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Accomplished not; such dreams of baseless good
Oft come and go in crowds and solitude

And leave no trace

but what I now designed

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 it's 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
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

"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?"

66

Something within that interval which bore

"The stamp of why they parted, how they met :

"Yet if thine agèd 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

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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.

SONG,

ON A FADED VIOLET.

I.

THE odour from the flower is gone, Which like thy kisses breathed on me ; The colour from the flower is flown, Which glowed of thee, and only thee!

II.

A shrivelled, lifeless, vacant form,

It lies on my abandoned breast, And mocks the heart which yet is warm With cold and silent rest.

III.

I weep― my tears revive it not !

I sigh it breathes no more on me;

Its mute and uncomplaining lot

Is such as mine should be.

STANZAS.

WRITTEN IN DEJECTION, NEAR NAPLES.

I.

THE sun is warm, the sky is clear,

The waves are dancing fast and bright, Blue isles and snowy mountains wear The purple noon's transparent might, The breath of the moist earth is light, Around its unexpanded buds;

Like many a voice of one delight,

The winds, the birds, the ocean floods, The City's voice itself is soft like Solitude's.

II.

I see the Deep's untrampled floor

With green and purple seaweed strown;

I see the waves upon the shore,

Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown:
I sit upon the sands alone,

The lightning of the noon-tide ocean

Is flashing round me, and a tone

Arises from its measured motion,

How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.

III.

Alas! I have nor hope nor health,

Nor peace within nor calm around, Nor that content surpassing wealth The sage in meditation found,

And walked with inward glory crowned – Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. Others I see whom these surround

Smiling they live and call life pleasure ; To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.

IV.

Yet now despair itself is mild,

Even as the winds and waters are ;
I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care

Which I have borne and yet must bear,
Till death like sleep might steal on me,
And I might feel in the warm air
My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.

V.

Some might lament that I were cold,
As I, when this sweet day is gone,
Which my lost heart, too soon grown old,
Insults with this untimely moan;

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