his work & dwelling
120Vanish like smoke before the tempests stream
And thier place is not known:—below, vast caves
Shine in the gushing torrents’ restless gleam
Which from those secret chasms in tumult welling
Meet in the vale—& one majestic river
125The breath & blood of distant lands, forever
Rolls its loud waters to the Ocean waves
Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air.
Mont Blanc yet gleams on high—the Power is there
The still & solemn Power of many sights
130And many sounds, & much of life & death.
In the calm darkness of the moonless nights
Or the lone light of day the snows descend
Upon that mountain—none beholds them there—
Nor when the sunset wraps thier flakes in fire
135Or the starbeams dart thro them—winds contend
Silently there, & heap the snows, with breath
Blasting & swift—but silently—its home
The voiceless lightning in these solitudes
Keeps innocently, & like vapour broods
140Over the snow. the secret strength of things
Which governs thought, & to the infinite dome
Of Heaven is as a collumn, rests on thee,
And what were thou & Earth & Stars & Sea
If to the human minds imaginings
145Silence and solitude were Vacancy
Dedication before
LAON AND CYTHNA
THERE IS NO DANGER TO A MAN, THAT KNOWS WHAT LIFE AND DEATH IS: THERE’S NOT ANY LAW EXCEEDS HIS KNOWLEDGE; NEITHER IS IT LAWFUL THAT HE SHOULD STOOP TO ANY OTHER LAW.
CHAPMAN.
TO MARY ——— ——–
1
So now my summer-task is ended, Mary,
And I return to thee, mine own heart’s home;
As to his Queen some victor Knight of Faëry,
Earning bright spoils for her inchanted dome;
5Nor thou disdain, that ere my fame become
A star among the stars of mortal night,
If it indeed may cleave its natal gloom,
Its doubtful promise thus I would unite
With thy beloved name, thou Child of love and light.
2
10The toil which stole from thee so many an hour,
Is ended,—and the fruit is at thy feet!
No longer where the woods to frame a bower
With interlaced branches mix and meet,
Or where with sound like many voices sweet,
15Water-falls leap among wild islands green,
Which framed for my lone boat a lone retreat
Of moss-grown trees and weeds, shall I be seen:
But beside thee, where still my heart has ever been.
3
Thoughts of great deeds were mine, dear Friend, when first
20The clouds which wrap this world from youth did pass.
I do remember well the hour which burst
My spirit’s sleep: a fresh May-dawn it was,
When I walked forth upon the glittering grass,
And wept, I knew not why; until there rose
25From the near school-room, voices, that, alas!
Were but one echo from a world of woes—
The harsh and grating strife of tyrants and of foes.
4
And then I clasped my hands and looked around—
But none was near to mock my streaming eyes,
30Which poured their warm drops on the sunny ground—
So without shame, I spake:—‘I will be wise,
And just, and free, and mild, if in me lies
Such power, for I grow weary to behold
The selfish and the strong still tyrannise
35Without reproach or check.’ I then controuled
My tears, my heart grew calm, and I was meek and bold.
5
And from that hour did I with earnest thought
Heap knowledge from forbidden mines of lore,
Yet nothing that my tyrants knew or taught
40I cared to learn, but from that secret store
Wrought linked armour for my soul, before
It might walk forth to war among mankind;
Thus power and hope were strengthened more and more
Within me, till there came upon my mind
45A sense of loneliness, a thirst with which I pined.
6
Alas, that love should be a blight and snare
To those who seek all sympathies in one!—
Such once I sought in vain; then black despair,
The shadow of a starless night, was thrown
50Over the world in which I moved alone:—
Yet never found I one not false to me,
Hard hearts, and cold, like weights of icy stone
Which crushed and withered mine, that could not be
Aught but a lifeless clog, until revived by thee.
7
55Thou Friend, whose presence on my wintry heart
Fell, like bright Spring upon some herbless plain;
How beautiful and calm and free thou wert
In thy young wisdom, when the mortal chain
Of Custom thou didst burst and rend in twain,
60And walked as free as light the clouds among,
Which many an envious slave then breathed in vain
From his dim dungeon, and my spirit sprung
To meet thee from the woes which had begirt it long.
8
No more alone through the world’s wilderness,
65Although I trod the paths of high intent,
I journeyed now: no more companionless,
Where solitude is like despair, I went.—
There is the wisdom of a stern content
When Poverty can blight the just and good,
70When Infamy dares mock the innocent,
And cherished friends turn with the multitude
To trample: this was ours, and we unshaken stood!
