Oh that I once again were mad !-- No memory more Is in my mind of that sea-shore. Of misty shapes did seem to sit Beside me on a vessel's poop, And the clear north wind was driving it. 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, Then a dead sleep fell on my mind; Whilst animal life many long years Had tended me in my distress, And died some months before. Nor less And, if I waked or if I slept, No doubt, though memory faithless be, Thy image ever dwelt on me; And thus, O Lionel ! like thee Is our sweet child. 'Tis 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 My child and me-might well befall. With those who live in deathless fame. She ceased." Lo where red morning through the wood And with these words they rose, and towards the flood 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— 'Tis Helen's home; and clean and white, They come. Like one which tyrants spare on our own land Shone through their vine-leaves in the morning sun, And, when she saw how all things there were planned Disturbed poor Rosalind: she stood as one Whose mind is where his body cannot be. One arm in sleep, pillowing his head with it. A shower of burning tears, which fell upon Thenceforth; changed in all else, yet friends again, Change even like the ocean and the wind) 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 And in their union soon their parents saw And Rosalind-for, when the living stem Beyond the region of dissolving rains, Up the cold mountain she was wont to call The last, when it had sunk. And through the night Its glittering point, as seen from Helen's home; 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 Of one friend left adorned that frozen tomb. Helen, whose spirit was of softer mould, Whose sufferings too were less, Death slowlier led 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. NOTE ON ROSALIND AND HELEN, BY MRS. SHELLEY. Rosalind and Helen was begun at Marlow, and thrown aside-till I found it; and, at my request, it was completed. Shelley had no care for any of his poems that did not emanate from the depths of his mind, and develop some high or abstruse truth. When he does touch on human life and the human heart, no pictures can be more faithful, more delicate, more subtle, or more pathetic. He never mentioned love but he shed a grace borrowed from his own nature, that scarcely any other poet has be stowed, on that passion. When he spoke of it as the law of life, which inasmuch as we rebel against we err and injure ourselves and others, he promulgated that which he considered an irrefragable truth. In his eyes it was the essence of our being, and all woe and pain arose from the war made against it by selfishness, or insensibility, or mistake. By reverting in his mind to this first principle, he discovered the source of many emotions, and could disclose the secret of all hearts; and his delineations of passion and emotion touch the finest chords of our nature. Rosalind and Helen was finished during the summer of 1818, while we were at the Baths of Lucca. JULIAN AND MADDALO. A CONVERSATION. 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 yet be 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. 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. 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, 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 A narrow space of level sand thereon,— Where 'twas 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: Into our faces; the blue heavens were bare, Into our hearts aërial merriment. VOL. I. T |