I STOOD in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; I saw from out the wave her structures rise A thousand years their cloudy wings expand O'er the far times when many a subject land Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles! II. She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, And such she was;-her daughters had their dowers III. In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy! IV. But unto us she hath a spell beyond V. The beings of the mind are not of clay; And more beloved existence: that which Fate Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied, Watering the heart whose early flowers have died, And with a fresher growth replenishing the void. VI. Such is the refuge of our youth and age, And the strange constellations which the Muse VII. I saw or dream'd of such,-but let them go,— They came like truth, and disappear'd like dreams; And whatsoe'er they were-are now but so: I could replace them if I would: still teems My mind with many a form which aptly seems Such as I sought for, and at moments found; Let these too go-for waking Reason deems Such overweening phantasies unsound, And other voices speak, and other sights surround. VIII. I've taught me other tongues, and in strange eyes A country with-ay, or without mankind; IX. Perhaps I loved it well: and should I lay X. My name from out the temple where the dead And be the Spartan's epitaph on me— 66 Sparta hath many a worthier son than he." The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed. XI. The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord; And, annual marriage now no more renew'd, 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 wither'd power, Over the proud Place where an Emperor sued, And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour When Venice was a queen with an unequall'd dower. XII. The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns- From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foc. XIII. Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass, Their gilded collars glittering in the sun; But is not Doria's menace come to pass? Are they not bridled?—Venice, lost and won, Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done, Sinks, like a seaweed, into whence she rose! Petter be whelm'd beneath the waves, and shun, Even in destruction's depth, her foreign foes, From whom submission wrings an infamous repose. XIV. In youth she was all glory, a new Tyre,— Her very by-word 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. XV. Statues of glass-all shiver'd—the long file But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile H |