"That you had never seen me! never heard
My voice! and more than all had ne'er endured
The deep pollution of my loathed embrace;
That your eyes ne'er had lied love in my face!
That, like some maniac monk, I had torn out
The nerves of manhood by their bleeding root
With mine own quivering fingers! so that ne'er
Our hearts had for a moment mingled there,
To disunite in horror! These were not
With thee like some suppressed and hideous thought,
Which flits athwart our musings, but can find
No rest within a pure and gentle mind-
Thou sealedst them with many a bare broad word,
And sear❜dst my memory o'er them,--for I heard
And can forget not-they were ministered,
One after one, those curses. Mix them up
Like self-destroying poisons in one cup;
And they will make one blessing, which thou ne'er
Didst imprecate for on me- death!

"It were

A cruel punishment for one most cruel,
If such can love, to make that love the fuel
Of the mind's hell-hate, scorn, remorse, despair:
But me, whose heart a stranger's tear might wear
As water-drops the sandy fountain stone;
Who loved and pitied all things, and could moan
For woes which others hear not, and could see
The absent with the glass of phantasy,
And near the poor and trampled sit and weep,
Following the captive to his dungeon deep;
Me, who am as a nerve o'er which do creep
The else-unfelt oppressions of this earth,
And was to thee the flame upon thy hearth,
When all beside was cold:-that thou on me
Should rain these plagues of blistering agony-
Such curses are from lips once eloquent
With love's too partial praise! Let none relent
Who intend deeds too dreadful for a name
Henceforth, if an example for the same

They seek for thou on me lookedst so and so,
And didst speak thus and thus. I live to show
How much men bear and die not.

Is dim to see that (charactered in vain
On this unfeeling leaf) which burns the brain
And eats into it, blotting all things fair,
And wise and good, which time had written there.
Those who inflict must suffer, for they see
The work of their own hearts, and that must be
Our chastisement or recompense.—O child!
I would that thine were like to be more mild
For both our wretched sakes,-for thine the most,
Who feel'st already all that thou hast lost,
Without the power to wish it thine again.
And, as slow years pass, a funereal train,
Each with the ghost of some lost hope or friend
Following it like its shadow, wilt thou bend
No thought on my dead memory?

"Alas, love! Fear me not: against thee I'd not move A finger in despite. Do I not live That thou mayst have less bitter cause to grieve? I give thee tears for scorn, and love for hate; And, that thy lot may be less desolate Than his on whom thou tramplest, I refrain From that sweet sleep which medicines all pain. Then when thou speakest of me-never say, 'He could forgive not.'-Here I cast away All human passions, all revenge, all pride; I think, speak, act no ill; I do but hide Under these words, like embers, every spark Of that which has consumed me. Quick and dark The grave is yawning:-as its roof shall cover My limbs with dust and worms, under and over, So let oblivion hide this grief.-The air Closes upon my accents as despair Upon my heart-let death upon my care!"

He ceased, and overcome, leant back awhile;
Then rising, with a melancholy smile,
Went to a sofa, and lay down, and slept
A heavy sleep, and in his dreams he wept,
And muttered some familiar name, and we
Wept without shame in his society.

I think I never was impressed so much!
The man, who was not, must have lacked a touch
Of human nature. Then we lingered not,
Although our argument was quite forgot;
But, calling the attendants, went to dine
At Maddalo's;-yet neither cheer nor wine
Could give us spirits, for we talked of him,
And nothing else, till daylight made stars dim.
And we agreed it was some dreadful ill
Wrought on him boldly, yet unspeakable,
By a dear friend; some deadly change in love
Of one vowed deeply which he dreamed not of;
For whose sake he, it seemed, had fixed a blot
Of falsehood in his mind, which flourished not
But in the light of all-beholding truth;
And having stamped this canker on his youth,
She had abandoned him:-and how much more
Might be his woe, we guessed not: he had store
Of friends and fortune once, as we could guess
From his nice habits and his gentleness:
These now were lost-it were a grief indeed
If he had changed one unsustaining reed
For all that such a man might else adorn.
The colours of his mind seemed yet unworn;
For the wild language of his grief was high-
Such as in measure were called poetry.
And I remember one remark, which then
Maddalo made: he said-" Most wretched men

Are cradled into poetry by wrong:
They learn in suffering what they teach in song."

