Julian and Maddalo A Conversation

I rode one evening with Count

Upon the bank of land which breaks the

Of Adria towards Venice: a bare

Of hillocks, heaped from ever-shifting sand,

Matted with thistles and amphibious weeds,

Such as from earth's embrace the salt ooze breeds,

Is this; an uninhabited sea-side,

Which the lone fisher, when his nets are dried,

Abandons; and no other object

The waste, but one dwarf tree and some few

Broken and unrepaired, and the tide makesA narrow space of level sand thereon,

Where 'twas our wont to ride while day went down.

This ride was my delight.

I love all

And solitary places; where we

The pleasure of believing what we

Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be:

And such was this wide ocean, and this

More barren than its billows; and yet

Than all, with a remembered friend I

To ride as then I rode;—for the winds

The living spray along the sunny

Into our faces; the blue heavens were bare,

Stripped to their depths by the awakening north;

And, from the waves, sound like delight broke

Harmonising with solitude, and

Into our hearts aëreal merriment.

So, as we rode, we talked; and the swift thought.

Winging itself with laughter, lingered not,

But flew from brain to brain,—such glee was ours.

Charged with light memories of remembered hours.

None slow enough for sadness: till we

Homeward, which always makes the spirit tame.

This day had been cheerful but cold, and

The sun was sinking, and the wind also.

Our talk grew somewhat serious, as may

Talk interrupted with such

As mocks itself, because it cannot

The thoughts it would extinguish:—'twas forlorn,

Yet pleasing, such as once, so poets tell,

The devils held within the dales of

Concerning God, freewill and destiny:

Of all that earth has been or yet may be,

All that vain men imagine or believe,

Or hope can paint or suffering may achieve,

We descanted, and I (for ever

Is it not wise to make the best of ill?)Argued against despondency, but

Made my companion take the darker side.

The sense that he was greater than his

Had struck, methinks, his eagle spirit

By gazing on its own exceeding light.

Meanwhile the sun paused ere it should alight,

Over the horizon of the mountains;—Oh,

How beautiful is sunset, when the

Of Heaven descends upon a land like thee,

Thou Paradise of exiles,

Italy!

Thy mountains, seas, and vineyards, and the

Of cities they encircle!—it was

To stand on thee, beholding it: and then,

Just where we had dismounted, the Count's

Were waiting for us with the gondola.—As those who pause on some delightful

Though bent on pleasant pilgrimage, we

Looking upon the evening, and the

Which lay between the city and the shore.

Paved with the image of the sky . . . the

And aëry Alps towards the North

Through mist, an heaven-sustaining bulwark

Between the East and West; and half the

Was roofed with clouds of rich

Dark purple at the zenith, which still

Down the steep West into a wondrous

Brighter than burning gold, even to the

Where the swift sun yet paused in his

Among the many-folded hills: they

These famous Euganean hills, which bear,

As seen from Lido thro' the harbour piles,

The likeness of a clump of peakèd isles—And then—as if the Earth and Sea had

Dissolved into one lake of fire, were

Those mountains towering as from waves of

Around the vaporous sun, from which there

The inmost purple spirit of light, and

Their very peaks transparent. 'Ere it fade,'Said my companion, 'I will show you soonA better station'—so, o'er the

We glided; and from that funereal barkI leaned, and saw the city, and could

How from their many isles, in evening's gleam,

Its temples and its palaces did

Like fabrics of enchantment piled to Heaven.

I was about to speak, when—'We are

Now at the point I meant,' said Maddalo,

And bade the gondolieri cease to row.'Look,

Julian, on the west, and listen

If you hear not a deep and heavy bell.'I looked, and saw between us and the sunA building on an island; such a

As age to age might add, for uses vile,

A windowless, deformed and dreary pile;

And on the top an open tower, where hungA bell, which in the radiance swayed and swung;

We could just hear its hoarse and iron tongue:

The broad sun sunk behind it, and it

In strong and black relief.—'What we

Shall be the madhouse and its belfry tower,'Said Maddalo, 'and ever at this

Those who may cross the water, hear that

Which calls the maniacs, each one from his cell,

To vespers.'—'As much skill as need to

In thanks or hope for their dark lot have

To their stern maker,' I replied. 'O ho!

