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.