9
Now has descended a serener hour,
And with inconstant fortune, friends return;
75Tho’ suffering leaves the knowledge and the power
Which says:—Let scorn be not repaid with scorn.
And from thy side two gentle babes are born
To fill our home with smiles, and thus are we
Most fortunate beneath life’s beaming morn;
80And these delights, and thou, have been to me
The parents of the Song I consecrate to thee.
10
Is it, that now my inexperienced fingers
But strike the prelude of a loftier strain?
Or, must the lyre on which my spirit lingers
85Soon pause in silence, ne’er to sound again,
Tho’ it might shake the Anarch Custom’s reign,
And charm the minds of men to Truth’s own sway
Holier than was Amphion’s? I would fain
Reply in hope—but I am worn away,
90And Death and Love are yet contending for their prey.
11
And what art thou? I know, but dare not speak:
Time may interpret to his silent years.
Yet in the paleness of thy thoughtful cheek,
And in the light thine ample forehead wears,
95And in thy sweetest smiles, and in thy tears,
And in thy gentle speech, a prophecy
Is whispered, to subdue my fondest fears:
And thro’ thine eyes, even in thy soul I see
A lamp of vestal fire burning internally.
12
100They say that thou wert lovely from thy birth,
Of glorious parents, thou aspiring Child.
I wonder not—for One then left this earth
Whose life was like a setting planet mild,
Which clothed thee in the radiance undefiled
105Of its departing glory; still her fame
Shines on thee, thro’ the tempests dark and wild
Which shake these latter days; and thou canst claim
The shelter, from thy Sire, of an immortal name.
13
One voice came forth from many a mighty spirit,
110Which was the echo of three thousand years;
And the tumultuous world stood mute to hear it,
As some lone man who in a desart hears
The music of his home:—unwonted fears
Fell on the pale oppressors of our race,
115And Faith, and Custom, and low-thoughted cares,
Like thunder-stricken dragons, for a space
Left the torn human heart, their food and dwelling-place.
14
Truth’s deathless voice pauses among mankind!
If there must be no response to my cry—
120If men must rise and stamp with fury blind
On his pure name who loves them,—thou and I,
Sweet Friend! can look from our tranquillity
Like lamps into the world’s tempestuous night,—
Two tranquil stars, while clouds are passing by
125Which wrap them from the foundering seaman’s sight,
That burn from year to year with unextinguished light.
To Constantia
Thy voice, slow rising like a spirit, lingers
O’er-shadowing me with soft and lulling wings;
The blood and life within thy snowy fingers
Teach witchcraft to the instrumental strings.
5 My brain is wild, my breath comes quick,
The blood is listening in my frame,
And thronging shadows fast and thick
Fall on my overflowing eyes,
My heart is quivering like a flame;
10As morning dew, that in the sunbeam dies,
I am dissolved in these consuming ecstasies.
I have no life, Constantia, but in thee;
Whilst, like the world-surrounding air, thy song
Flows on, and fills all things with melody:
15Now is thy voice a tempest, swift and strong,
On which, as one in trance upborne,
Secure o’er woods and waves I sweep
Rejoicing, like a cloud of morn:
Now ’tis the breath of summer’s night
20 Which, where the starry waters sleep
Round western isles with incense blossoms bright,
Lingering, suspends my soul in its voluptuous flight.
A deep and breathless awe, like the swift change
Of dreams unseen, but felt in youthful slumbers;
25Wild, sweet, yet incommunicably strange,
Thou breathest now, in fast ascending numbers:
The cope of heaven seems rent and cloven
By the enchantment of thy strain,
And o’er my shoulders wings are woven
30 To follow its sublime career,
Beyond the mighty moons that wane
Upon the verge of nature’s utmost sphere,
Till the world’s shadowy walls are past, and disappear.
Cease, cease—for such wild lessons madmen learn:
35Long thus to sink—thus to be lost and die
Perhaps is death indeed—Constantia turn!
Yes! in thine eyes a power like light doth lie,
Even though the sounds its voice that were
Between thy lips are laid to sleep—
40 Within thy breath and on thy hair
Like odour it is lingering yet—
And from thy touch like fire doth leap:
Even while I write my burning cheeks are wet—
Such things the heart can feel and learn, but not forget!
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—‘Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart … Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
5And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
10“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works ye Mighty, and despair!”
