Julian and Maddalo: A Conversation

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   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 of 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

   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 looked, and saw between us and the sun

   A building on an island,--such a one

   As age to age might add, for uses vile,                           100

   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;

   The 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,

   Which calls the maniacs each one from his cell                    110

   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.

   ''T is 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,--

   'And such,' he cried, 'is our mortality;                          120

   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

   Our 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

   We sought, and yet were baffled.' I recall                        130

   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 looked 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

   Conveyed me to my lodgings by the way.                            140

     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;

   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                             150

   She was a special favorite; 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 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 entered. Salutations past--

   'The words you spoke last night might well have cast

   A darkness on my spirit. If man be                                160

   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

   This lovely child, blithe, innocent and free;

   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                         170

   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,

   But in our mind? 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 rejoined, 'and those who try may find                      180

   How strong the chains are which our spirit bind;

   Brittle perchance as straw. We are assured

   Much may be conquered, 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 those kings of old philosophy,

   Who reigned before religion made men blind;

   And those who suffer with their suffering kind                    190

   Yet feel this faith religion.' 'My dear friend,'

   Said Maddalo, 'my judgment will not bend

   To your opinion, though I think you might

   Make such a system refutation-tight

   As 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,

   We 'll visit him, and his wild talk will show                     200

   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,

   Or in himself or others, has thus bowed

   His being. There are some by nature proud,

   Who patient in all else demand but this--

   To love and be beloved with gentleness;

   And, being scorned, what wonder if they die

   Some living death? this is not destiny                            210

   But man's own wilful ill.'

 

                               As thus I spoke,

   Servants announced the gondola, and we

   Through the fast-falling rain and high-wrought sea

   Sailed to the island where the madhouse stands.

   We disembarked. The clap of tortured hands,

   Fierce yells and howlings and lamentings keen,

   And laughter where complaint had merrier been,

   Moans, shrieks, and curses, and blaspheming prayers,

   Accosted us. We climbed the oozy stairs

   Into an old courtyard. I heard on high,                           220

   Then, fragments of most touching melody,

   But looking up saw not the singer there.

   Through the black bars in the tempestuous air

   I saw, like weeds on a wrecked palace growing,

   Long tangled locks flung wildly forth, and flowing,

   Of those who on a sudden were beguiled

   Into strange silence, and looked forth and smiled

   Hearing sweet sounds. Then I: 'Methinks there were

   A cure of these with patience and kind care,

   If music can thus move. But what is he,                           230

   Whom we seek here?' 'Of his sad history

   I know but this,' said Maddalo: 'he came

   To Venice a dejected man, and fame

   Said he was wealthy, or he had been so.

   Some thought the loss of fortune wrought him woe;

   But he was ever talking in such sort

   As you do--far more sadly; he seemed hurt,

   Even as a man with his peculiar wrong,

   To hear but of the oppression of the strong,

   Or those absurd deceits (I think with you                         240

   In some respects, you know) which carry through

   The excellent impostors of this earth

   When they outface detection. He had worth,

   Poor fellow! but a humorist in his way.'

  'Alas, what drove him mad?' 'I cannot say;

   A lady came with him from France, and when

   She left him and returned, he wandered then

   About yon lonely isles of desert sand

   Till he grew wild. He had no cash or land

   Remaining; the police had brought him here;                       250

   Some fancy took him and he would not bear

   Removal; so I fitted up for him

   Those rooms beside the sea, to please his whim,

   And sent him busts and books and urns for flowers,

   Which had adorned his life in happier hours,

   And instruments of music. You may guess

   A stranger could do little more or less

   For one so gentle and unfortunate;

   And those are his sweet strains which charm the weight

   From madmen's chains, and make this Hell appear                   260

   A heaven of sacred silence, hushed to hear.'

   'Nay, this was kind of you; he had no claim,

   As the world says.' 'None--but the very same

   Which I on all mankind, were I as he

   Fallen to such deep reverse. His melody

   Is interrupted; now we hear the din

   Of madmen, shriek on shriek, again begin.

   Let us now visit him; after this strain

   He ever communes with himself again,

   And sees nor hears not any.' Having said                          270

   These words, we called the keeper, and he led

   To an apartment opening on the sea.

   There the poor wretch was sitting mournfully

   Near a piano, his pale fingers twined

   One with the other, and the ooze and wind

   Rushed through an open casement, and did sway

   His hair, and starred it with the brackish spray;

   His head was leaning on a music-book,

   And he was muttering, and his lean limbs shook;

   His lips were pressed against a folded leaf,                      280

   In hue too beautiful for health, and grief

   Smiled in their motions as they lay apart.

