The charm of Venice

by Unknown

SAN FRANCESCO DEL DESERTO

Two years have gone since on this desert place

We landed, she and I, alone, at one;

But now the wild sea-marshes have no grace,

For she who made their beauty—she is gone.

That day the island in the afternoon

Shone like a gem, and on its point the pine

Kept steadfast watch, while in the clear lagoon

Unwavering lay the shadow and the shrine.

‘How lonely,’ so she said, ‘how still, how fair!

Tell me the story why they call this place

St. Francis of the Desert. Silent air,

And silent light sleep here, and silent space.’

‘Once in his wanderings,’ thus I told the tale,

‘St. Francis, overtaken by the night,

Pushed here his bark to shore and furled his sail,

And wearied, slumbered till the morning light.

‘He woke, and saw his brother, the great Sun

Rise up, full-orbed, refreshed, to praise the Lord,

And so began the Matins: “Is there none

To sing,” he said, “responses?” At the word,

‘The nightingale, the blackbird and the thrush,

And all the little fowl with dancing notes,

Perched joyous on the low acacia bush,

Whereby he knelt, and with full-swelling throats

‘Sang a clear service like the boys in quire;

And Francis, happy as a child, gave thanks

To those sweet children of the heavenly Sire—

Hence grew this shrine upon the wan sea-banks.’

The story pleased her; and the low-roofed church,

The bricked-paved cloister set with balsams round,

The marble well, and silence-guarded porch,

The cypresses that clasped the garden ground,

The soft-leaved poplars rippling in the air,

The white narcissus tufts beneath the trees,

And the lonely waters whispering everywhere;

The blue sky filled to brimming with the breeze

That drove the red-sailed barks along the wave—

All pleased, but most the silent solitude;

The still Franciscan walking slow and grave,

The absent life wherein no cares intrude,

Obedient, chaste and poor—alone with sea

And sky and clouds and winds and God’s still voice;

Unvexèd by the clamorous world, and free

For worship and for work, to die or to rejoice.

‘I would not choose,’ she said, ‘this quiet life;

But if my wheels were broken in the race,

If, having done my best, I failed in the strife,

It would be well to work in this sweet place.

‘But you and I are one—our hopes and need,

Our joy and love are in the world of men;

Let fall the sail and bid the rowers speed,

Life calls aloud—Back to the city then.’

So spake she, bathed in sunshine and delight,

Her hand upon the wooden cross whose shade

Falls on the landing-place. She was so bright

That when I looked on her I was afraid.

Good cause for fear—one little month and then

Dark Ocean quenched her light, and now no more

I see this island in the salt sea-fen,

And think what joy, what love I had of yore.

’Twas summer then and glorious afternoon,

And now ’tis autumn and a dusky eve;

Night rushes swiftly o’er the pale lagoon,

The wet seaweed and lapping waters weave

A mournful song together, and I walk

Beneath the solemn cypress-trees alone;

High overhead the tinkling poplars talk

Of me, and wonder where my love has flown.

I cannot tell them, I have never heard;

My boat has drawn unto a silent shore;

But could she speak to me one little word,

Or could I hope to love her evermore,

Then I might see the sun arise, and sing

Matins of praise, like Francis, o’er the sea;

And every happy bird upon the wing,

And all the angels, would rejoice with me.

STOPFORD A. BROOKE.

SAN FRANCESCO DELLA VIGNA

Do you know San Francesco della Vigna, in Venice?

Some say that its tall tower is the first point rising above the waves, which the returning Venetian sailor sees as he comes homeward from the south-east, over the foaming bars of Chioggia and Malamocco, one slender shaft lifted against sky, calling him back to his city and his home. All the mariners and fishermen, who come and go over the Adrian waters, have an especial tenderness, an especial reverence, for Saint Francis of the Vineyard. There is no vineyard now; only one small square garden, with a cloister running round it, arched, columned, marble paved, where the dead lie under the worn smooth slabs, and the box-edges hem in thyme, and balsams, and basil, and carnations, and thrift, and saxifrage, and other homely hardy plants which need slight fostering care. The sea winds blow strongly there, and the sea fogs drift thickly, and the steam and smoke of the foundries round about hang in heavy clouds, where once the pavilions and the lawns and the terraces of the patricians of Venice touched the grey-green lagoon; but this garden of San Francesco is still sweet and fresh: shut in between its marble colonnades with the deep brown shadow of the church leaning over it, and the chiming of the bells, and the melody of the organ rolling above it in deep waves of sound, jarred sometimes by the clash of the hammers falling on the iron and the copper of the foundries near at hand, and sometimes sinking to a sweet silence, only softly stirred by the splash of an oar as a boat passes up or down the narrow canal.