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.’—
Lines
Written among the Euganean Hills,
October, 1818
Many a green isle needs must be
In the deep wide sea of misery,
Or the mariner, worn and wan,
Never thus could voyage on
5Day and night, and night and day,
Drifting on his dreary way,
With the solid darkness black
Closing round his vessel’s track;
Whilst above the sunless sky,
10Big with clouds, hangs heavily,
And behind the tempest fleet
Hurries on with lightning feet,
Riving sail, and cord, and plank,
Till the ship has almost drank
15Death from the o’er-brimming deep;
And sinks down, down, like that sleep
When the dreamer seems to be
Weltering through eternity;
And the dim low line before
20Of a dark and distant shore
Still recedes, as ever still
Longing with divided will,
But no power to seek or shun,
He is ever drifted on
25O’er the unreposing wave
To the haven of the grave.
What, if there no friends will greet;
What, if there no heart will meet
His with love’s impatient beat;
30Wander wheresoe’er he may,
Can he dream before that day
To find refuge from distress
In friendship’s smile, in love’s caress?
Then ’twill wreak him little woe
35Whether such there be or no:
Senseless is the breast, and cold,
Which relenting love would fold;
Bloodless are the veins and chill
Which the pulse of pain did fill;
40Every little living nerve
That from bitter words did swerve
Round the tortured lips and brow,
Are like sapless leaflets now
Frozen upon December’s bough.
45On the beach of a northern sea
Which tempests shake eternally,
As once the wretch there lay to sleep,
Lies a solitary heap,
One white skull and seven dry bones,
50On the margin of the stones,
Where a few grey rushes stand,
Boundaries of the sea and land:
Nor is heard one voice of wail
But the sea-mews, as they sail
55O’er the billows of the gale;
Or the whirlwind up and down
Howling, like a slaughtered town,
When a King in glory rides
Through the pomp of fratricides:
60Those unburied bones around
There is many a mournful sound;
There is no lament for him,
Like a sunless vapour dim
Who once clothed with life and thought
65What now moves nor murmurs not.
Aye, many flowering islands lie
In the waters of wide Agony:
To such a one this morn was led
My bark by soft winds piloted—
70’Mid the mountains Euganean
I stood listening to the paean
With which the legioned rooks did hail
The sun’s uprise majestical;
Gathering round with wings all hoar,
75Thro’ the dewy mist they soar
Like grey shades, till th’ eastern heaven
Bursts, and then, as clouds of even
Flecked with fire and azure lie
In the unfathomable sky,
80So their plumes of purple grain,
Starred with drops of golden rain,
Gleam above the sunlight woods,
As in silent multitudes
On the morning’s fitful gale
85Thro’ the broken mist they sail,
And the vapours cloven and gleaming
Follow down the dark steep streaming,
Till all is bright, and clear, and still,
Round the solitary hill.
90Beneath is spread like a green sea
The waveless plain of Lombardy,
Bounded by the vaporous air,
Islanded by cities fair;
Underneath day’s azure eyes
95Ocean’s nursling, Venice lies,
A peopled labyrinth of walls,
Amphitrite’s destined halls
Which her hoary sire now paves
With his blue and beaming waves.
100Lo! the sun upsprings behind,
Broad, red, radiant, half reclined
On the level quivering line
Of the waters chrystalline;
And before that chasm of light,
105As within a furnace bright,
Column, tower, and dome, and spire,
Shine like obelisks of fire,
Pointing with inconstant motion
From the altar of dark ocean
110To the sapphire-tinted skies;
As the flames of sacrifice
From the marble shrines did rise,
As to pierce the dome of gold
Where Apollo spoke of old.
115Sun-girt City, thou hast been
Ocean’s child, and then his queen;
Now is come a darker day,
And thou soon must be his prey,
If the power that raised thee here
120Hallow so thy watery bier.
A less drear ruin then than now,
With thy conquest-branded brow
Stooping to the slave of slaves
From thy throne, among the waves
125Wilt thou be, when the sea-mew
Flies, as once before it flew,
O’er thine isles depopulate,
And all is in its antient state,
Save where many a palace gate
130With green sea-flowers overgrown
Like a rock of ocean’s own,
Topples o’er the abandoned sea
As the tides change sullenly.
The fisher on his watery way,
135Wandering at the close of day,
Will spread his sail and seize his oar
Till he pass the gloomy shore,
Lest thy dead should, from their sleep
Bursting o’er the starlight deep,
140Lead a rapid masque of death
O’er the waters of his path.
Those who alone thy towers behold
Quivering through aerial gold,
As I now behold them here,
145Would imagine not they were
Sepulchres, where human forms,
Like pollution-nourished worms
To the corpse of greatness cling,
Murdered, and now mouldering:
150But if Freedom should awake
In her omnipotence, and shake
From the Celtic Anarch’s hold
All the keys of dungeons cold,
Where a hundred cities lie
155Chained like thee, ingloriously,
Thou and all thy sister band
Might adorn this sunny land,
Twining memories of old time
With new virtues more sublime;
160If not, perish thou and they!—
Clouds which stain truth’s rising day
By her sun consumed away,
Earth can spare ye: while like flowers,
In the waste of years and hours,
165From your dust new nations spring
With more kindly blossoming.