   As one who wrought from his own fervid heart

   The eloquence of passion, soon he raised

   His sad meek face, and eyes lustrous and glazed,

   And spoke--sometimes as one who wrote, and thought

   His words might move some heart that heeded not,

   If sent to distant lands; and then as one

   Reproaching deeds never to be undone

   With wondering self-compassion; then his speech                   290

   Was lost in grief, and then his words came each

   Unmodulated, cold, expressionless,

   But that from one jarred accent you might guess

   It was despair made them so uniform;

   And all the while the loud and gusty storm

   Hissed through the window, and we stood behind

   Stealing his accents from the envious wind

   Unseen. I yet remember what he said

   Distinctly; such impression his words made.

 

   'Month after month,' he cried, 'to bear this load,                300

   And, as a jade urged by the whip and goad,

   To drag life on--which like a heavy chain

   Lengthens behind with many a link of pain!--

   And not to speak my grief--oh, not to dare

   To give a human voice to my despair,

   But live, and move, and, wretched thing! smile on

   As if I never went aside to groan;

 

   And wear this mask of falsehood even to those

   Who are most dear--not for my own repose--

   Alas, no scorn or pain or hate could be                           310

   So heavy as that falsehood is to me!

   But that I cannot bear more altered faces

   Than needs must be, more changed and cold embraces,

   More misery, disappointment and mistrust

   To own me for their father. Would the dust

   Were covered in upon my body now!

   That the life ceased to toil within my brow!

   And then these thoughts would at the least be fled;

   Let us not fear such pain can vex the dead.

 

   'What Power delights to torture us? I know                        320

   That to myself I do not wholly owe

   What now I suffer, though in part I may.

   Alas! none strewed sweet flowers upon the way

   Where, wandering heedlessly, I met pale Pain,

   My shadow, which will leave me not again.

   If I have erred, there was no joy in error,

   But pain and insult and unrest and terror;

   I have not, as some do, bought penitence

   With pleasure, and a dark yet sweet offence;

   For then--if love and tenderness and truth                        330

   Had overlived hope's momentary youth,

   My creed should have redeemed me from repenting;

   But loathèd scorn and outrage unrelenting

   Met love excited by far other seeming

   Until the end was gained; as one from dreaming

   Of sweetest peace, I woke, and found my state

   Such as it is--

 

                    'O Thou my spirit's mate!

   Who, for thou art compassionate and wise,

   Wouldst pity me from thy most gentle eyes

   If this sad writing thou shouldst ever see--                      340

   My secret groans must be unheard by thee;

   Thou wouldst weep tears bitter as blood to know

   Thy lost friend's incommunicable woe.

   'Ye few by whom my nature has been weighed

   In friendship, let me not that name degrade

   By placing on your hearts the secret load

   Which crushes mine to dust. There is one road

   To peace, and that is truth, which follow ye!

   Love sometimes leads astray to misery.

   Yet think not, though subdued--and I may well                     350

   Say that I am subdued--that the full hell

   Within me would infect the untainted breast

   Of sacred Nature with its own unrest;

   As some perverted beings think to find

   In soorn or hate a medicine for the mind

   Which soorn or hate have wounded--oh, how vain!

   The dagger heals not, but may rend again!

   Believe that I am ever still the same

   In creed as in resolve; and what may tame

   My heart must leave the understanding free,                       360

   Or all would sink in this keen agony;

   Nor dream that I will join the vulgar cry;

   Or with my silence sanction tyranny;

   Or seek a moment's shelter from my pain

   In any madness which the world calls gain,

   Ambition or revenge or thoughts as stern

   As those which make me what I am; or turn

   To avarice or misanthropy or lust.

   Heap on me soon, O grave, thy welcome dust!

   Till then the dungeon may demand its prey,                        370

   And Poverty and Shame may meet and say,

   Halting beside me on the public way,

   "That love-devoted youth is ours; let 's sit

   Beside him; he may live some six months yet."

   Or the red scaffold, as our country bends,

   May ask some willing victim; or ye, friends,

   May fall under some sorrow, which this heart

   Or hand may share or vanquish or avert;

   I am prepared--in truth, with no proud joy,

   To do or suffer aught, as when a boy                              380

   I did devote to justice and to love

   My nature, worthless now!--

 

                                'I must remove

   A veil from my pent mind. 'T is torn aside!

   O pallid as Death's dedicated bride,

   Thou mockery which art sitting by my side,

   Am I not wan like thee? at the grave's call

   I haste, invited to thy wedding-ball,

   To greet the ghastly paramour for whom

   Thou hast deserted me--and made the tomb

   Thy bridal bed--but I beside your feet                            390

   Will lie and watch ye from my winding-sheet--

   Thus--wide-awake though dead--yet stay, oh, stay!

   Go not so soon--know not what I say--

   Hear but my reasons--I am mad, I fear,

   My fancy is o'erwrought--thou art not here;

   Pale art thou, 't is most true--but thou art gone,

   Thy work is finished--I am left alone.

