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 the
reon,
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
Selected Poems and Prose Page 21
