yet.' Of the blue lake, beneath the leaves | Of liquid love: let us not wake him now wind With equal steps and fingers inter- But Rosalind could bear no more, twined: Thence to a lonely dwelling, where the shore 1245 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, 1276 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 serene, motions which o'er things in- grace and gentleness from From the same flowers of thought, until each mind Like springs which mingle in one flood became, And in their union soon their parents The shadow of the peace denied to them. And Rosalind, for when the livingstem Is cankered in its heart, the tree must fall, Died ere her time; and with deep grief and awe garlands bound The pale survivors followed her re- | And hang long locks of hair, and mains Beyond the region of dissolving With amaranth flowers, which, in rains, 1295 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 Whose sufferings too were less, 1315 And know, that if love die not in the dead 1305 As in the living, none of mortal With willing steps climbing that rugged height, kind Are blest, as now Helen and Rosalind. NOTE BY MRS. SHELLEY 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 secrets of all hearts; and his delineations of passion and emotion touch the finest chords of our nature. Rosalind and Helen was begun at err and injure ourselves and others, he 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 bestowed, on that passion. When he spoke of it as the law of life, which inasmuch as we rebel against we Rosalind and Helen was finished during the summer of 1818, while we were at the baths of Lucca. JULIAN AND MADDALO A CONVERSATION [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 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. Sources of the text are (1) P. P., 1824; (2) the Hunt MS.; (3) a fair draft of the poem amongst the Boscombe MSS.; (4) Poetical Works, 1839, 1st and 2nd edd. (Mrs. Shelley). Our text is that of the Hunt MS., as printed in Forman's Library Edition of the Poems, 1876, vol. iii, pp. 103-30; variants of 1824 are indicated in the footnotes; questions of punctuation are dealt with in the notes at end of the volume.] PREFACE The meadows with fresh streams, the bees with thyme, 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 concentered 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. I RODE one evening with Count Maddalo Such as from earth's embrace the salt ooze breeds, Which the lone fisher, when his nets are dried, 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. /And solitary places; where we taste Into our hearts aëreal merriment. So, as we rode, we talked; and the swift thought, But flew from brain to brain,-such glee was ours, 5 10 15 20 25 30 None slow enough for sadness: till we came Our talk grew somewhat serious, as may be As mocks itself, because it cannot scorn The thoughts it would extinguish :-'twas forlorn, Meanwhile the sun paused ere it should alight, 35 40 45 50 55 Of Heaven descends upon a land like thee, Thy mountains, seas, and vineyards, and the towers To stand on thee, beholding it: and then, 60 Just where we had dismounted, the Count's men 65 70 75 80 |