   .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .

   'Nay, was it I who wooed thee to this breast,

   Which like a serpent thou envenomest

   As in repayment of the warmth it lent?                            400

   Didst thou not seek me for thine own content?

   Did not thy love awaken mine? I thought

   That thou wert she who said "You kiss me not

   Ever; I fear you do not love me now"--

   In truth I loved even to my overthrow

   Her who would fain forget these words; but they

   Cling to her mind, and cannot pass away.

   .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .

   'You say that I am proud--that when I speak

   My lip is tortured with the wrongs which break

   The spirit it expresses.--Never one                               410

   Humbled himself before, as I have done!

   Even the instinctive worm on which we tread

   Turns, though it wound not--then with prostrate head

   Sinks in the dust and writhes like me--and dies?

   No: wears a living death of agonies!

   As the slow shadows of the pointed grass

   Mark the eternal periods, his pangs pass,

   Slow, ever-moving, making moments be

   As mine seem,--each an immortality!

   .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .

   'That you had never seen me--never heard                          420

   My voice, and more than all had ne'er endured

   The deep pollution of my loathed embrace--

   That your eyes ne'er had lied love in my face--

   That, like some maniac monk, I had torn out

   The nerves of manhood by their bleeding root

   With mine own quivering fingers, so that ne'er

   Our hearts had for a moment mingled there

   To disunite in horror--these were not

   With thee like some suppressed and hideous thought

   Which flits athwart our musings but can find                      430

   No rest within a pure and gentle mind;

   Thou sealedst them with many a bare broad word,

   And sear'dst my memory o'er them,--for I heard

   And can forget not;--they were ministered

   One after one, those curses. Mix them up

   Like self-destroying poisons in one cup,

   And they will make one blessing, which thou ne'er

   Didst imprecate for on me,--death.

   .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .

                                      'It were

   A cruel punishment for one most cruel,

   If such can love, to make that love the fuel                      440

   Of the mind's hell--hate, scorn, remorse, despair;

   But me, whose heart a stranger's tear might wear

   As water-drops the sandy fountain-stone,

   Who loved and pitied all things, and could moan

   For woes which others hear not, and could see

   The absent with the glance of fantasy,

   And with the poor and trampled sit and weep,

   Following the captive to his dungeon deep;

   Me--who am as a nerve o'er which do creep

   The else unfelt oppressions of this earth,                        450

   And was to thee the flame upon thy hearth,

   When all beside was cold:--that thou on me

   Shouldst rain these plagues of blistering agony!

   Such curses are from lips once eloquent

   With love's too partial praise! Let none relent

   Who intend deeds too dreadful for a name

   Henceforth, if an example for the same

   They seek:--for thou on me look'dst so, and so--

   And didst speak thus--and thus. I live to show

   How much men bear and die not!

   .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .

                                  'Thou wilt tell                    460

   With the grimace of hate how horrible

   It was to meet my love when thine grew less;

   Thou wilt admire how I could e'er address

   Such features to love's work. This taunt, though true,

   (For indeed Nature nor in form nor hue

   Bestowed on me her choicest workmanship)

   Shall not be thy defence; for since thy lip

   Met mine first, years long past,--since thine eye kindled

   With soft fire under mine,--I have not dwindled,

   Nor changed in mind or body, or in aught                          470

   But as love changes what it loveth not

   After long years and many trials.

 

                                     'How vain

   Are words! I thought never to speak again,

   Not even in secret, not to mine own heart;

   But from my lips the unwilling accents start,

   And from my pen the words flow as I write,

   Dazzling my eyes with scalding tears; my sight

   Is dim to see that charactered in vain

   On this unfeeling leaf, which burns the brain

   And eats into it, blotting all things fair                        480

   And wise and good which time had written there.

 

   Those who inflict must suffer, for they see

   The work of their own hearts, and this must be

   Our chastisement or recompense.--O child!

   I would that thine were like to be more mild

   For both our wretched sakes,--for thine the most

   Who feelest already all that thou hast lost

   Without the power to wish it thine again;

   And as slow years pass, a funereal train,

   Each with the ghost of some lost hope or friend                   490

   Following it like its shadow, wilt thou bend

   No thought on my dead memory?

   .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .    .

                                 'Alas, love!

   Fear me not--against thee I would not move

   A finger in despite. Do I not live

   That thou mayst have less bitter cause to grieve?

   I give thee tears for scorn, and love for hate;

   And that thy lot may be less desolate

   Than his on whom thou tramplest, I refrain

   From that sweet sleep which medicines all pain.