You talk as in years past,' said Maddalo.''Tis strange men change not.

You were ever

Among Christ's flock a perilous infidel,

A wolf for the meek lambs—if you can't

Beware of Providence.' I looked on him,

But the gay smile had faded in his eye.'And such,'—he cried, 'is our mortality.

And this must be the emblem and the

Of what should be eternal and divine!—And like that black and dreary bell, the soul,

Hung in a heaven-illumined tower, must

Our thoughts and our desires to meet

Round the rent heart and pray—as madmen

For what? they know not,—till the night of

As sunset that strange vision,

Our memory from itself, and us from

We sought and yet were baffled.' I

The sense of what he said, although I

The force of his expressions.

The broad

Of day meanwhile had sunk behind the hill,

And the black bell became invisible,

And the red tower looked gray, and all

The churches, ships and palaces were

Huddled in gloom;—into the purple

The orange hues of heaven sunk silently.

We hardly spoke, and soon the

Conveyed me to my lodging 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,

A serious, subtle, wild, yet gentle being,

Graceful without design and unforeseeing,

With eyes—Oh speak not of her eyes!—which

Twin mirrors of Italian Heaven, yet

With such deep meaning, as we never

But in the human countenance: with

She was a special favourite:

I had

Her fine and feeble limbs when she came

To this bleak world; and she yet seemed to

On second sight her ancient playfellow,

Less changed than she was by six months or so;

For after her first shyness was worn

We sate there, rolling billiard balls about,

When the Count entered.

Salutations past—'The word you spoke last night might well have castA darkness on my spirit—if man

The passive thing you say,

I should not

Much harm in the religions and old saws(Tho' I may never own such leaden laws)Which break a teachless nature to the yoke:

Mine is another faith'—thus much I

And noting he replied not, added:

This lovely child, blithe, innocent and free;

She spends a happy time with little care,

While we to such sick thoughts subjected

As came on you last night—it is our

That thus enchains us to permitted ill—We might be otherwise—we might be

We dream of happy, high, majestical.

Where is the love, beauty, and truth we

But in our mind? and if we were not

Should we be less in deed than in desire?''Ay, if we were not weak—and we

How vainly to be strong!' said Maddalo:'You talk Utopia.' 'It remains to know,'I then rejoined, 'and those who try may

How strong the chains are which our spirit bind;

Brittle perchance as straw . . .

We are

Much may be conquered, much may be endured,

Of what degrades and crushes us.

We

That we have power over ourselves to

And suffer—what, we know not till we try;

But something nobler than to live and die—So taught those kings of old

Who reigned, before Religion made men blind;

And those who suffer with their suffering

Yet feel their faith, religion.' 'My dear friend,'Said Maddalo, 'my judgement will not

To your opinion, though I think you

Make such a system

As far as words go.

I knew one like

Who to this city came some months ago,

With whom I argued in this sort, and

Is now gone mad,—and so he answered me,—Poor fellow! but if you would like to

We'll visit him, and his wild talk will

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

Or in himself or others, has thus

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

Some living death? this is not

But man's own wilful ill.'                            As thus I

Servants announced the gondola, and

Through the fast-falling rain and high-wrought

Sailed to the island where the madhouse stands.

We 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

Accosted us.

We climbed the oozy

Into an old courtyard.

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 airI saw, like weeds on a wrecked palace growing,

Long tangled locks flung wildly forth, and flowing,

Of those who on a sudden were

Into strange silence, and looked forth and

Hearing sweet sounds.—Then I: 'Methinks there wereA cure of these with patience and kind care,

If music can thus move . . . but what is

Whom we seek here?' 'Of his sad historyI know but this,' said Maddalo: 'he

To Venice a dejected man, and

Said he was wealthy, or he had been so;

Some thought the loss of fortune wrought him woe;

But he was ever talking in such

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,

Or those absurd deceits (I think with

In some respects, you know) which carry

The excellent impostors of this

When they outface detection—he had worth,

Poor fellow! but a humourist in his way'—'Alas, what drove him mad?' 'I cannot say:

