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 but2 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 all previous editions, Regret ; but the word is plural in the MS.

'Here again the MS. restores the lost perfection of the work. Hitherto the line has halted for want of the

545

550

555

560

565

570

word but. Mr. Rossetti got over the difficulty of the missing syllable by accenting the ed of watched.

3 In previous editions the word here is his; but I believe the word in

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.

After many years

And many changes1 I returned; the name

Of Venice, and it's aspect was the same;
But Maddalo was travelling far away

Among the mountains of Armenia.

575

580

585

His dog was dead. His child had now become

A woman; such as it has been my doom

590

595

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

the MS. to be meant for this. It is the only word in the whole MS. about which there is any doubt: it might possibly be either his or this; but it

600

is imperfectly written in either case. 1 In the MS. the original word here was wanderings, which is cancelled, and the word changes is written above it.

605

"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

610

"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.

1 In the MS., But stood originally in this place: Yet is written over it.

615

I

VOL. III.

CANCELLED PASSAGES OF JULIAN AND

MADDALO.1

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

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...

Perhaps the only comfort which remains.
Is the unheeded clanking of my chains,
The which I make, and call it melody.

1 From Relics of Shelley, pp. 78-9. Desires at p. 405 of the present Vol. See note to the Fragment Unsatisfied

PRINCE ATHANASE

&c.