But, like a steward in honest dealings tried, 40 With those who toiled and wept, the poor and wise,

His riches and his cares he did divide.

Fearless he was, and, scorning all disguise, What he dared do or think, though men might start,

He spoke with mild yet unaverted eyes;

Liberal he was of soul, and frank of heart, And to his many friends-all loved him wellWhate'er he knew or felt he would impart,

If words he found those inmost thoughts to

tell;

If not, he smiled or wept; and his weak foes 50 He neither spurned nor hated, though with fell

And mortal hate their thousand voices rose,They passed like aimless arrows from his ear— Nor did his heart or mind its portal close

To those, or them, or any whom life's sphere May comprehend within its wide array. What sadness made that vernal spirit sere?

He knew not. Though his life, day after day, Was failing like an unreplenished stream, Though in his eyes a cloud and burthen lay, 60

Through which his soul, like Vesper's serene

beam

Piercing the chasms of ever rising clouds, Shone, softly burning; though his lips did

seem

Like reeds which quiver in impetuous floods; And through his sleep, and o'er each waking hour,

Thoughts after thoughts, unresting multitudes,

Were driven within him, by some secret power, Which bade them blaze, and live, and roll afar, Like lights and sounds, from haunted tower to tower

O'er castled mountains borne, when tempest's

war

Is levied by the night-contending winds,
And the pale dalesmen watch with

eager ear

;

70

Though such were in his spirit, as the fiends Which wake and feed on everliving woe,What was this grief, which ne'er in other minds

A mirror found, he knew not-none could

know;

But on whoe'er might question him he turned The light of his frank eyes, as if to show

He knew not of the grief within that burned, But asked forbearance with a mournful look; 80 Or spoke in words from which none ever learned

The cause of his disquietude; or shook
With spasms of silent passion; or turned pale:
So that his friends soon rarely undertook

To stir his secret pain without avail;-
For all who knew and loved him then perceived
That there was drawn an adamantine veil

Between his heart and mind, both unrelieved Wrought in his brain and bosom separate strife. Some said that he was mad, others believed 90

That memories of an antenatal life

Made this, where now he dwelt, a penal hell; And others said that such mysterious grief

From God's displeasure, like a darkness, fell On souls like his which owned no higher law Than love; love calm, steadfast, invincible

By mortal fear or supernatural awe;

And others,- -""Tis the shadow of a dream 'Which the veiled eye of memory never saw

66

"But through the soul's abyss, like some dark

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stream

100

Through shattered mines and caverns under

ground

"Rolls, shaking its foundations; and no beam

"Of joy may rise, but it is quenched and drowned

"In the dim whirlpools of this dream obscure: "Soon its exhausted waters will have found

66

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A lair of rest beneath thy spirit pure,

O Athanase!-in one so good and great, "Evil or tumult cannot long endure."

So spake they idly of another's state Babbling vain words and fond philosophy; 110 This was their consolation; such debate

Men held with one another; nor did he
Like one who labours with a human woe
Decline this talk: as if its theme might be

Another, not himself, he to and fro
Questioned and canvassed it with subtlest wit,
And none but those who loved him best could
know

That which he knew not, how it galled and bit His weary mind, this converse vain and cold; For like an eyeless nightmare grief did sit 120

Upon his being; a snake which fold by fold Pressed out the life of life, a clinging fiend Which clenched him if he stirred with deadlier hold ;

So that his grief remained-let it remain—untold.1

PART II.

FRAGMENT I.

Prince Athanase had one belovèd friend,2
An old, old man, with hair of silver white,
And lips where heavenly smiles would hang and
blend

With his wise words; and eyes whose arrowy

light

Shone like the reflex of a thousand minds.
He was the last whom superstition's blight

1 The Author was pursuing a fuller developement of the ideal character of Athanase, when it struck him that, in an attempt at extreme refinement and analysis, his conceptions might be betrayed into the assuming a morbid character. The reader will judge whether he is a loser or gainer by this difference.

2 Mrs. Shelley records that this character was meant to represent Shelley's Eton friend, Dr. Lind, the original of the hermit in Laon and Cythna.-ED.

Had spared in Greece-the blight that cramps and blinds,

And in his olive bower at Enoe

Had sate from earliest youth. Like one who finds

A fertile island in the barren sea,

One mariner who has survived his mates
Many a drear month in a great ship—so he

With soul-sustaining songs,and sweet debates Of ancient lore, there fed his lonely being:The mind becomes that which it contemplates,"

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And thus Zonoras, by forever seeing

Their bright creations, grew like wisest men;
And when he heard the crash of nations fleeing

A bloodier power than ruled thy ruins then,
O sacred Hellas! many weary years
He wandered, till the path of Laian's glen

20

Was grass-grown-and the unremembered tears Were dry in Laian for their honoured chief, Who fell in Byzant, pierced by Moslem spears :

And as the lady looked with faithful grief From her high lattice o'er the rugged path, Where she once saw that horseman toil, with brief

And blighting hope, who with the news of death Struck body and soul as with a mortal blight, She saw beneath the chesnuts, far beneath, 30

An old man toiling up, a weary wight;
And soon within her hospitable hall

She saw his white hairs glittering in the light