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 were 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 his 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 on 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 were now 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 this 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
Regrets 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 firelight
Would flash upon our faces, till 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 but 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,
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.
The following morning urged by my affairs
I left bright Venice..
And many changes I returned; the name
Of Venice, and it's 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 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. "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 agèd eyes disdain to wet
"Those wrinkled cheeks with youth's remembered tears, 'Ask me no more, but let the silent years
"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.
CANCELLED PASSAGES OF JULIAN AND
MADDALO.
"What think you the dead are?" "Why, dust and clay, 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
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....
'Perhaps the only comfort which remains. Is the unheeded clanking of my chains, The which I make, and call it melody.'
THERE was a youth, who, as with toil and travel,
Had grown quite weak and grey before his time;
Nor any could the restless griefs unravel
Which burned within him, withering up his prime
And goading him, like fiends, from land to land.
Not his the load of any secret crime,
For nought of ill his heart could understand,
But pity and wild sorrow for the same;-
Not his the thirst for glory or command
Baffled with blast of hope-consuming shame;
Nor evil joys which fire the vulgar breast
And quench in speedy smoke its feeble flame,
Had left within his soul their dark unrest:
Nor what religion fables of the grave
Feared he,-Philosophy's accepted guest.
For none than he a purer heart could have,
Or that loved good more for itself alone;
Of nought in heaven or earth was he the slave
What sorrow strange, and shadowy, and unknown,
Sent him, a hopeless wanderer, through mankind?- 20
If with a human sadness he did groan,
He had a gentle yet aspiring mind;
Just, innocent, with varied learning fed,
And such a glorious consolation find
In others' joy, when all their own is dead:
He loved, and laboured for his kind in grief,
And yet, unlike all others, it is said,
That from such toil he never found relief;
Although a child of fortune and of power,
Of an ancestral name the orphan chief.
His soul had wedded wisdom, and her dower
Is love and justice, clothed in which he sate
Apart from men, as in a lonely tower,
Pitying the tumult of their dark estate-
Yet even in youth did he not e'er abuse
The strength of wealth or thought, to consecrate
Those false opinions which the harsh rich use
To blind the world they famish for their pride;
Nor did he hold from any man his dues,
But like a steward in honest dealings tried
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 well-
Whate'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
He neither spurned nor hated, though with fell
And mortal hate their thousand voices rose,
They past like aimless arrows from his ear—
Nor did his heart or mind its portal close.
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