Selected Poems and Prose

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