If I had been an unconnected man,

I, from the moment, should have formed some plan

Never to leave sweet Venice: for to me It was delight to ride by the lone sea: And then the town is silent-one may write Or read in gondolas, by day or night, Having the little brazen lamp alight, Unseen, uninterrupted:-books are there, Pictures, and casts from all those statues fair Which were twin-born with poetry!—and all We seek in towns, with little to recall Regret for the green country:-I might sit In Maddalo's great palace, and his wit And subtle talk would cheer the winter night, And make me know myself:-and the fire light Would flash upon our faces, til the day Might dawn, and make me wonder at my stay. But I had friends in London too. The chief Attraction here was that I sought relief From the deep tenderness that maniac wrought Within me 'twas perhaps an idle thought, But I imagined that if, day by day,

I watched him, and seldom went away, And studied all the beatings of his heart 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, 1 night reclaim him from his 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 or solitude, And leave no trace!-but what I now designed Made, for long years, impression on my mind. 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.
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 transcendent worth,-
Like one of Shakspeare'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.

Her coming made him better; and they stayed
Together at my father's,-for I played,
As I remember, with the lady's shawl;
I might be six years old:-But, after all,
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 no more?"

"Something within that interval which bore The stamp of why they parted, how they met ;Yet, if thine aged eyes disdain to wet

Those wrinkled cheeks with youth's remembered
Ask me no more; but let the silent years [tears,
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,

Into their mother's bosom, sweet and soft,

A WOODMAN, whose rough heart was out of tune (I think such hearts yet never came to good), Hated to hear, under the stars or moon,

One nightingale in an interfluous wood
Satiate the hungry dark with melody ;-
And, as a vale is watered by a flood,

Or as the moonlight fills the open sky
Struggling with darkness as a tuberose
Peoples some Indian dell with scents which lie

Like clouds above the flower from which they rose,
The singing of that happy nightingale
In this sweet forest, from the golden close

Of evening till the star of dawn may fail,
Was interfused upon the silentness;
The folded roses and the violets pale

Heard her within their slumbers, the abyss
Of heaven with all its planets; the dull ear
Of the night-cradled earth; the loneliness

Of the circumfluous waters, every sphere
And every flower and beam and cloud and wave,
And every wind of the mute atmosphere,

And every beast stretched in its rugged cave,
And every bird lulled on its mossy bough,
And every silver moth, fresh from the grave,

Which is its cradle-ever from below
Aspiring like one who loves too fair, too far,
To be consumed within the purest glow

Of one serene and unapproached star, As if it were a lamp of earthly light, Unconscious as some human lovers are,

Itself how low, how high, beyond all height
The heaven where it would perish!-and every form
That worshipped in the temple of the night

Was awed into delight, and by the charm
Girt as with an interminable zone,
Whilst that sweet bird, whose music was a storm

Of sound, shook forth the dull oblivion
Out of their dreams; harmony became love
In every soul but one.

And so this man returned with axe and saw
At evening close from killing the tall treen,
The soul of whom by nature's gentle law
Was each a wood-nymph, and kept ever green
The pavement and the roof of the wild copse,
Chequering the sunlight of the blue serene

With jagged leaves,-and from the forest tops
Singing the winds to sleep-or weeping oft
East showers of aerial water drops

Around the cradies of the birds aloft

They spread themselves into the loveliness

Of fan-like leaves, and over pallid flowers
Hang like moist clouds: or, where high branches kiss,

Make a green space among the silent bowers,
Like a vast fane in a metropolis,
Surrounded by the columns and the towers

All overwrought with branch-like traceries
In which there is religion-and the mute
Persuasion of unkindled melodies,

Odours and gleams and murmurs, which the lute
Of the blind pilot-spirit of the blast

Stirs as it sails, now grave and now acute,

Wakening the leaves and waves ere it has past
To such brief unison as on the brain
One tone, which never can recur, has cast,

MISERY.-A FRAGMENT.

