With zeal, as men study some stubborn art I might reclaim him from this dark estate: And leave no trace-but what I now designed After many years 590 His dog was dead. His child had now become A woman; such as it has been my doom To meet with few, a wonder of this earth Where there is little of transcendant worth, Like one of Shakespeare's women: kindly she, And with a manner beyond courtesy, Received her father's friend; and when I asked Of the lorn maniac, she her memory tasked And told as she had heard the mournful tale. "That the poor sufferer's health began to fail "Two years from my departure, but that then "The lady who had left him came again. "Her mien had been imperious, but she now "Looked meek-perhaps remorse had brought her low. 599 "Her coming made him better, and they stayed Together at my father's-for I played 66 "As I remember with the lady's shawl"I might be six years old-but after all 66 She left him" "Why, her heart must have been tough: "How did it end?" "And was not this enough? They met they parted"--"Child, is there 66 66 no more? Something within that interval which bore "The stamp of why they parted, how they met : Yet if thine agèd eyes disdain to wet "Those wrinkled cheeks with youth's remembered tears, "Ask me no more, but let the silent years 611 Be closed and cered over their memory "As yon mute marble where their corpses lie." I urged and questioned still, she told me how All happened-but the cold world shall not know.1 The following cancelled passages of Julian and Maddalo evidently belong to an early stage in the poem's developement. The first fragment must have been near the opening : "What think you the dead are? clay, "Why, dust and What should they be?" ""Tis the last hour of day. Look on the west, how beautiful it is Vaulted with radiant vapours! The deep bliss Of that unutterable light has made The edges of that cloud fade Into a hue, like some harmonious thought, and between The light hues of the tender, pure, serene, And infinite tranquility of heaven. Aye, beautiful! but when not...." The remaining three lines would presumably have been in the maniac's soliloquy : Perhaps the only comfort which remains THE MASK OF ANARCHY: WRITTEN ON THE OCCASION OF THE MASSACRE AT MANCHESTER. 1819. I. As I lay asleep in Italy There came a voice from over the Sea, II. I met Murder on the way- III. All were fat; and well they might For one by one, and two by two, He tossed them human hearts to chew IV. Next came Fraud, and he had on, V. And the little children, who Thinking every tear a gem, Had their brains knocked out by them. VI. Clothed with the Bible, as with light.1 Like Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy VII. And many more Destructions played VIII. Last came Anarchy: he rode On a white horse, splashed with blood; IX. And he wore a kingly crown; And in his grasp a sceptre shone ; X. With a pace stately and fast, 1 This stanza is not very clear; but I suppose we are to understand that the Bible is a mingled web of light and darkness,-of high thought and teaching and gross and bloody superstition, that dogmas and professions from the Hebrew scriptures were the favourite cloke for hypocrisy in those days,-and that Hypocrisy, wearing a mask like Lord Sidmouth, had clothed itself in that familiar cloke for the pageant. - ED. XI. And a mighty troop around With their trampling shook the ground, For the service of their Lord. XII. And with glorious triumph they Of the wine of desolation. XIII. O'er fields and towns, from sea to sea, XIV. And each dweller, panic-stricken, XV. For with pomp to meet him came, 66 Thou art God, and Law, and King. XVI. "We have waited, weak and lone, "For thy coming, Mighty One! 66 Our purses are empty, our swords are cold, "Give us glory, and blood, and gold." |