O most magnificent Venice! The sweetness of love Amid thy life of poesy For eternity will not forget thee! I love thee in thy desolation, In thy vestment of mourning; And in thy gondolas Which lose themselves among the canals, I love thee with fervent regret, And for the reminiscences Of the sacred love, And of the being I have lost. ALEKSANDRI. Tr. Henry Stanley. THE GONDOLA TILTS the gondola lightly over the wave like a And the chest thereupon me of a coffin reminds. floating On Time's larger canal carelessly on through our life. Tr. J. S. Dwight. SUNRISE IN VENICE NIGHT seems troubled and scarce asleep; Lordeth and lifteth his front from the dark, And the day leaps up with a star on his breast. I see the yellow wide wings of a bark Great sinewy men that are good to see, Brave old water-dogs, wed to the sea, Ships are moving. I hear a horn; "T is the sentinel-boats that watch the town All night, as mounting her watery walls, And against the east, a soft light falls,— And I catch a breath like the breath of day. The east is blooming! Yea, a rose, 1 A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S O, GALUPPI, Baldassaro, this is very sad to find! I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind; But although I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy mind! Here you come with your old music, and here's all the good it brings. What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings, Where St. Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings? Ay, because the sea's the street there; and 'tis arch'd by ... what you call ... Shylock's bridge with houses on it, where they kept the carnival: I was never out of England-it's as if I saw it all! Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May? Balls and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say? Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red, On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bellflower on its bed, O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might base his head? Well, (and it was graceful of them) they'd break talk off and afford She, to bite her mask's black velvet; he, to finger on his sword, While you sat and play'd Toccatas, stately at the clavichord? What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminish'd, sigh on sigh, Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions-'Must we die?" Those commiserating sevenths-'Life might last! we can but try!' 'Were you happy?' 'Yes.'-'And are you still as happy?' 'Yes. And you?' -"Then, more kisses!'-'Did I stop them, when a million seem'd so few?" Hark! the dominant's persistence, till it must be answer'd to! So an octave struck the answer. O, they praised you, I dare say! |