"How vain

Are words! I thought never to speak again,
Not even in secret, not to my own heart-
But from my lips the unwilling accents start,
And from my pen the words flow, as I write,

Dazzling my eyes with scalding tears. My sight 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 this 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 would 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 despair!"

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 highSuch 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 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 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 car

"Her mien had been im

in.

355.e now

Looked meek; perhaps 、orse 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."

66 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 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.

From the Baths of Lucca, in 1818; Shelley visited Venice; and, circumstances rendering it eligible that we should remain a few weeks in the neighbourhood of that city, he accepted the offer of Lord Byron, who lent him the use of a villa he rented near Este; and he sent for his family from Lucca to join him.

I Capuccini was a villa built on the site of a Capuchin convent, demolished when the French suppressed religious houses; it was situated on the very overhanging brow of a low hill at the foot of a range of higher ones. The house was cheerful and pleasant; a vine-trellised walk (a pergola, as it is called in Italian) led from the hall door to a summer-house at the end of the garden, which Shelley made his study, and in which he began the Prometheus; and here also, as he mentions in a letter, he wrote Julian and Maddalo. A slight ravine, with a road in its depth, divided the garden from the hill, on which stood the ruins of the ancient castle of Este, whose dark massive wall gave forth an echo, and from whose ruined crevices owls and bats flitted forth at night, as the crescent moon sunk behind the black and heavy battlements. We looked from the garden over the wide plain of Lombardy, bounded to the west by the far Apennines, while to the east the horizon was lost in misty distance. After the picturesque but limited view of mountain, ravine, and chestnut-wood, at the Baths of Lucca, there was something infinitely gratifying to the eye in the wide range of prospect commanded by our new abode.

Our first misfortune, of the kind from which we soon suffered even more severely, happened here. Our little girl, an infant in whose small features I fancied that I traced great resemblance to her father, showed symptoms of suffering from the heat of the climate. Teething increased her illness and danger. We were at Este, and, when we became alarmed, hastened to Venice for the best advice. When we arrived at Fusina, we found that we had forgotten our passport, and the soldiers on duty attempted to prevent our crossing the laguna; but they could not resist Shelley's impetuosity at such a moment. We had scarcely arrived at Venice before life fled from the little sufferer, and we returned to Este to weep her loss.

After a few weeks spent in this retreat, which were interspersed by visits to Venice, we proceeded southward.