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With zeal, as men study some stubborn art
For their own good, and could by patience find
An entrance to the caverns of his mind,

I might reclaim him from this dark estate:
In friendships I had been most fortunate—
Yet never saw I one whom I would call
More willingly my friend; and this was all
Accomplished not; such dreams of baseless good
Oft come and go in crowds and solitude

And leave no trace-but what I now designed
Made for long years impression on my mind. 581
The following morning, urged by my affairs,
I left bright Venice.

After many years
And many changes I returned; the name
Of Venice, and its aspect, was the same;
But Maddalo was travelling far away
Among the mountains of Armenia.

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

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"As I remember with the lady's shawl"I might be six years old-but after all

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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

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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

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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,
Wasting itself on that which it had wrought,
Till it dies

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
Is the unheeded clanking of my chains,
The which I make, and call it melody. --ED.

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,
And with great power it forth led me
To walk in the visions of Poesy.

II.

I met Murder on the way-
He had a mask like Castlereagh-
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven blood-hounds followed him :

III.

All were fat; and well they might
Be in admirable plight,

For one by one, and two by two,

He tossed them human hearts to chew
Which from his wide cloke he drew.

IV.

Next came Fraud, and he had on,
Like Eldon, an ermined gown;
His big tears, for he wept well,
Turned to mill-stones as they fell.

V.

And the little children, who
Round his feet played to and fro,

Thinking every tear a gem,

Had their brains knocked out by them.

VI.

Clothed with the Bible, as with light.1
And the shadows of the night,

Like Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy
On a crocodile rode by.

VII.

And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like Bishops, lawyers, peers or spies.

VIII.

Last came Anarchy: he rode

On a white horse, splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse,

IX.

And he wore a kingly crown;

And in his grasp a sceptre shone ;
On his brow this mark I saw-
"I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!"

X.

With a pace stately and fast,
Over English land he passed,
Trampling to a mire of blood
The adoring multitude.

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,
Waving each a bloody sword

For the service of their Lord.

XII.

And with glorious triumph they
Rode through England proud and gay,
Drunk as with intoxication

Of the wine of desolation.

XIII.

O'er fields and towns, from sea to sea,
Passed that Pageant swift and free,
Tearing up, and trampling down,
Till they came to London town.

XIV.

And each dweller, panic-stricken,
Felt his heart with terror sicken
Hearing the tempestuous cry
Of the triumph of Anarchy.

XV.

For with pomp to meet him came,
Clothed in arms like blood and flame,
The hired murderers, who did sing

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Thou art God, and Law, and King.

XVI.

"We have waited, weak and lone,

"For thy coming, Mighty One!

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Our purses are empty, our swords are cold, "Give us glory, and blood, and gold."

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