Of the sea winds has turned the cypress brown,
The spacious waters in full tide are spread,
A lustrous cloth of gold with colours splashed;—
Blue liquid belts and mirrored clouds blood-red,
Green blazing sea-marsh, broidered waves that flashed
Now ebony, now scarlet, when the tide,
Smoothing the ripple on the shallow’s rim,
Flowed strong to southward where, in towered pride,
Islanded Venice sang her evening hymn.
How calm, how passionless, how golden-fair!