Perish—let there only be
Floating o’er thy hearthless sea
As the garment of the sky
170Clothes the world immortally,
One remembrance, more sublime
Than the tattered pall of time
Which scarce hides thy visage wan;—
That a tempest-cleaving Swan
175Of the songs of Albion,
Driven from his ancestral streams
By the might of evil dreams,
Found a nest in thee; and Ocean
Welcomed him with such emotion
180That its joy grew his, and sprung
From his lips like music flung
O’er a mighty thunder-fit,
Chastening terror:—what though yet
Poesy’s unfailing River,
185Which thro’ Albion winds forever
Lashing with melodious wave
Many a sacred Poet’s grave,
Mourn its latest nursling fled?
What though thou with all thy dead
190Scarce can for this fame repay
Aught thine own? oh, rather say
Though thy sins and slaveries foul
Overcloud a sunlike soul?
As the ghost of Homer clings
195Round Scamander’s wasting springs;
As divinest Shakespeare’s might
Fills Avon and the world with light
Like Omniscient power which he
Imaged ’mid mortality;
200As the love from Petrarch’s urn
Yet amid yon hills doth burn,
A quenchless lamp by which the heart
Sees things unearthly;—so thou art,
Mighty Spirit—so shall be
205The City that did refuge thee.
Lo, the sun floats up the sky
Like thought-winged Liberty,
Till the universal light
Seems to level plain and height;
210From the sea a mist has spread,
And the beams of morn lie dead
On the towers of Venice now,
Like its glory long ago.
By the skirts of that grey cloud
215Many-domed Padua proud
Stands, a peopled solitude,
’Mid the harvest-shining plain,
Where the peasant heaps his grain
In the garner of his foe,
220And the milk-white oxen slow
With the purple vintage strain,
Heaped upon the creaking wain,
That the brutal Celt may swill
Drunken sleep with savage will;
225And the sickle to the sword
Lies unchanged, though many a lord,
Like a weed whose shade is poison,
Overgrows this region’s foizon,
Sheaves of whom are ripe to come
230To destruction’s harvest home:
Men must reap the things they sow,
Force from force must ever flow,
Or worse; but ’tis a bitter woe
That love or reason cannot change
235The despot’s rage, the slave’s revenge.
Padua, thou within whose walls
Those mute guests at festivals,
Son and Mother, Death and Sin,
Played at dice for Ezzelin,
240Till Death cried, ‘I win, I win!’
And Sin cursed to lose the wager,
But Death promised, to assuage her,
That he would petition for
Her to be made Vice-Emperor,
245When the destined years were o’er,
Over all between the Po
And the eastern Alpine snow,
Under the mighty Austrian.
Sin smiled so as Sin only can,
250And since that time, aye, long before,
Both have ruled from shore to shore,
That incestuous pair, who follow
Tyrants as the sun the swallow,
As Repentance follows Crime,
255And as changes follow Time.
In thine halls the lamp of learning,
Padua, now no more is burning;
Like a meteor, whose wild way
Is lost over the grave of day,
260It gleams betrayed and to betray:
Once remotest nations came
To adore that sacred flame,
When it lit not many a hearth
On this cold and gloomy earth:
265Now new fires from antique light
Spring beneath the wide world’s might;
But their spark lies dead in thee,
Trampled out by tyranny.
As the Norway woodman quells,
270In the depth of piny dells,
One light flame among the brakes,
While the boundless forest shakes,
And its mighty trunks are torn
By the fire thus lowly born:
275The spark beneath his feet is dead,
He starts to see the flames it fed
Howling through the darkened sky
With a myriad tongues victoriously,
And sinks down in fear: so thou,
280O tyranny, beholdest now
Light around thee, and thou hearest
The loud flames ascend, and fearest:
Grovel on the earth: aye, hide
In the dust thy purple pride!