For the sake of that cloistered garden, a gondola came one summer every day to the landing-place before San Francesco. In the gondola was an artist, a painter of Paris, Yvon Dorât, who had seen the spot, and liked it, and returned to paint from it every day, finding an inexpressible charm in its contrasts of gloom and light, of high brown walls and low-lying graves, of fresh green herbs and flowers, and melancholy immemorial marble aisles. He meant to make a great picture of it, with the ethereal Venetian sky above all, and, between the straight edges of the bay, a solitary monk passing thoughtfully. Dorât was under the charm of Venice: that subtle dreamy charm, voluptuous and yet spiritual, which no artist or poet ever can resist, and these summer months were to him as a vision of languor, and beauty and rest, in which the white wings of sea-birds, and the silver of gleaming waters, and the festal figures of Carpaccio and the golden warmth of Palma, Vecchio, and the glories of sunsets aflame behind the Euganean hills, and the mystery of moonless night, with the tide washing against the weed-grown piles of a Madonna of the lagoon, were all blended in that confusion of past and present, of art and nature, of desire and repose, which fills the soul and the senses of those who love Venice, and live in thrall to her.

OUIDA.

A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI’S

Oh, Galuppi,[2] Baldassaro, this is very sad to find!

I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind;

But although I give you credit, ’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 arched 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 played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord?

What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, 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 seemed so few?’

Hark—the dominant’s persistence, till it must be answered to!

So an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say!

‘Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay!

I can always leave off talking, when I hear a master play.’

Then they left you for their pleasure: till in due time, one by one,

Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone,

Death came tacitly and took them where they never see the sun.

But when I sit down to reason,—think to take my stand nor swerve

Till I triumph o’er a secret wrung from nature’s close reserve,

In you come with your cold music, till I creep thro’ every nerve,

Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned—

‘Dust and ashes, dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned!

The soul, doubtless, is immortal—where a soul can be discerned.

‘Yours for instance, you know physics, something of geology,

Mathematics are your pastime; souls shall rise in their degree;

Butterflies may dread extinction,—you’ll not die, it cannot be!

‘As for Venice and its people, merely born to bloom and drop,

Here on earth they bore their fruitage, mirth and folly were the crop.

What of soul was left, I wonder, when the kissing had to stop?

‘Dust and ashes!’ So you creak it, and I want the heart to scold.

Dear dead women, with such hair, too—what’s become of all the gold

Used to hang and brush their bosoms? I feel chilly and grown old.

ROBERT BROWNING.

[2] Galuppi the musician was a native of Burano, a small island about a mile from Torcello, where his name is held in great esteem.—A. H. H.

TO CHIOGGIA WITH OAR AND SAIL

The sandolo is a boat shaped like the gondola, but smaller and lighter, without benches, and without the high steel prow or ferro which distinguishes the gondola. The gunwale is only just raised above the water, over which the little craft skims with a rapid bounding motion, affording an agreeable variation from the stately swanlike movement of the gondola. In one of these boats—called by him the Fisolo or Seamew—my friend Eustace had started with Antonio, intending to row the whole way to Chioggia, or, if the breeze favoured, to hoist a sail and help himself along. After breakfast, when the crew for my gondola had been assembled, Francesco and I followed with the Signora. It was one of those perfect mornings which occur as a respite from broken weather, when the air is windless and the light falls soft through haze on the horizon. As we broke into the lagoon behind the Redentore, the islands in front of us, St. Spirito, Poveglia, Malamocco, seemed as though they were just lifted from the sea-line. The Euganeans, far away to westward, were bathed in mist, and almost blent with the blue sky. Our four rowers put their backs into their work; and soon we reached the port of Malamocco, where a breeze from the Adriatic caught us sideways for a while....