A lady came with him from France, and

She left him and returned, he wandered

About yon lonely isles of desert

Till he grew wild—he had no cash or

Remaining,—the police had brought him here—Some fancy took him and he would not

Removal; so I fitted up for

Those rooms beside the sea, to please his whim,

And sent him busts and books and urns for flowers,

Which had adorned his life in happier hours,

And instruments of music—you may guessA stranger could do little more or

For one so gentle and unfortunate:

And those are his sweet strains which charm the

From madmen's chains, and make this Hell appearA 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

Which I on all mankind were I as

Fallen to such deep reverse;—his

Is interrupted—now we hear the

Of madmen, shriek on shriek, again begin;

Let us now visit him; after this

He ever communes with himself again,

And sees nor hears not any.' Having

These words we called the keeper, and he

To an apartment opening on the sea—There the poor wretch was sitting

Near a piano, his pale fingers

One with the other, and the ooze and

Rushed through an open casement, and did

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;

His lips were pressed against a folded

In hue too beautiful for health, and

Smiled in their motions as they lay apart—As one who wrought from his own fervid

The eloquence of passion, soon he

His sad meek face and eyes lustrous and

And spoke—sometimes as one who wrote, and

His words might move some heart that heeded not,

If sent to distant lands: and then as

Reproaching deeds never to be

With wondering self-compassion; then his

Was lost in grief, and then his words came

Unmodulated, cold, expressionless,—But that from one jarred accent you might

It was despair made them so uniform:

And all the while the loud and gusty

Hissed through the window, and we stood

Stealing his accents from the envious

Unseen.

I yet remember what he

Distinctly: such impression his words made.'Month after month,' he cried, 'to bear this

And as a jade urged by the whip and

To drag life on, which like a heavy

Lengthens behind with many a link of pain!—And not to speak my grief—O, not to

To give a human voice to my despair,

But live and move, and, wretched thing! smile

As if I never went aside to groan,

And wear this mask of falsehood even to

Who are most dear—not for my own repose—Alas! no scorn or pain or hate could

So heavy as that falsehood is to me—But that I cannot bear more altered

Than needs must be, more changed and cold embraces,

More misery, disappointment, and

To own me for their father . . .

Would the

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.'What Power delights to torture us?

I

That to myself I do not wholly

What now I suffer, though in part I may.

Alas! none strewed sweet flowers upon the

Where wandering heedlessly,

I met pale

My 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

With pleasure, and a dark yet sweet offence,

For then,—if love and tenderness and

Had overlived hope's momentary youth,

My creed should have redeemed me from repenting;

But loathèd scorn and outrage

Met love excited by far other

Until the end was gained . . . as one from

Of sweetest peace,

I woke, and found my

Such as it is.—                  'O Thou, my spirit's

Who, for thou art compassionate and wise,

Wouldst pity me from thy most gentle

If this sad writing thou shouldst ever see—My secret groans must be unheard by thee,

Thou wouldst weep tears bitter as blood to

Thy lost friend's incommunicable woe.'Ye few by whom my nature has been

In friendship, let me not that name

By placing on your hearts the secret

Which crushes mine to dust.

There is one

To peace and that is truth, which follow ye!

Love sometimes leads astray to misery.

Yet think not though subdued—and I may

Say that I am subdued—that the full

Within me would infect the untainted

Of sacred nature with its own unrest;

As some perverted beings think to

In scorn or hate a medicine for the

Which scorn or hate have wounded—O how vain!

The dagger heals not but may rend again . . .

Believe that I am ever still the

In creed as in resolve, and what may

My heart, must leave the understanding free,

Or all would sink in this keen agony—Nor dream that I will join the vulgar cry;

Or with my silence sanction tyranny;

Or seek a moment's shelter from my

In any madness which the world calls gain,

Ambition or revenge or thoughts as

As those which make me what I am; or

To avarice or misanthropy or lust . . .

Heap on me soon,

O grave, thy welcome dust!

Till then the dungeon may demand its prey,

And Poverty and Shame may meet and say—Halting beside me on the public way—"That love-devoted youth is ours—let's

Beside him—he may live some six months yet."Or the red scaffold, as our country bends,

May ask some willing victim, or ye

May fall under some sorrow which this

Or hand may share or vanquish or avert;

I am prepared—in truth with no proud joy—To do or suffer aught, as when a boyI did devote to justice and to

My nature, worthless now! . . .                                  'I must removeA veil from my pent mind. 'Tis torn aside!

