Percy Bysshe Shelley - Delphi Poets Series

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

  And, from the twinkling wires among,

  My languid fingers drew and flung

  Circles of life-dissolving sound,

  Yet faint; in aëry rings they bound

  My Lionel, who, as every strain

  Grew fainter but more sweet, his mien

  Sunk with the sound relaxedly; 1170

  And slowly now he turned to me,

  As slowly faded from his face

  That awful joy; with look serene

  He was soon drawn to my embrace,

  And my wild song then died away

  In murmurs; words I dare not say

  We mixed, and on his lips mine fed

  Till they methought felt still and cold.

  ‘What is it with thee, love?’ I said;

  No word, no look, no motion! yes, 1180

  There was a change, but spare to guess,

  Nor let that moment’s hope be told.

  I looked, — and knew that he was dead;

  And fell, as the eagle on the plain

  Falls when life deserts her brain,

  And the mortal lightning is veiled again.

  Oh, that I were now dead! but such —

  Did they not, love, demand too much,

  Those dying murmurs? — he forbade.

  Oh, that I once again were mad! 1190

  And yet, dear Rosalind, not so,

  For I would live to share thy woe.

  Sweet boy! did I forget thee too?

  Alas, we know not what we do

  When we speak words.

  No memory more

  Is in my mind of that sea-shore.

  Madness came on me, and a troop

  Of misty shapes did seem to sit

  Beside me, on a vessel’s poop,

  And the clear north wind was driving it. 1200

  Then I heard strange tongues, and saw strange flowers,

  And the stars methought grew unlike ours,

  And the azure sky and the stormless sea

  Made me believe that I had died

  And waked in a world which was to me

  Drear hell, though heaven to all beside.

  Then a dead sleep fell on my mind,

  Whilst animal life many long years

  Had rescued from a chasm of tears;

  And, when I woke, I wept to find 1210

  That the same lady, bright and wise,

  With silver locks and quick brown eyes,

  The mother of my Lionel,

  Had tended me in my distress,

  And died some months before. Nor less

  Wonder, but far more peace and joy,

  Brought in that hour my lovely boy.

  For through that trance my soul had well

  The impress of thy being kept;

  And if I waked or if I slept, 1220

  No doubt, though memory faithless be,

  Thy image ever dwelt on me;

  And thus, O Lionel, like thee

  Is our sweet child. ‘T is sure most strange

  I knew not of so great a change

  As that which gave him birth, who now

  Is all the solace of my woe.

  That Lionel great wealth had left

  By will to me, and that of all

  The ready lies of law bereft 1230

  My child and me, — might well befall.

  But let me think not of the scorn

  Which from the meanest I have borne,

  When, for my child’s belovèd sake,

  I mixed with slaves, to vindicate

  The very laws themselves do make;

  Let me not say scorn is my fate,

  Lest I be proud, suffering the same

  With those who live in deathless fame.

  She ceased.—’Lo, where red morning through the woods 1240

  Is burning o’er the dew!’ said Rosalind.

  And with these words they rose, and towards the flood

  Of the blue lake, beneath the leaves, now wind

  With equal steps and fingers intertwined.

  Thence to a lonely dwelling, where the shore

  Is shadowed with steep rocks, and cypresses

  Cleave with their dark green cones the silent skies

  And with their shadows the clear depths below,

  And where a little terrace from its bowers

  Of blooming myrtle and faint lemon flowers 1250

  Scatters its sense-dissolving fragrance o’er

  The liquid marble of the windless lake;

  And where the aged forest’s limbs look hoar

  Under the leaves which their green garments make,

  They come. ‘T is Helen’s home, and clean and white,

  Like one which tyrants spare on our own land

  In some such solitude; its casements bright

  Shone through their vine-leaves in the morning sun,

  And even within ‘t was scarce like Italy.

  And when she saw how all things there were planned 1260

  As in an English home, dim memory

  Disturbed poor Rosalind; she stood as one

  Whose mind is where his body cannot be,

  Till Helen led her where her child yet slept,

  And said, ‘Observe, that brow was Lionel’s,

  Those lips were his, and so he ever kept

  One arm in sleep, pillowing his head with it.

  You cannot see his eyes — they are two wells

  Of liquid love. Let us not wake him yet.’

  But Rosalind could bear no more, and wept 1270

  A shower of burning tears which fell upon

  His face, and so his opening lashes shone

  With tears unlike his own, as he did leap

  In sudden wonder from his innocent sleep.

  So Rosalind and Helen lived together

  Thenceforth — changed in all else, yet friends again,

  Such as they were, when o’er the mountain heather

  They wandered in their youth through sun and rain.

  And after many years, for human things

  Change even like the ocean and the wind, 1280

  Her daughter was restored to Rosalind,

  And in their circle thence some visitings

  Of joy ‘mid their new calm would intervene.

  A lovely child she was, of looks serene,

  And motions which o’er things indifferent shed

  The grace and gentleness from whence they came.

  And Helen’s boy grew with her, and they fed

  From the same flowers of thought, until each mind

  Like springs which mingle in one flood became;

  And in their union soon their parents saw 1290

  The shadow of the peace denied to them.