COME, be happy !-sit near me,
Shadow vested Misery:
Coy, unwilling, silent bride,
Mourning in thy robe of pride,
Desolation-deified!

Come, be happy !-sit near me :
Sad as I may seem to thee,
I am happier far than thou,
Lady, whose imperial brow
Is endiademed with woe.

Misery! we have known each other,
Like a sister and a brother
Living in the same lone home,
Many years-we must live some
Hours or ages yet to come.

"Tis an evil lot, and yet
Let us make the best of it;

If love can live when pleasure dies,
We two will love, till in our eyes
This heart's Hell seem Paradise.

Come, be happy!-lie thee down
On the fresh grass newly mown,
Where the grasshopper doth sing
Merrily-one joyous thing
In a world of sorrowing!

There our tent shall be the willow,
And mine arm shall be thy pillow;
Sounds and odours, sorrowful
Because they once were sweet, shall lull
Us to slumber deep and dull.

Ha! thy frozen pulses flutter
With a love thou dar'st not utter.

Thou art murmuring-thou art weeping-
Is thine icy bosom leaping

While my burning heart lies sleeping?

Kiss me ;-oh! thy lips are cold;
Round my neck thine arms enfold-
They are soft, but chill and dead;
And thy tears upon my head
Burn like points of frozen lead.

Hasten to the bridal bed-
Underneath the grave 'tis spread:
In darkness may our love be hid,
Oblivion be our coverlid-
We may rest, and none forbid.

Clasp me, till our hearts be grown
Like two shadows into one;
Till this dreadful transport may
Like a vapour fade away
In the sleep that lasts alway.

We may dream in that long sleep,
That we are not those who weep;
Even as Pleasure dreams of thee,
Life-deserting Misery,

Thou mayest dream of her with me.

MAZENGHI.*

O FOSTER-NURSE of man's abandoned glory
Since Athens, its great mother, sunk in splendour,
Thou shadowest forth that mighty shape in story,
As Ocean its wrecked fanes, severe yet tender:-
The light-invested angel Poesy

Was drawn from the dim world to welcome thee.

And thou in painting didst transcribe all taught
By loftiest meditations; marble knew

The sculptor's fearless soul-and, as he wrought,
The grace of his own power and freedom grew.
And more than all, heroic, just, sublime,
Thou wert among the false-was this thy crime?

Yes; and on Pisa's marble walls the twine
Of direst weeds hangs garlanded-the snake
Inhabits its wrecked palaces ;-in thine
A beast of subtler venom now doth make
Its lair, and sits amid their glories overthrown,
And thus thy victim's fate is as thine own.

The sweetest flowers are ever frail and rare,
And love and freedom blossom but to wither;
And good and ill like vines entangled are,
So that their grapes may oft be plucked together;-
Divide the vintage ere thou drink, then make
Thy heart rejoice for dead Mazenghi's sake.

No record of his crime remains in story,
But if the morning bright as evening shone,
It was some high and holy deed, by glory
Pursued into forgetfulness, which won

From the blind crowd he made secure and free
The patriot's meed, toil, death, and infamy.

For when by sound of trumpet was declared
A price upon his life, and there was set
A penalty of blood on all who shared
So much of water with him as might wet
His lips, which speech divided not-he went
Alone, as you may guess, to banishment.

Amid the mountains, like a hunted beast,
He hid himself, and hunger, toil, and cold,
Month after month endured; it was a feast
Whene'er he found those globes of deep red gold
Which in the woods the strawberry-tree doth bear,
Suspended in their emerald atmosphere.

And in the roofless huts of vast morasses,
Deserted by the fever-stricken serf,

All overgrown with reeds and long rank grasses,
And hillocks heaped of moss-inwoven turf,
And where the huge and speckled aloe made,
Rooted in stones, a broad and pointed shade,

This fragment refers to an event, told in Sismondi's Histoire des Republiques Italiennes, which occurred during the war when Florence finally subdued Pisa, and reduced it to a province. The opening stanzas are addressed to the conquering city.-M. S.