And of God’s voice, when man’s is comfortless.
JOHN RUSKIN.
LORD BYRON ON THE LIDO
Lord Byron (writes the poet’s friend) proposed to me to accompany him in his rides on the Lido.... Every day that the weather would permit, Lord Byron called for me in his gondola, and we found the horses waiting for us outside the fort. We rode as far as we could along the sea-shore, and then on a kind of dyke, or embankment, which has been raised where the island was very narrow, as far as another small fort, about half-way between the principal one and the town or village of Malamocco, near the other extremity of the island,—the distance being about three miles.
On the land side of the embankment, near the smaller fort, was a boundary stone, which probably marked some division of property,—all the side of the island, nearest the lagoon, being divided into gardens for the cultivation of vegetables. At the foot of this stone, Lord Byron repeatedly told me that I should cause him to be interred, if he should die in Venice, or its neighbourhood. During my residence here ... nothing could be more delightful than these rides on the Lido. We were from half to three-quarters of an hour crossing the water, during which his conversation was most amusing and interesting. Sometimes he would bring with him any new book he had received, and read to me the passages which struck him most. Often he would repeat to me whole stanzas of the poems he was writing, as he had composed them on the preceding evening.
THOMAS MOORE.
THE LIDO AND ITS GRAVES
I went to greet the full May-moon
On that long narrow shoal
Which lies between the still lagoon