O, pallid as Death's dedicated bride,

Thou mockery which art sitting by my side,

Am I not wan like thee? at the grave's callI haste, invited to thy

To greet the ghastly paramour, for

Thou hast deserted me . . . and made the

Thy bridal bed . . .

But I beside your

Will lie and watch ye from my winding sheet—Thus . . . wide awake tho' dead . . . yet stay,

O stay!

Go not so soon—I know not what I say—Hear but my reasons . .

I am mad,

I fear,

My fancy is o'erwrought . . thou art not here. . .

Pale art thou, 'tis most true . . but thou art gone,

Thy work is finished . . .

I am left alone!—'Nay, was it I who wooed thee to this

Which, like a serpent, thou

As in repayment of the warmth it lent?

Didst thou not seek me for thine own content?

Did not thy love awaken mine?

I

That thou wert she who said, "You kiss me

Ever,

I fear you do not love me now"—In truth I loved even to my

Her, who would fain forget these words: but

Cling to her mind, and cannot pass away.'You say that I am proud—that when I

My lip is tortured with the wrongs which

The spirit it expresses . . .

Never

Humbled himself before, as I have done!

Even the instinctive worm on which we

Turns, though it wound not—then with prostrate

Sinks in the dusk and writhes like me—and dies?

No: wears a living death of agonies!

As the slow shadows of the pointed

Mark the eternal periods, his pangs

Slow, ever-moving,—making moments

As mine seem—each an immortality!'That you had never seen me—never

My voice, and more than all had ne'er

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

The nerves of manhood by their bleeding

With mine own quivering fingers, so that

Our hearts had for a moment mingled

To disunite in horror—these were

With thee, like some suppressed and hideous

Which flits athwart our musings, but can

No rest within a pure and gentle mind . . .

Thou sealedst them with many a bare broad word,

And searedst my memory o'er them,—for I

And can forget not . . . they were

One after one, those curses.

Mix them

Like self-destroying poisons in one cup,

And they will make one blessing which thou

Didst imprecate for, on me,—death.                                      'It wereA cruel punishment for one most cruel,

If such can love, to make that love the

Of the mind's hell; hate, scorn, remorse, despair:

But me—whose heart a stranger's tear might

As water-drops the sandy fountain-stone,

Who loved and pitied all things, and could

For woes which others hear not, and could

The absent with the glance of phantasy,

And with the poor and trampled sit and weep,

Following the captive to his dungeon deep;

Me—who am as a nerve o'er which do

The else unfelt oppressions of this earth,

And was to thee the flame upon thy hearth,

When all beside was cold—that thou on

Shouldst rain these plagues of blistering agony—Such curses are from lips once

With love's too partial praise—let none

Who intend deeds too dreadful for a

Henceforth, if an example for the

They seek . . . for thou on me lookedst so, and so—And didst speak thus . . and thus . . .

I live to

How much men bear and die not!                                'Thou wilt tell,

With the grimace of hate, how

It was to meet my love when thine grew less;

Thou wilt admire how I could e'er

Such features to love's work . . . this taunt, though true,(For indeed Nature nor in form nor

Bestowed on me her choicest workmanship)Shall not be thy defence . . . for since thy

Met mine first, years long past, since thine eye

With soft fire under mine,

I have not

Nor changed in mind or body, or in

But as love changes what it loveth

After long years and many trials.                                    'How

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

Is dim to see that charactered in

On this unfeeling leaf which burns the

And eats into it . . . blotting all things

And wise and good which time had written there.'Those who inflict must suffer, for they

The work of their own hearts, and this must

Our chastisement or recompense—O child!

I would that thine were like to be more

For both our wretched sakes . . . for thine the

Who feelest already all that thou hast

Without the power to wish it thine again;

And as slow years pass, a funereal

Each with the ghost of some lost hope or

Following it like its shadow, wilt thou

No thought on my dead memory?                                'Alas, love!

Fear me not . . . against thee I would not moveA finger in despite.

Do I not

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

Than his on whom thou tramplest,

I

From that sweet sleep which medicines all pain.

