VENICE FROM THE SEA
Venus is the fair goddess,
Venice is the fair city;
Sweet star, town enchantress,
Pearls of love and of beauty.
Slumber you the still night through,
Cradled in the briny waters;
For you are sisters, both of you,
Of the ocean-foam were daughters.
IN GEORGE SAND’S ‘THE USCOQUE.’
Fayre Venice, flower of the last world’s delight.
EDW. SPENCER.
Faire Venice, like a spouse in Neptune’s armes.
JOHN HARRINGTON.
To taste in all their fulness his first impressions of Venice, the traveller should arrive there by sea, at mid-day, when the sun is high.... He who comes for the first time to Venice by this route realizes a dream—his only dream perhaps ever destined to be surpassed by the reality; and if he knows how to enjoy the things of Nature, if he can take delight in silver-grey and rose-coloured reflections in water, if he loves light and colour, the picturesque life of Italian squares and streets, the good humour of the people and their gentle speech, which seems like the twittering of birds, let him only allow himself to live for a little time under the sky of Venice, and he has before him a season of happiness without alloy.
CHARLES YRIARTE.