285Noon descends around me now:
’Tis the noon of autumn’s glow,
When a soft and purple mist
Like a vaporous amethyst,
Or an air-dissolved star
290Mingling light and fragrance, far
From the curved horizon’s bound
To the point of heaven’s profound,
Fills the overflowing sky;
And the plains that silent lie
295Underneath, the leaves unsodden
Where the infant frost has trodden
With his morning-winged feet,
Whose bright print is gleaming yet;
And the red and golden vines,
300Piercing with their trellised lines
The rough, dark-skirted wilderness;
The dun and bladed grass no less,
Pointing from this hoary tower
In the windless air; the flower
305Glimmering at my feet; the line
Of the olive-sandalled Apennine
In the south dimly islanded;
And the Alps, whose snows are spread
High between the clouds and sun;
310And of living things each one;
And my spirit which so long
Darkened this swift stream of song,
Interpenetrated lie
By the glory of the sky:
315Be it love, light, harmony,
Odour, or the soul of all
Which from heaven like dew doth fall,
Or the mind which feeds this verse
Peopling the lone universe.
320Noon descends, and after noon
Autumn’s evening meets me soon,
Leading the infantine moon,
And that one star, which to her
Almost seems to minister
325Half the crimson light she brings
From the sunset’s radiant springs:
And the soft dreams of the morn
(Which like winged winds had borne
To that silent isle, which lies
330’Mid remembered agonies,
The frail bark of this lone being)
Pass, to other sufferers fleeing,
And its antient pilot, Pain,
Sits beside the helm again.
335Other flowering isles must be
In the sea of life and agony:
Other spirits float and flee
O’er that gulph: even now, perhaps,
On some rock the wild wave wraps,
340With folded wings they waiting sit
For my bark, to pilot it
To some calm and blooming cove,
Where for me, and those I love,
May a windless bower be built,
345Far from passion, pain, and guilt,
In a dell ’mid lawny hills,
Which the wild sea-murmur fills,
And soft sunshine, and the sound
Of old forests echoing round,
350And the light and smell divine
Of all flowers that breathe and shine:
We may live so happy there,
That the spirits of the air,
Envying us, may even entice
355To our healing paradise
The polluting multitude;
But their rage would be subdued
By that clime divine and calm,
And the winds whose wings rain balm
360On the uplifted soul, and leaves
Under which the bright sea heaves;
While each breathless interval
In their whisperings musical
The inspired soul supplies
365With its own deep melodies,
And the love which heals all strife
Circling, like the breath of life,
All things in that sweet abode
With its own mild brotherhood:
370They, not it, would change; and soon
Every sprite beneath the moon
Would repent its envy vain,
And the earth grow young again.
JULIAN AND MADDALO
A CONVERSATION
The meadows with fresh streams, the bees with thyme,
The goats with the green leaves of budding spring,
Are saturated not—nor Love with tears.
Virgil’s Gallus.
Count Maddalo is a Venetian nobleman of ancient family and of great fortune, who, without mixing much in the society of his countrymen, resides chiefly at his magnificent palace in that city. He is a person of the most consummate genius; and capable, if he would direct his energies to such an end, of becoming the redeemer of his degraded country. But it is his weakness to be proud: he derives, from a comparison of his own extraordinary mind with the dwarfish intellects that surround him, an intense apprehension of the nothingness of human life. His passions and his powers are incomparably greater than those of other men; and instead of the latter having been employed in curbing the former, they have mutually lent each other strength. His ambition preys upon itself, for want of objects which it can consider worthy of exertion. I say that Maddalo is proud, because I can find no other word to express the concentred and impatient feelings which consume him; but it is on his own hopes and affections only that he seems to trample, for in social life no human being can be more gentle, patient, and unassuming than Maddalo. He is cheerful, frank, and witty. His more serious conversation is a sort of intoxication; men are held by it as by a spell. He has travelled much; and there is an inexpressible charm in his relation of his adventures in different countries.
Julian is an Englishman of good family, passionately attached to those philosophical notions which assert the power of man over his own mind, and the immense improvements of which, by the extinction of certain moral superstitions, human society may be yet susceptible. Without concealing the evil in the world, he is for ever speculating how good may be made superior. He is a complete infidel, and a scoffer at all things reputed holy; and Maddalo takes a wicked pleasure in drawing out his taunts against religion. What Maddalo thinks on these matters is not exactly known. Julian, in spite of his heterodox opinions, is conjectured by his friends to possess some good qualities. How far this is possible, the pious reader will determine. Julian is rather serious.
Of the Maniac I can give no information. He seems by his own account to have been disappointed in love. He was evidently a very cultivated and amiable person when in his right senses. His story, told at length, might be like many other stories of the same kind: the unconnected exclamations of his agony will perhaps be found a sufficient comment for the text of every heart.
