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.
LAGOON MESSAGE
Not now, but later, when the road
We tread together breaks apart,
When thou, my dearest, distant art,
And tedious days have swelled the load
Upon my heart.