VII.

I saw or dreamed of such, but let them go-
They came like truth, and disappeared like dreams;
And whatsoe'er they were-are now but so:
I could replace them if I would, still teems
My mind with many a form which aptly seems
Such as I sought for, and at moments found;
Let these too go for waking Reason deems
Such over-weening phantasies unsound,

And other voices speak, and other sights surround.
VIII.

I've taught me other tongues-and in strange eyes
Have made me not a stranger; to the mind
Which is itself, no changes bring surprise;
Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find
A country with-ay, or without mankind;
Yet was I born where men are proud to be
Not without cause; and should I leave behind
The inviolate island of the sage and free,
And seek me out a home by a remoter sea,

IX.

Perhaps I loved it well: and should I lay
My ashes in a soil which is not mine,
My spirit shall resume it—if we may
Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine
My hopes of being remembered in my line
With my land's language: if too fond and far
These aspirations in their scope incline,-
If my fame should be, as my fortunes are,
Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar

X.

My name from out the temple where the dead
Are honoured by the nations-let it be
And light the laurels on a loftier head!
And be the Spartan's epitaph on me-
"Sparta hath many a worthier son than he." (4)
Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need;

The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree
I planted, they have torn me,-and I bleed⚫

I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

XI.

The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord,
And, annual marriage now no more renewed
The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored,
Neglected garment of her widowhood!

St. Mark yet sees his Lion where he stood, (5)
Stand but in mockery of his withered power,
Over the proud Place where an Emperor sued,
And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour
When Venice was a queen with an unequalled dower
XII.

The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns-(6 An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt; Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains Clank over sceptred cities; nations melt From power's high pinnacle, when they have felt The sunshine for a while, and downward go Like lauwine loosened from the mountain's belt; Oh! for one hour of blind old Dandolo ! (7) Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe. XIII.

Before St. Mark still glows his steeds of brass, Their gilded collars glittering in the sun: But is not Doria's menace come to pass? (8) Are they not bridled? Venice, lost and won, Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done, Sinks like a sea-weed, into whence she rose! Better be whelmed beneath the waves and shun, Even in destruction's depth, her foreign foes, From whom submission wrings an infamous repose. XIV.

In youth she was all glory,-a new Tyre,

Her very by-word sprung from Victory,

The "Planter of the Lion," (10) which through Fire And blood she bore o'er subject earth and sea; Though making many slaves, herself still free, And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite; Witness Troy's rival, Candia! Vouch it, ye Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's fight! For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight.

XV.

Statues of glass-all shivered-the long file
Of her dead Doges are declined to dust;

But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile
Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust;
Their sceptre broken, and their sword in rust,
Have yielded to the stranger: empty halls,
Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must
Too oft remind her who and what enthrals, (10)
Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls.
XVI.

When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse,

And fettered thousands bore the yoke of war,
Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse, (11)
Her voice their only ransom from afar :
See! as they chaunt the tragic hymn, the car
Of the o'ermastered victor stops, the reins
Fall from his hands-his idle scimitar

Starts from its belt-he rends his captive's chains
And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains

XVII.

Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine
Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot,
Thy choral memory of the Bard divine,
Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot
Which ties thee to thy tyrants; and thy lot
Is shameful to the nations,-most of all,
Albion! to thee: the Ocean queen should not
Abandon Ocean's children; in the fall

Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall.
XVIII.

I loved her from my boyhood-she to me
Was as a fairy city of the heart,

Rising like water columns from the sea,

Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart;

And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakspeare's art, (12)
Had stamped her image in me, and even so,
Although I found her thus, we did not part,
Perchance even dearer in her day of woe,

Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show.

107

XIX.

with the past-and of
here is still for eye and thought,
n chastened down, enough;

may be, than I hoped or sought;
appiest moments which were wrought

Within the web of my existence, some

From thee, fair Venice! have their colours caught:
There are some feelings Time can not benumb,

Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb.
XX.

But from their nature will the tannen grow (13)
Loftiest on loftiest and least sheltered rocks,
Rooted in barrenness, where nought below
Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shocks
Of eddying storms; yet springs the trunk, and mocks
The howling tempest, till its height and frame
Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks
Of bleak, gray granite, into life it came,

And grew a giant tree ;-the mind may grow the same.
XXI.

Existence may be borne, and the deep root
Of life and sufferance make its firm abode
In bare and desolated bosoms; mute
The camel labours with the heaviest load,
And the wolf dies in silence,-not bestowed
In vain should such example be; if they,
Things of ignoble or of savage mood,
Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay
May temper it to bear,—it is but for a day.
XXII.

All suffering doth destroy, or is destroyed,
Even by the sufferer; and, in each event
Ends -Some, with hope replenished and rebuoyed,
Return to whence they came-with like intent,
And weave their web again; some, bowed and bent,
Wax gray and ghastly, withering ere their time,
And perish with the reed on which they leant;
Some seek devotion, toil, war, good or crime,
According as their souls were formed to sink or climb.

XXIII.

But ever and anon of griefs subdued

There comes a token like a scorpion's sting,
Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued;
And slight withal may be the things which bring
Back on the heart the weight which it would fling
Aside for ever it may be a sound-

A tone of music,-summer's eve-or spring,

A flower-the wind-the ocean-which shall wound, Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly bound; XXIV.

And how and why we know not, nor can trace
Home to its cloud this lightning of the mind,
But feel the shock renewed, nor can efface
The blight and blackening which it leaves behind
Which out of things familiar, undesigned,
When least we deem of such, calls up to view
The spectres whom no exorcism can bind,
The cold-the changed-perchance the dead-anew,
The mourned, the loved, the lost-too many!—yet how few!
XXV.

But my soul wanders; I demand it back
To meditate amongst decay, and stand

A ruin amidst ruins; there to track

Fallen states and buried greatness, o'er a land
Which was the mightiest in its old command,
And is the loveliest, and must ever be

The master-mould of Nature's heavenly hand,
Wherein were cast the heroic and the free,
The beautiful, the brave-the lords of earth and sea,
XXVI.

The commonwealth of kinds, the men of Rome!
And even since, and now, fair Italy!

Thou art the garden of the world, the home
Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree;
Even in thy desart, what is like to thee?
Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste
More rich than other climes' fertility;
Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced
With an immaculate charm which can not be defaced