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Date, 1818. Published by Garnett, 1862, and the SONG by Mrs. Shelley, 1824. Shelley writes to Peacock regarding the drama: ‘Ï have devoted this summer, and indeed the next year, to the composition of a tragedy on the subject of Tasso's madness; which, I find upon inspection, is, if properly treated, admirably dramatic and poetical. But you will say I have no dramatic talent. Very true, in a certain sense; but I have taken the resolution to see what kind of tragedy a person without dramatic talent could write. It shall be better morality than Fazio, and better poetry than Bertram, at least.'

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VI

Was Florence the liberticide? that band

Of free and glorious brothers who had planted,

Like a green isle 'mid Ethiopian sand,
A nation amid slaveries, disenchanted
Of many impious faiths-wise, just — do
they,

ΧΙ

No record of his crime remains in story, But if the morning bright as evening shone,

It was some high and holy deed, by glory Pursued into forgetfulness, which won From the blind crowd he made secure and free

Does Florence, gorge the sated tyrants' The patriot's meed, toil, death, and infamy. prey?

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XII

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Look on the west, how beautiful it is Vaulted with radiant vapors! 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, And infinite tranquillity of heaven. Ay, beautiful! but when our...

Perhaps the only comfort which remains
Is the unheeded clanking of my chains,
The which I make, and call it melody.

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