VENICE VENICE I STOOD in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; I saw from out the wave her structures rise O'er the far times when many a subject land Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles! She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, ers From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling show ers. In purple was she robed, and of her feast Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased. In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, But unto us she hath a spell beyond With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor, And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away, The keystones of the arch! though all were o'er, For us repeopled were the solitary shore. The beings of the mind are not of clay; And multiply in us a brighter ray And more beloved existence: that which Fate Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied, First exiles, then replaces what we hate; Watering the heart whose early flowers have died, And with a fresher growth replenishing the void. The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord; And, annual marriage now no more renewed, The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored, Neglected garment of her widowhood! St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood Stand, but in mockery of his withered power, Over the proud place where an emperor sued, And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour When Venice was a queen with an unequalled dower. The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns,― An emperor tramples where an emperor knelt; Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains Clank over sceptered cities; nations melt From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt The sunshine for a while, and downward go Like lauwine loosened from the mountain's belt: O for one hour of blind old Dandolo ! The octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe. Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass, Better be whelmed beneath the waves, and shun, Even in destruction's depth, her foreign foes, From whom submission wrings an infamous repose. In youth she was all glory,—a new Tyre,Her very byword sprung from victory, The "Planter of the Lion," which through fire And blood she bore o'er subject earth and sea; Though making many slaves, herself still free, And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite: Witness Troy's rival, Candia! Vouch it, ye Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's fight! For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight. I loved her from my boyhood,—she to me Rising like water-columns from the sea, art, Had stamped her image in me, and even so, Although I found her thus, we did not part, Perchance even dearer in her day of woe Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show. I can repeople with the past,-and of And of the happiest moments which were wrought Within the web of my existence, some From thee, fair Venice! have their colours There are some feelings time cannot benumb; THE CARNIVAL OF ALL the places where the Carnival Was most facetious in the days of yore, Venice the bell from every city bore; They've pretty faces yet, those same Venetians, still; Such as of old were copied from the Grecians, In ancient arts by moderns mimicked ill; And like so many Venuses of Titian's (The best's at Florence,-see it, if ye will), 1 |