In the middle of August, Shelley left his wife at the Bagni di Lucca, and paid a visit to Lord Byron at Venice. He arrived at midnight in a thunderstorm. _Julian and Maddalo_ was the literary fruit of this excursion--a poem which has rightly been characterized by Mr. Rossetti as the most perfect specimen in our language of the “poetical treatment of ordinary things.” The description of a Venetian sunset, touched to sadness amid all its splendour by the gloomy presence of the madhouse, ranks among Shelley’s finest word-paintings; while the glimpse of Byron’s life is interesting on a lower level. Here is the picture of the sunset and the island of San Lazzaro:--
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, 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 airy Alps, towards the north, appeared, Thro’ mist, a heaven-sustaining bulwark, reared Between the east and west; and half the sky 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 harbour 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 leaned, 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 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,-- 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 coarse and iron tongue: The broad sun sank 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, To vespers.”