Julian and Maddalo
A Conversation
I rode one evening with Count Maddalo
Upon the bank of land which breaks the flow
Of Adria towards Venice:—a bare Strand
Of hillocks, heaped from ever-shifting sand,
5Matted with thistles and amphibious weeds,
Such as from earth’s embrace the salt ooze breeds
Is this;—an uninhabitable sea-side
Which the lone fisher, when his nets are dried,
Abandons; and no other object breaks
10The waste, but one dwarf tree and some few stakes
Broken and unrepaired, and the tide makes
A narrow space of level sand thereon,
Where ’twas our wont to ride while day went down.
This ride was my delight.—I love all waste
15And solitary places; where we taste
The pleasure of believing what we see
Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be:
And such was this wide ocean, and this shore
More barren than its billows;—and yet more
20Than all, with a remembered friend I love
To ride as then I rode;—for the winds drove
The living spray along the sunny air
Into our faces; the blue heavens were bare,
Stripped to their depths by the awakening North,
25And from the waves, sound like delight broke forth
Harmonizing with solitude, and sent
Into our hearts aërial merriment …
So, as we rode, we talked; and the swift thought,
Winging itself with laughter, lingered not
30But flew from brain to brain,—such glee was ours—
Charged with light memories of remembered hours,
None slow enough for sadness; till we came
Homeward, which always makes the spirit tame.
This day had been cheerful but cold, and now
35The sun was sinking, and the wind also.
Our talk grew somewhat serious, as may be
Talk interrupted with such raillery
As mocks itself, because it cannot scorn
The thoughts it would extinguish:—’twas forlorn
40Yet pleasing, such as once, so poets tell,
The devils held within the dales of Hell
Concerning God, free will and destiny:
Of all that earth has been or yet may be,
All that vain men imagine or believe,
45Or hope can paint or suffering may atchieve,
We descanted, and I (for ever still
Is it not wise to make the best of ill?)
Argued against despondency, but pride
Made my companion take the darker side.
50The sense that he was greater than his kind
Had struck, methinks, his eagle spirit blind
By gazing on its own exceeding light.
—Meanwhile the sun paused ere it should alight,
Over the horizon of the mountains;—Oh
55How beautiful is sunset, when the glow
Of Heaven descends upon a land like thee,
Thou Paradise of exiles, Italy!
Thy mountains, seas and vineyards and the towers
Of cities they encircle!—it was ours
60To stand on thee, beholding it; and then
Just where we had dismounted the Count’s men
Were waiting for us with the gondola.—
As those who pause on some delightful way
Tho’ bent on pleasant pilgrimage, we stood
65Looking upon the evening and the flood
Which lay between the city and the shore
Paved with the image of the sky … the hoar
And aery Alps towards the North appeared
Thro’ mist, an heaven-sustaining bulwark reared
70Between the East and West; and half the sky
Was roofed with clouds of rich emblazonry
Dark purple at the zenith, which still grew
Down the steep West into a wondrous hue
Brighter than burning gold, even to the rent
75Where the swift sun yet paused in his descent
Among the many-folded hills: they were
Those famous Euganean hills, which bear
As seen from Lido thro’ the harbour piles
The likeness of a clump of peaked isles—
80And then—as if the Earth and Sea had been
Dissolved into one lake of fire, were seen
Those mountains towering as from waves of flame
Around the vaporous sun, from which there came
The inmost purple spirit of light, and made
85Their very peaks transparent. ‘Ere it fade,’
Said my Companion, ‘I will shew you soon
A better station’—so, o’er the lagune
We glided, and from that funereal bark
I leaned, and saw the city, and could mark
90How from their many isles in evening’s gleam
Its temples and its palaces did seem
Like fabrics of enchantment piled to Heaven.
I was about to speak, when—‘We are even
Now at the point I meant,’ said Maddalo,
95And bade the gondolieri cease to row.
‘Look, Julian, on the West, and listen well
If you hear not a deep and heavy bell.’
I looked, and saw between us and the sun
A building on an island; such a one
100As age to age might add, for uses vile;
A windowless, deformed and dreary pile
And on the top an open tower, where hung
A bell, which in the radiance swayed and swung.
We could just hear its hoarse and iron tongue.
105The broad sun sunk behind it, and it tolled
In strong and black relief.—‘What we behold
Shall be the madhouse and its belfry tower,’
Said Maddalo, ‘and ever at this hour
Those who may cross the water hear that bell
110Which calls the maniacs each one from his cell
To vespers.’—‘As much skill as need to pray
In thanks or hope for their dark lot have they
To their stern maker,’ I replied. ‘O ho!
You talk as in years past,’ said Maddalo.
115‘’Tis strange men change not. You were ever still
Among Christ’s flock a perilous infidel,
A wolf for the meek lambs—if you can’t swim
Beware of Providence.’ I looked on him,
But the gay smile had faded in his eye.
