The cup is foaming with a nation's blood, Famine and thirst await:-eat, drink, and die!

Whose fairest thoughts and limbs were built The music and fragrance their solitudes breathe,

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 ener gies 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 pas. sions 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 af fections 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

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
Broken and unrepair'd, 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 remember'd 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,
Stripp'd 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 talk'd; and the swift thought,
Winging itself with laughter, linger'd not,
But flew from brain to brain,-such glee was ours,
Charged with light memories of remember'd 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

attached to those philosophical notions which assert the
power of man over his own mind, and the immense im- The sun was sinking, and the wind also.
provements of which, by the extinction of certain moral Our talk grew somewhat serious, as may be
superstitions, human society may be yet susceptible.Talk interrupted with such raillery

Without concealing the evil in the world, he is for ever

speculating how good may be made superior. He is a As mocks itself, because it cannot scorn complete infidel, and a scoffer at all things reputed holy; The thoughts it would extinguish :-'t was forlorn, and Maddalo takes a wicked pleasure in drawing out his Yet pleasing; such as once, so poets tell,

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.

The devils held within the dales of hell, Concerning God, free-will, and destiny. Of all that Earth has been, or yet may be, Of the Maniac I can give no information. He seems by All that vain men imagine or believe, his own account to have been disappointed in love. He Or hope can paint, or suffering can achieve, was evidently a very cultivated and amiable person when We descanted; and I (for ever still in his right senses. Ilis story, told at length, might be like Is it not wise to make the best of ill?)

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
Upon the bank of land which breaks the flow
Of Adria towards Venice: a bare strand
Of hillocks, heap'd from ever-shifting sand,

Argued against despondency; but pride
Made my companion take the darker side.
The 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!
How beautiful is sunset, when the glow
Of heaven descends upon a land like thee,
Thou paradise of exiles, Italy!

*The greater part of these pieces first appeared after Thy mountains, seas, and vineyards, and the towers their author's death, in a volume of POEMS, edited by Mrs. Of cities they encircle!—It was ours Shelley, whose interesting Preface will be found entire in To stand on thee, beholding it: and then, the biographical memoir prefixed to this edition.-EDITOR. 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 aery Alps, towards the north, appear'd,
Through mist, a heaven-sustaining bulwark, rear'd
Between the east and west; and half the sky
Was roof'd 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 peaked isles-
And 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
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 lean'd, and saw the city, and could mark
How from their many isles, in evening's gleam,
Its temples and its palaces did seem
Like fabrics of enchantment piled to heav'n.
I was about to speak, when-"We are even
Now at the point I meant," said Maddalo,
And bade the gondolieri cease to row.
"Look, Julian, on the west, and listen well
If you hear not a deep and heavy bell."
I look'd, and saw between us and the sun
A building on an island, such an one
As age to age might add, for uses vile,-
A windowless, deform'd and dreary pile;
And on the top an open tower, where hung

For what? they know not, till the night of death,
As sunset that strange vision, severeth
Our memory from itself, and us from all
We sought, and yet were baffled." I reca'i
The sense of what he said, although I mar
The force of his expressions. The broad star
Of day meanwhile had sunk behind the hill;
And the black bell became invisible;
And the red tower look'd gray; 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
Convey'd me to my lodging by the way.

The following morn was rainy, cold and dim:
Ere Maddalo arose I call'd on him,
And whilst I waited, with his child I play'd;
A lovelier toy sweet Nature never made;
A 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
But in the human countenance. With me
She was a special favorite: I had nursed
Her fine and feeble limbs, when she came first
To this bleak world; and she yet seem'd to know,
On second sight, her ancient playfellow,
Less 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 enter'd. Salutations past:
"The words you spoke last night might well have cast
A darkness on my spirit:-if man be
The passive thing you say, I should not see
Much harm in the religions and old saws
(Though I may never own such leaden laws)
Which break a teachless nature to the yoke:
Mine is another faith."-Thus much I spoke,
And, noting he replied not, added-" See

A bell, which in the radiance sway'd and swung-This lovely child; blithe, innocent and free;

We could just hear its hoarse and iron tongue :
The broad sun sank behind it, and it toll'd
In strong and black relief." What we behold
Shall be the madhouse and its belfry tower;"
Said Maddalo, " and even at this hour,
Those who may cross the water hear that bell,
Which 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.

""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 look'd on him,
But the gay smile had faded from his eye.
"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 heav'n-illumined tower, must toll
Our thoughts and our desires to meet below
Round the rent heart, and pray-as madmen do;

She spends a happy time, with little care;
While we to such sick thoughts subjected are,
As came on you last night. It is our will
Which 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,
But in our minds? And, if we were not weak,
Should we be less in deed than in desire?"-

Ay, if we were not weak,-and we aspire,
How vainly! to be strong," said Maddalo
You talk Utopia"-

"It remains to know,"

I then rejoin'd," and those who try, may find
How strong the chains are which our spirit bina.
Brittle perchance as straw. We are assured
Much may be conquer'd, much may be endured,
Of what degrades and crushes us. We know
That 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 the kings of old philosophy,