AT VENICE
So now she stands by Glory’s great sea-grave
And has the first fair vision of that shrine
Where it lies sainted with its smile divine,
Rubied in sunset, em’ralded in wave;
Where the stones whisper of the masques they gave
Of argosy and pageant, line on line;
Till we are drunk with splendour as with wine
In that broad street which molten beryls pave.
I wonder if she thinks of me at whiles,
Or only of the dim Byzantine gold
And time-stained fronts, and seaweed-covered piles?
And if a corner of her heart doth hold
Something besides a dream of the crowned isles
That ruled the sunrise and its waves of old?
EUGENE LEE-HAMILTON.
THE GOLDEN BOOK OF VENICE
The Golden Book[5]
Is now unwritten in, and stands unmoved,
Save when the curious traveller takes down
A random volume, from the dusty shelf,
To trace the progress of a bruited name;
The Bucentaur
Is shattered, and of its resplendent form
There is no remnant, but some splintered morsel,
Which in his cabin, as a talisman
Mournfully hangs the pious gondolier;
The Adrian sea
Will never have a Doge to marry more,—
The meagre favours of a foreign lord
Can hardly lead some score of humble craft
With vilest merchandise into the port
That whilom held the wealth of half a world.
Thy palaces
Are bartered to the careful Israelite,—
Or left to perish, stone by stone, worn down
In desolation, solemn skeletons,
Whose nakedness some tufts of pitying grass,
Or green boughs trembling o’er the tumbling wall,
Adorn but hide not.
And are these things true.
Miraculous Venice? Is the charm then past
Away from thee? Is all thy work fulfilled
Of power and beauty? Art thou gathered
To the dead cities? Is thy ministry
Made up, and folded in the hand of Thought?
Ask him who knows the meaning and the truth
Of all existence;—ask the poet’s heart:
The Book has no dead tome for him,—for him
Within St. Mark’s emblazoned porticoes
Thy old nobility are walking still;
The lowliest gondola upon thy waters
Is worth to him thy decorated galley;
He never looks upon the Adrian sea
But as thy lawful tho’ too faithless spouse;
And when, in the sad lustre of the moon,
Thy palaces seem beautifully wan,
He blesses God that there is left on earth
So marvellous, so full an antidote,
For all the racks and toils of mortal life,
As thy sweet countenance to gaze upon.
RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES.
[5] Il Libro d’Oro, the Venetian Peerage.