   Then, when thou speakest of me, never say                         500

  "He could forgive not." Here I cast away

   All human passions, all revenge, all pride;

   I think, speak, act no ill; I do but hide

   Under these words, like embers, every spark

   Of that which has consumed me. Quick and dark

   The grave is yawning--as its roof shall cover

   My limbs with dust and worms under and over,

   So let Oblivion hide this grief--the air

   Closes upon my accents as despair

   Upon my heart--let death upon despair!'                           510

 

   He ceased, and overcome leant back awhile;

   Then rising, with a melancholy smile,

   Went to a sofa, and lay down, and slept

   A heavy sleep, and in his dreams he wept,

   And muttered some familiar name, and we

   Wept without shame in his society.

   I think I never was impressed so much;

   The man who were not must have lacked a touch

   Of human nature.--Then we lingered not,

   Although our argument was quite forgot;                           520

   But, calling the attendants, went to dine

   At Maddalo's; yet neither cheer nor wine

   Could give us spirits, for we talked of him

   And nothing else, till daylight made stars dim;

   And we agreed his was some dreadful ill

   Wrought on him boldly, yet unspeakable,

   By a dear friend; some deadly change in love

   Of one vowed deeply, which he dreamed not of;

   For whose sake he, it seemed, had fixed a blot

   Of falsehood on his mind which flourished not                     530

   But in the light of all-beholding truth;

   And having stamped this canker on his youth

   She had abandoned him--and how much more

   Might be his woe, we guessed not; he had store

   Of friends and fortune once, as we could guess

   From his nice habits and his gentleness;

   These were now lost--it were a grief indeed

   If he had changed one unsustaining reed

   For all that such a man might else adorn.

   The colors of his mind seemed yet unworn;                         540

   For the wild language of his grief was high--

   Such as in measure were called poetry.

   And I remember one remark which then

   Maddalo made. He said--'Most wretched men

   Are cradled into poetry by wrong;

   They learn in suffering what they teach in song.'

 

   If I had been an unconnected man,

   I, from this moment, should have formed some plan

   Never to leave sweet Venice,--for to me

   It was delight to ride by the lone sea;                           550

   And then the town is silent--one may write

   Or read in gondolas by day or night,

  Having the little brazen lamp alight,

   Unseen, uninterrupted; books are there,

   Pictures, and casts from all those statues fair

   Which were twin-born with poetry, and all

   We seek in towns, with little to recall

   Regrets for the green country. I might sit

   In Maddalo's great palace, and his wit

   And subtle talk would cheer the winter night                      560

   And make me know myself, and the firelight

   Would flash upon our faces, till the day

   Might dawn and make me wonder at my stay.

   But I had friends in London too. The chief

   Attraction here was that I sought relief

   From the deep tenderness that maniac wrought

   Within me--'t was perhaps an idle thought,

   But I imagined that if day by day

   I watched him, and but seldom went away,

   And studied all the beatings of his heart                         570

   With zeal, as men study some stubborn art

   For their own good, and could by patience find

   An entrance to the caverns of his mind,

   I might reclaim him from this dark estate.

   In friendships I had been most fortunate,

   Yet never saw I one whom I would call

   More willingly my friend; and this was all

   Accomplished not; such dreams of baseless good

   Oft come and go in crowds and solitude

   And leave no trace,--but what I now designed                      580

   Made, for long years, impression on my mind.

   The following morning, urged by my affairs,

   I left bright Venice.

 

                          After many years,

   And many changes, I returned; the name

   Of Venice, and its aspect, was the same;

   But Maddalo was travelling far away

   Among the mountains of Armenia.

   His dog was dead. His child had now become

   A woman; such as it has been my doom

   To meet with few, a wonder of this earth,                         590

   Where there is little of transcendent worth,

   Like one of Shakespeare's women. Kindly she,

   And with a manner beyond courtesy,

   Received her father's friend; and, when I asked

   Of the lorn maniac, she her memory tasked,

   And told, as she had heard, the mournful tale:

   'That the poor sufferer's health began to fail

   Two years from my departure, but that then

   The lady, who had left him, came again.

   Her mien had been imperious, but she now                          600

   Looked meek--perhaps remorse had brought her low.

   Her coming made him better, and they stayed

   Together at my father's--for I played

   As I remember with the lady's shawl;

   I might be six years old--but after all

   She left him.' 'Why, her heart must have been tough.

   How did it end?' 'And was not this enough?

   They met--they parted.' 'Child, is there no more?'

   'Something within that interval which bore

   The stamp of why they parted, how they met;                     610

   Yet if thine aged eyes disdain to wet

   Those wrinkled cheeks with youth's remembered tears,

   Ask me no more, but let the silent years

   Be closed and cered over their memory,

   As yon mute marble where their corpses lie.'

   I urged and questioned still; she told me how

   All happened--but the cold world shall not know.