Now we are well lost in the lagoons—Venice no longer visible behind; the Alps and Euganeans shrouded in a noonday haze; the lowlands at the mouth of Brenta marked by clumps of trees ephemerally faint in silver silhouette against the filmy, shimmering horizon. Form and colour have disappeared in light irradiated vapour of an opal hue. And yet instinctively we know that we are not at sea; the different quality of the water, the piles emerging here and there above the surface, the suggestion of coastlines scarcely felt in this infinity of lustre, all remind us that our voyage is confined to the charmed limits of an inland lake. At length the jutting headland of Pelestrina was reached. We broke across the Porto di Chioggia, and saw Chioggia itself ahead—a huddled mass of houses low upon the water. One by one, as we rowed steadily, the fishing-boats passed by, emerging from their harbour for a twelve hours’ cruise upon the open sea. In a long line they came, with variegated sails of orange, red, and saffron, curiously chequered at the corners, and cantled with devices in contrasted tints. A little land-breeze carried them forward. The lagoon reflected their deep colours till they reached the port. Then, slightly swerving eastward on their course, but still in single file, they took the sea and scattered, like beautiful bright-plumaged birds, who from a streamlet float into a lake, and find their way at large according as each wills.

The Signorino and Antonio, though want of wind obliged them to row the whole way from Venice, had reached Chioggia an hour before, and stood waiting to receive us on the quay. It is a quaint town this Chioggia, which has always lived a separate life from that of Venice. Language and race and customs have held the two populations apart from these distant years when Genoa and the Republic of St. Mark fought their duel to the death out in the Chioggian harbours, down to these days, when your Venetian gondolier will tell you that the Chioggoto loves his pipe more than his donna or his wife. The main canal is lined with substantial palaces, attesting to old wealth and comfort. But from Chioggia, even more than from Venice, the tide of modern luxury and traffic has retreated. The place is left to fishing folk and builders of the fishing craft, whose wharves still form the liveliest quarter. Wandering about its wide deserted courts and calli, we feel the spirit of the decadent Venetian nobility....

That afternoon the gondola and sandolo were lashed together side by side. Two sails were raised, and in this lazy fashion we stole homewards, faster or slower according as the breeze freshened or slackened, landing now and then on islands, sauntering along the sea-walls which bulwark Venice from the Adriatic, and singing—those at least of us who had the power to sing. Four of our Venetians had trained voices and memories of inexhaustible music. Over the level water, with the ripple plashing at our keel, their songs went abroad, and mingled with the failing day. The barcaroles and serenades peculiar to Venice were, of course, in harmony with the occasion. But some transcripts from classical operas were even more attractive, through the dignity with which these men invested them. By the peculiarity of their treatment the recitativo of the stage assumed a solemn movement, marked in rhythm, which removed it from the commonplace into antiquity, and made me understand how cultivated music may pass back by natural, unconscious transition into the realm of popular melody.

The sun sank, not splendidly, but quietly in banks of clouds above the Alps. Stars came out, uncertainly at first, and then in strength, reflected on the sea. The men of the Dogana watch-boat challenged us and let us pass. Madonna’s lamp was twinkling from her shrine upon the harbour-pile. The city grew before us. Stealing into Venice in that calm—stealing silently and shadowlike, with scarce a ruffle of the water, the masses of the town emerging out of darkness into twilight, till San Giorgio’s gun boomed with a flash athwart our stern, and the gas-lamps of the Piazzetta swam into sight; all this was like a long enchanted chapter of romance. And now the music of our men had sunk to one faint whistling from Eustace of tunes in harmony with the whispers at the prow.

Then came the steps of the Palazzo Venier and the deep-scented darkness of the garden. As we passed through to supper, I plucked a spray of yellow Banksia rose, and put it in my buttonhole. The dew was on its burnished leaves, and evening had drawn forth its perfume.

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.

THE MIRROR OF THE LAGOON

This strange, soft sea, so tempered into gentlehood, brings through its quietude another element of charm into Venice. It reflects all things with a wonderful perfection. Whatever loveliness is by its side it makes more lovely. Shallow itself, it seems deep; and the towers and palaces of Venice in all their colours descend and shine among other clouds and in another sky below. All outlines of sculpture and architecture, of embossment, in wall and window; all play of sunshine and shade; all the human life in balcony, bridge or quay, on barge or boat, are in the waters as in a silent dream—revealed in every line and colour, but with an exquisite difference in softness and purity. All Nature’s doings in the sky are also repeated with a tender fidelity in the mirror of the lagoon—morning light, noonday silver, purple thunder-cloud in the afternoon, sunset vapours, the moon and stars of night—and not only on the surface, but also, it seems, in an immeasurable depth. To look over the side of the boat into the water is to cry, ‘I see infinite space.’

STOPFORD A. BROOKE.