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 It was delight to ride by the lone sea; Pictures, and casts from all those statues fair And subtle talk would cheer the winter night Might dawn and make me wonder at my stay: I watched him, and but2 seldom went away, In all previous editions, Regret ; but the word is plural in the MS. 'Here again the MS. restores the lost perfection of the work. Hitherto the line has halted for want of the 545 550 555 560 565 570 word but. Mr. Rossetti got over the difficulty of the missing syllable by accenting the ed of watched. 3 In previous editions the word here is his; but I believe the word in In friendships I had been most fortunate- After many years And many changes1 I returned; the name Of Venice, and it's aspect was the same; Among the mountains of Armenia. 575 580 585 His dog was dead. His child had now become A woman; such as it has been my doom 590 595 To meet with few, a wonder of this earth Where there is little of transcendant 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 "Looked meek-perhaps remorse had brought her low. "Her coming made him better, and they stayed "Together at my father's-for I played the MS. to be meant for this. It is the only word in the whole MS. about which there is any doubt: it might possibly be either his or this; but it 600 is imperfectly written in either case. 1 In the MS. the original word here was wanderings, which is cancelled, and the word changes is written above it. 605 "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: "Yet if thine agèd eyes disdain to wet 610 "Those wrinkled cheeks with youth's remembered tears, As yon mute marble where their corpses lie." 1 In the MS., But stood originally in this place: Yet is written over it. 615 I VOL. III. CANCELLED PASSAGES OF JULIAN AND MADDALO.1 What think you the dead are? Why, dust and clay, What should they be? 'Tis the last hour of day. Look on the west, how beautiful it is Vaulted with radiant vapours! The deep bliss Of that unutterable light has made The edges of that cloud fade Into a hue, like some harmonious thought, Wasting itself on that which it had wrought, Till it dies and between The light hues of the tender, pure, serene, Aye, beautiful! but when not... Perhaps the only comfort which remains. 1 From Relics of Shelley, pp. 78-9. Desires at p. 405 of the present Vol. See note to the Fragment Unsatisfied |