If a letter one should ask, it
Mounts by means of cord or basket, Saving postman flights of stairs
While he minds his own affairs.
Water-babies here abound,
In canals retired found;
To a floating board they cling
Tethered by the mother's string.
Beggar, dirty, picturesque, so
Lazy slumbering al fresco;
Though his last of coin is spent, he
Feels the dolce far niente,
Dreading water without doubt,
Administered inside or out;
He, as cicerone, tells
Horrors of the dungeon cells
Underneath the Bridge of Sighs,
Opening the tourists' eyes;
Warbling as he points the scene
Of the deadly guillotine,
Or the hole where Byron slept,
And where better men have wept.
In the spacious council chamber
I on mental ladder clamber,
And with due historic halo
Restore the face of Faliero;
And when no spectator's by,
In the lion's jaw I shy
Denunciation to the State
Of my landlord whom I hate.
Or in dreams, if funds are low,
I to the Rialto go,
Where good Shylock lends to me
An old clo' security;
While he's sorting out the heap
I at Jessica take a peep;
Or at palace window high,
As I lazily float by,
See the Desdemona blond,
With pathetic glances fond,
Waving 'kerchief to the Moor
As he slams the great front door.
Though no more thy ship of state,
With doges on her decks who wait,
Rules the sea with wedding-ring
And maidens orange garlands bring;
Though the Lion of Saint Mark,
Cracked and weather-stained and dark,
From his column has descended,
His despotic sway long ended,
Teeth well filed and claws close grated,
Roar, like Bottom's, mitigated,
Tucked by keepers in museum,
Can't be seen unless we fee 'em;
Fortune, tiptoe on the world,
Let my sails be ever furled
Near thy shrine; here let my eyes
Gaze in ever new surprise;
While the breaker constant combs
View thy palaces and domes
Which against the sunset sky
Into sudden darkness die.
Fallen mistress of the sea,
Let me cast my lot with thee!
Far from earth, down in the sea,
Venice, thou art the land for me!
ONLY to live, only to be
In Venice, is enough for me.
To be a beggar, and to lie
At home beneath the equal sky,
To feel the sun, to drink the night,
Had been enough for my delight;
Happy because the sun allowed
The luxury of being proud
Not to some only; but to all
The right to lie along the wall.
Here my ambition dies; I ask
No more than some half-idle task,
To be done idly, and to fill
Some gaps of leisure when I will.
I care not if the world forget
That it was ever in my debt;
I care not where its prizes fall;
I long for nothing, having all.
The sun, each morning, on his way,
Calls for me at the Zattere;
I wake and greet him, I go out,
Meet him, and follow him about;
We spend the day together, he
Goes to bed early; as for me,
I make the moon my mistress, prove
Constant to my inconstant love.
For she is coy with me, will hie
To my arms amorously, and fly
Ere I have kissed her; ah! but she,
She it is, to eternity,
I adore only; and her smile
Bewilders the enchanted isle
To more celestial magic, glows
At once the crystal and the rose.
The crazy lover of the moon,
I hold her, on the still lagoon,
Sometimes I hold her in my arms;
"Tis her cold silver kiss that warms
My blood to singing, and puts fire
Into the heart of my desire.
And all desire in Venice dies
To such diviner lunacies;
Life dreams itself; the world goes on,
Oblivious, in oblivion;
Life dreams itself, content to keep
Happy immortally, in sleep.
THE masts rise white to the stars,
White on the night of the sky,
Out of the water's night,
And the stars lean down to them white.
Ah! how the stars seem nigh;
How far away are the stars!
And I, too, under the stars,
Alone with the night again,
And the water's monotone;
I and the night alone,
And the world and the ways
Farther from me than the stars.
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