120‘And such,’—he cried, ‘is our mortality
And this must be the emblem and the sign
Of what should be eternal and divine!—
And like that black and dreary bell, the soul
Hung in a heaven-illumined tower, must toll
125Our thoughts and our desires to meet below
Round the rent heart and pray—as madmen do,
For what? they know not, till the night of death,
As sunset that strange vision, severeth
Our memory from itself, and us from all
130We sought and yet were baffled!’ I recall
The sense of what he said, altho’ I mar
The force of his expressions. The broad star
Of day meanwhile had sunk behind the hill
And the black bell became invisible,
135And the red tower looked grey, and all between
The churches, ships and palaces were seen
Huddled in gloom;—into the purple sea
The orange hues of heaven sunk silently.
We hardly spoke, and soon the gondola
140Conveyed me to my lodgings by the way.
The following morn was rainy, cold and dim;
Ere Maddalo arose, I called on him,
And whilst I waited, with his child I played.
A lovelier toy sweet Nature never made,
145A serious, subtle, wild, yet gentle being,
Graceful without design and unforeseeing,
With eyes—oh speak not of her eyes!—which seem
Twin mirrors of Italian Heaven, yet gleam
With such deep meaning, as we never see
150But in the human countenance: with me
She was a special favourite: I had nursed
Her fine and feeble limbs when she came first
To this bleak world; and she yet seemed to know
On second sight her antient playfellow,
155Less changed than she was by six months or so;
For after her first shyness was worn out
We sate there, rolling billiard balls about,
When the Count entered—salutations past—
‘The words you spoke last night might well have cast
160A darkness on my spirit—if man be
The passive thing you say, I should not see
Much harm in the religions and old saws
(Tho’ I may never own such leaden laws)
Which break a teachless nature to the yoke:
165Mine is another faith’—thus much I spoke
And noting he replied not, added: ‘See
This lovely child, blithe, innocent and free;
She spends a happy time with little care
While we to such sick thoughts subjected are
170As came on you last night—it is our will
That thus enchains us to permitted ill—
We might be otherwise—we might be all
We dream of happy, high, majestical.
Where is the love, beauty and truth we seek
175But in our mind? and if we were not weak
Should we be less in deed than in desire?’
‘Aye, if we were not weak—and we aspire
How vainly to be strong!’ said Maddalo;
‘You talk Utopia.’ ‘It remains to know,’
180I then rejoined, ‘and those who try may find
How strong the chains are which our spirits bind,
Brittle perchance as straw … We are assured
Much may be conquered, much may be endured
Of what degrades and crushes us. We know
185That we have power over ourselves to do
And suffer—what, we know not till we try;
But something nobler than to live and die—
So taught those kings of old philosophy
Who reigned, before Religion made men blind;
190And those who suffer with their suffering kind
Yet feel their faith, religion.’ ‘My dear friend,’
Said Maddalo, ‘my judgement will not bend
To your opinion, tho’ I think you might
Make such a system refutation-tight
195As far as words go. I knew one like you
Who to this city came some months ago
With whom I argued in this sort, and he
Is now gone mad,—and so he answered me,—
Poor fellow! but if you would like to go
200We’ll visit him, and his wild talk will shew
How vain are such aspiring theories.’
‘I hope to prove the induction otherwise,
And that a want of that true theory, still
Which seeks a “soul of goodness” in things ill,
205Or in himself or others has thus bowed
His being—there are some by nature proud,
Who patient in all else demand but this:
To love and be beloved with gentleness;
And being scorned, what wonder if they die
210Some living death? This is not destiny
But man’s own wilful ill.’ As thus I spoke
Servants announced the gondola, and we
Through the fast-falling rain and high-wrought sea
Sailed to the island where the madhouse stands.
