For the Southern Literary Messenger.

MUSINGS II—By the Author of Vyvyan.

The sea is in the broad, the narrow streets
Ebbing and flowing.——————Rogers.
I loved her from my boyhood—she to me
Was as a fairy city of the heart,
Rising like water columns from the sea.
Childe Harold, Canto IV. Stanza xviii.
There is, far in a foreign clime,
Alas! no longer free—
A city famed in olden time
As queen of all the sea;
Still fair but fallen from her prime—
For such is destiny.
There motley masque and princely ball
Make gay the merry carnival,
And all the night some serenade
Steals sweetly from the calm Lagune,
While many a dark eyed loving maid
Is wooed in secret neath the moon.
And swiftly o'er the noiseless tide
Gondolas dark, like spectres, glide
Neath archways deep and bridges fair,
Temples and marble palaces,
Adorned with jutting balconies,
And dim arcades of beauty rare.
There's naught that meets the wondering eye,
From the wave that kisses the landing stair
To the sculptured range in the azure sky,1
But wears a wild unearthly air,
And every voice that echoes among
Those phantomlike halls, breathes the spell of song.
The rudest Barcarolli's cry,
Heard faint and far o'er Adria's waves,
Might cheat the listener of a sigh—
So sad the farewell which it leaves,
When sinking on the ear it dies
Along the borders of the skies.
Oh! Venice! Venice! couldst thou be
Still wond'rous fair and even as free!
How peerless were thy regal halls!—
How glorious were thy seagirt walls!—
But foreign banners flaunt thy tide,
And chains have tamed thy lion's pride.
Thy flag is furled upon the sea,
Thy sceptre shivered on the land,
And many a spirit mourns for thee
Beyond the Lido's barren strand:
Better thy towers were sunk below
The level of Old Ocean's flow.
Fair city of the fairest clime,
Sad change hath come o'er thee—
The spirit voice of olden time
Is wailing o'er thy sea;
And matin bell and vesper chime
Seem knelling for the free
Who reared thy standard o'er the wave
And spurned the chains that now enslave.

1 The tops of many of the buildings are ornamented with a range of statues.