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FRAGMENT OF A LATER PART.

Her hair was brown, her sphered eyes were brown,

And in their dark and liquid moisture swam, Like the dim orb of the eclipsèd moon;

Yet, when the spirit flashed beneath, there

came

The light from them, as when tears of delight Double the western planet's serene flame.1

1 Mrs. Shelley, who traced in Prince Athanase a resemblance to Alastor, says that the poet at first named it Pandemos and Urania. "Athanase seeks through the world the One whom he may love. He meets, in the ship in which he is embarked, a lady who appears to him to embody his ideal of love and beauty. But she proves to be Pandemos, or the earthly and unworthy Venus, who, after disappointing his cherished dreams and hopes, deserts him." The final fragment of six lines describes the lady who can really reply to his soul," and who, on his death-bed, comes and kisses his lips."-ED.

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JULIAN AND MADDALO;1

A CONVERSATION.

1818.

PREFACE.

The meadows with fresh streams, the bees with
thyme,
The goats with the green leaves of budding Spring,
Are saturated not-nor Love with tears.

VIRGIL'S GALLUS.

COUNT MADDALO is a Venetian nobleman of ancient family and of great fortune, who, without mixing much in the society of his countrymen, resides chiefly at his magnificent palace in that city. He is a person of the most consummate genius, and capable, if he would direct his energies to such an end, of becoming the redeemer of his degraded country. But it is his weakness to be proud: he derives,

1 According to Mr. Woodberry's notes on the manuscript volume at Harvard College, this poem is entered in the index as having formed a portion of the book now missing, and as having been called Maddalo and Julian. Maddalo represents Byron, Julian Shelley. The soliloquy of the Maniac is held to depict in an idealized form some passages of Shelley's life with Harriett. The poem was written at Este late in 1818.-ED.

from a comparison of his own extraordinary mind with the dwarfish intellects that surround him, an intense apprehension of the nothingness of human life. His passions and his powers are incomparably greater than those of other, men; and, instead of the latter having been/ employed in curbing the former, they have mutually lent each other strength. His ambition preys upon itself, for want of objects which it can consider worthy of exertion. I say that Maddalo is proud, because I can find no other word to express the concentered and impatient feelings which consume him; but it is on his own hopes and affections only that he seems to trample, for in social life no human being can be more gentle, patient, and unassuming than Maddalo. He is cheerful, frank, and witty. His more serious conversation is a sort of intoxication; men are held by it as by a spell. He has travelled much; and there is an inexpressible charm in his relation of his adventures in different countries.

Julian is an Englishman of good family, passionately attached to those philosophical notions which assert the power of man over his own mind, and the immense improvements of which, by the extinction of certain moral superstitions, human society may be yet susceptible. Without concealing the evil in the world, he is for ever speculating how good may be made superior. He is a complete infidel, and a scoffer at all things reputed holy; and Maddalo takes a wicked pleasure in drawing out his taunts against religion. What Maddalo thinks on these matters is not exactly known. Julian, in spite of his heterodox opinions, is conjectured by his friends to possess some

good qualities. How far this is possible the pious reader will determine. Julian is rather

serious.

Of the Maniac I can give no information. He seems, by his own account, to have been disappointed in love. He was evidently a very cultivated and amiable person when in his right senses. His story, told at length, might be like many other stories of the same kind : the unconnected exclamations of his agony will perhaps be found a sufficient comment for the text of every heart.

JULIAN AND MADDALO:

A CONVERSATION.

I RODE one evening with Count Maddalo
Upon the bank of land which breaks the flow
Of Adria towards Venice: a bare strand
Of hillocks, heaped from ever-shifting sand,
Matted with thistles and amphibious weeds,
Such as from earth's embrace the salt ooze
breeds,

Is this; an uninhabited sea-side,

Which the lone fisher, when his nets are dried,
Abandons; and no other object breaks
The waste, but one dwarf tree and some few
stakes

Broken and unrepaired, and the tide makes
A narrow space of level sand thereon,

ΙΟ

Where 'twas our wont to ride while day went down.

This ride was my delight. I love all waste
And solitary places; where we taste

The pleasure of believing what we see
Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be:
And such was this wide ocean, and this shore
More barren than its billows; and yet more
Than all, with a remembered friend I love
To ride as then I rode ;-for the winds drove
The living spray along the sunny air
Into our faces; the blue heavens were bare,

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