The charm of Venice

by Unknown

Softly the gondola rocked, and a pale light came

Over the waters, mild as a silver flame;

She lay back, thrilling with smiles, in the twilight shed

By the gondola bent like the darkness over her head;

I saw her eyes shine subtly, then close awhile:

I remember her silence, and, in the night, her smile.

ARTHUR SYMONS.

NIGHT IN VENICE

Night in Venice! Night is nowhere else so wonderful, unless it be in winter among the high Alps. But the nights of Venice and the nights of the mountains are too different in kind to be compared.

There is the ever-recurring miracle of the full moon rising, before day is dead, behind San Giorgio, spreading a path of gold on the lagoon, which black boats traverse with the glow-worm lamp upon their prow; ascending the cloudless sky and silvering the domes of the Salute; pouring vitreous sheen upon the red lights of the Piazzetta; flooding the Grand Canal, and lifting the Rialto higher in ethereal whiteness; piercing but penetrating not the murky labyrinth of rio linked with rio, through which we wind in light and shadow, to reach once more the level glories and the luminous expanse of heaven beyond Misericordia.