Then, when thou speakest of me, never say"He could forgive not." Here I cast

All human passions, all revenge, all pride;

I think, speak, act no ill;

I do but

Under these words, like embers, every

Of that which has consumed me—quick and

The grave is yawning . . . as its roof shall

My limbs with dust and worms under and

So let Oblivion hide this grief . . . the

Closes upon my accents, as

Upon my heart—let death upon despair!'He ceased, and overcome leant back awhile,

Then rising, with a melancholy

Went to a sofa, and lay down, and sleptA heavy sleep, and in his dreams he

And muttered some familiar name, and

Wept without shame in his society.

I think I never was impressed so much;

The man who were not, must have lacked a

Of human nature . . . then we lingered not,

Although our argument was quite forgot,

But calling the attendants, went to

At Maddalo's; yet neither cheer nor

Could give us spirits, for we talked of

And nothing else, till daylight made stars dim;

And we agreed his was some dreadful

Wrought on him boldly, yet unspeakable,

By a dear friend; some deadly change in

Of one vowed deeply which he dreamed not of;

For whose sake he, it seemed, had fixed a

Of falsehood on his mind which flourished

But in the light of all-beholding truth;

And having stamped this canker on his

She had abandoned him—and how much

Might be his woe, we guessed not—he had

Of friends and fortune once, as we could

From his nice habits and his gentleness;

These were now lost . . . it were a grief

If he had changed one unsustaining

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

Maddalo made.

He said: 'Most wretched

Are cradled into poetry by wrong,

They learn in suffering what they teach in song.'If I had been an unconnected manI, from this moment, should have formed some

Never to leave sweet Venice,—for to

It was delight to ride by the lone sea;

And then, the town is silent—one may

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

Which were twin-born with poetry, and

We seek in towns, with little to

Regrets for the green country.

I might

In Maddalo's great palace, and his

And subtle talk would cheer the winter

And make me know myself, and the

Would flash upon our faces, till the

Might dawn and make me wonder at my stay:

But I had friends in London too: the

Attraction here, was that I sought

From the deep tenderness that maniac

Within me—'twas perhaps an idle thought—But I imagined that if day by dayI watched him, and but seldom went away,

And studied all the beatings of his

With zeal, as men study some stubborn

For their own good, and could by patience

An entrance to the caverns of his mind,

I might reclaim him from his dark estate:

In friendships I had been most fortunate—Yet never saw I one whom I would

More willingly my friend; and this was

Accomplished not; such dreams of baseless

Oft come and go in crowds or

And leave no trace—but what I now

Made for long years impression on my mind.

The following morning, urged by my affairs,

I left bright Venice.                      After many

And many changes I returned; the

Of Venice, and its aspect, was the same;

But Maddalo was travelling far

Among the mountains of Armenia.

His dog was dead.

His child had now becomeA woman; such as it has been my

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

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

Two years from my departure, but that

The lady who had left him, came again.

Her mien had been imperious, but she

Looked meek—perhaps remorse had brought her low.

Her coming made him better, and they

Together at my father's—for I played,

As I remember, with the lady's shawl—I might be six years old—but after

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

The stamp of why they parted, how they met:

Yet if thine agèd eyes disdain to

Those wrinkled cheeks with youth's remembered tears,

Ask me no more, but let the silent

Be closed and cered over their

As yon mute marble where their corpses lie.'I urged and questioned still, she told me

All happened—but the cold world shall not know.

Composed at Este after Shelley's first visit to Venice, 1818 (Autumn); first published in the Posthumous Poems,

London, 1824 (ed.

Mrs.

Shelley).

Shelley's original intention had been to print the poem in Leigh Hunt's Examiner; but he changed his mind and, on August 15, 1819, sent the MS. to Hunt to be published anonymously by Ollier.

This MS., found by Mr.

Townshend Mayer, and by him placed in the hands of Mr.

H.

Buxton Forman,

C.

B., is described by him at length in Mr.

Forman's Library Edition of the poems (vol. iii., p. 107).

The date, 'May, 1819,' affixed to Julian and Maddalo in the P.

P., 1824, indicates the time when the text was finally revised by Shelley.

Note by Mrs.

Shelley: '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 chestnutwood, at the Baths of Lucca, there was something infinitely gratifying to the eye in the wide range of prospect commanded by our new abode.