep faith with the damned.