  And Rosalind — for when the living stem

  Is cankered in its heart, the tree must fall —

  Died ere her time; and with deep grief and awe

  The pale survivors followed her remains

  Beyond the region of dissolving rains,

  Up the cold mountain she was wont to call

  Her tomb; and on Chiavenna’s precipice

  They raised a pyramid of lasting ice,

  Whose polished sides, ere day had yet begun, 1300

  Caught the first glow of the unrisen sun,

  The last, when it had sunk; and through the night

  The charioteers of Arctos wheelèd round

  Its glittering point, as seen from Helen’s home,

  Whose sad inhabitants each year would come,

  With willing steps climbing that rugged height,

  And hang long locks of hair, and garlands bound

  With amaranth flowers, which, in the clime’s despite,

  Filled the frore air with unaccustomed light;

  Such flowers as in the wintry memory bloom 1310

  Of one friend left adorned that frozen tomb.

  Helen, whose spirit was of softer mould,

  Whose sufferings too were less, death slowlier led

 
; Into the peace of his dominion cold.

  She died among her kindred, being old.

  And know, that if love die not in the dead

  As in the living, none of mortal kind

  Are blessed as now Helen and Rosalind.

  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.

  Julian and Maddalo is the fruit of Shelley’s first visit to Venice in 1818, where he found Byron, and the poem is a reflection of their companionship, Julian standing for Shelley, Maddalo for Byron, and the child being Byron’s daughter, Allegra. It was written in the fall, at Este, and received its last revision in May, 1819, but was not published, notwithstanding some efforts of Shelley to bring it out, until after his death, when it was included in the Posthumous Poems, 1824. Shelley had it in mind to write three other similar poems, laying the scenes at Rome, Florence and Naples, but he did not carry out the plan. He once refers to the tale, or ‘conversation’ as among ‘his saddest verses;’ but his important comment on it is contained in a letter to Hunt, August 15, 1819:

  ‘I send you a little poem to give to Ollier for publication, but without my name. Peacock will correct the proofs. I wrote it with the idea of offering it to the Examiner, but I find it is too long. It was composed last year at Este; two of the characters you will recognize; and the third is also in some degree a painting from nature, but, with respect to time and place, ideal. You will find the little piece, I think, in some degree consistent with your own ideas of the manner in which poetry ought to be written. I have employed a certain familiar style of language to express the actual way in which people talk with each other, whom education and a certain refinement of sentiment have placed above the use of vulgar idioms. I use the word vulgar in its most extensive sense. The vulgarity of rank and fashion is as gross in its way as that of poverty, and its cant terms equally expressive of base conceptions, and, therefore, equally unfit for poetry. Not that the familiar style is to be admitted in the treatment of a subject wholly ideal, or in that part of any subject which relates to common life, where the passion, exceeding a certain limit, touches the boundaries of that which is ideal. Strong passion expresses itself in metaphor, borrowed from objects alike remote or near, and casts over all the shadow of its own greatness. But what am I about? If my grandmother sucks eggs, was it I who taught her?

  If you would really correct the proof, I need not trouble Peacock, who, I suppose, has enough. Can you take it as a compliment that I prefer to trouble you?

  ‘I do not particularly wish this poem to be known as mine; but, at all events, I would not put my name to it. I leave you to judge whether it is best to throw it into the fire, or to publish it. So much for self — self, that burr that will stick to one.’

  Lord Byron, (1788 – 19 April 1824) was a leading figure in the Romantic movement and a close friend of Shelley.

  Author’s Preface

  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 forever 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,

  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 breaks

  The waste but one dwarf tree and some few stakes 10

  Broken and unrepaired, and the tide makes

  A narrow space of level sand thereon,

  Where ‘t was our wont to ride while day went down.

  This ride was my delight. I love all waste

  And 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

  Than all, with a remembered friend I love 20

  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;

  And 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,

  But flew from brain to brain, — such glee was ours, 30

  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

  The 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. ‘T was forlorn,

  Yet pleasing; such as once, so poets tell, 40

  The devils held within the dales of Hell,

  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 still

  Is it not wise to make the best o
f ill?)

  Argued against despondency, but pride

  Made my companion take the darker side.

  The sense that he was greater than his kind 50

  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,

  How 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

  To stand on thee, beholding it; and then, 60

  Just where we had dismounted, the Count’s men

  Were waiting for us with the gondola.

  As those who pause on some delightful way

  Though bent on pleasant pilgrimage, we stood

  Looking upon the evening, and the flood,

  Which lay between the city and the shore,

  Paved with the image of the sky. The hoar

  And aëry Alps towards the north appeared,

  Through mist, an heaven-sustaining bulwark reared

  Between the east and west; and half the sky 70

  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

  Where 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 through the harbor piles,

  The likeness of a clump of peakèd isles;

  And then, as if the earth and sea had been 80

  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

  Their very peaks transparent. ‘Ere it fade,’

  Said my companion, ‘I will show 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

  How from their many isles, in evening’s gleam, 90

  Its temples and its palaces did seem

  Like fabrics of enchantment piled to Heaven.

  I was about to speak, when—’We are even