215We disembarked. The clap of tortured hands,
Fierce yells and howlings and lamentings keen,
And laughter where complaint had merrier been,
Moans, shrieks and curses and blaspheming prayers
Accosted us. We climbed the oozy stairs
220Into an old court-yard. I heard on high
Then, fragments of most touching melody,
But looking up saw not the singer there—
Through the black bars in the tempestuous air
I saw, like weeds on a wrecked palace growing,
225Long tangled locks flung wildly forth, and flowing,
Of those who on a sudden were beguiled
Into strange silence, and looked forth and smiled
Hearing sweet sounds.—Then I: ‘Methinks there were
A cure of these with patience and kind care
230If music can thus move … but what is he
Whom we seek here?’ ‘Of his sad history
I know but this,’ said Maddalo, ‘he came
To Venice a dejected man, and fame
Said he was wealthy, or he had been so;
235Some thought the loss of fortune wrought him woe;
But he was ever talking in such sort
As you do—far more sadly—he seemed hurt,
Even as a man with his peculiar wrong,
To hear but of the oppression of the strong,
240Or those absurd deceits (I think with you
In some respects, you know) which carry through
The excellent impostors of this Earth
When they outface detection—he had worth,
Poor fellow! but a humourist in his way.’—
245‘Alas, what drove him mad?’ ‘I cannot say;
A Lady came with him from France, and when
She left him and returned, he wandered then
About yon lonely isles of desart sand
Till he grew wild—he had no cash or land
250Remaining,—the police had brought him here—
Some fancy took him and he would not bear
Removal; so I fitted up for him
Those rooms beside the sea, to please his whim,
And sent him busts and books and urns for flowers
255Which had adorned his life in happier hours,
And instruments of music—you may guess
A stranger could do little more or less
For one so gentle and unfortunate,
And those are his sweet strains which charm the weight
260From madmen’s chains, and make this Hell appear
A heaven of sacred silence, hushed to hear.’—
‘Nay, this was kind of you—he had no claim,
As the world says.’—‘None—but the very same
Which I on all mankind were I as he
265Fallen to such deep reverse;—his melody
Is interrupted now—we hear the din
Of madmen, shriek on shriek again begin;
Let us now visit him; after this strain
He ever communes with himself again,
270And sees nor hears not any.’ Having said
These words we called the keeper, and he led
To an apartment opening on the sea.—
There the poor wretch was sitting mournfully
Near a piano, his pale fingers twined
275One with the other, and the ooze and wind
Rushed thro’ an open casement, and did sway
His hair, and starred it with the brackish spray;
His head was leaning on a music book,
And he was muttering, and his lean limbs shook;
280His lips were pressed against a folded leaf
In hue too beautiful for health, and grief
Smiled in their motions as they lay apart—
As one who wrought from his own fervid heart
The eloquence of passion, soon he raised
285His sad meek face and eyes lustrous and glazed
And spoke—sometimes as one who wrote and thought
His words might move some heart that heeded not
If sent to distant lands; and then as one
Reproaching deeds never to be undone
290With wondering self-compassion; then his speech
Was lost in grief, and then his words came each
Unmodulated, cold, expressionless;
But that from one jarred accent you might guess
It was despair made them so uniform:
295And all the while the loud and gusty storm
Hissed thro’ the window, and we stood behind
Stealing his accents from the envious wind
Unseen. I yet remember what he said
Distinctly: such impression his words made.
300 ‘Month after month,’ he cried, ‘to bear this load
And as a jade urged by the whip and goad
To drag life on, which like a heavy chain
Lengthens behind with many a link of pain!—
And not to speak my grief—O not to dare
305To give a human voice to my despair,
But live and move, and wretched thing! smile on
As if I never went aside to groan
And wear this mask of falshood even to those
Who are most dear—not for my own repose—
310Alas, no scorn or pain or hate could be
So heavy as that falshood is to me—
But that I cannot bear more altered faces
Than needs must be, more changed and cold embraces,
More misery, disappointment and mistrust
315To own me for their father … Would the dust
Were covered in upon my body now!
That the life ceased to toil within my brow!
And then these thoughts would at the least be fled;
Let us not fear such pain can vex the dead.
320 ‘What Power delights to torture us? I know
That to myself I do not wholly owe
What now I suffer, tho’ in part I may.
Alas, none strewed sweet flowers upon the way
Where wandering heedlessly, I met pale Pain
325My shadow, which will leave me not again—
If I have erred, there was no joy in error,
But pain and insult and unrest and terror;
I have not as some do, bought penitence
With pleasure, and a dark yet sweet offence,
330For then,—if love and tenderness and truth
Had overlived hope’s momentary youth,
My creed should have redeemed me from repenting,
But loathed scorn and outrage unrelenting
Met love excited by far other seeming
335Until the end was gained … as one from dreaming
Of sweetest peace, I woke, and found my state
Such as it is.—
‘O Thou, my spirit’s mate
Who, for thou art compassionate and wise,
Wouldst pity me from thy most gentle eyes
340If this sad writing thou shouldst ever see—
My secret groans must be unheard by thee,
Thou wouldst weep tears bitter as blood to know
Thy lost friend’s incommunicable woe.
‘Ye few by whom my nature has been weighed
345In friendship, let me not that name degrade
By placing on your hearts the secret load
Which crushes mine to dust.
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