IV.

But unto us she hath a spell beyond
Her name in story, and her long array
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond
Above the Dogeless city's vanish'd sway;
Ours is a trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor,

And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away
The keystones of the arch! though all were o'er,
For us repeopled were the solitary shore.

V.

The beings of the mind are not of clay;
Essentially immortal, they create

330

35

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

St. Mark yet sees his lion, where he stood,
Stand, but in mockery of his wither'd power,
Over the proud Place where an Emperor sued,
And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour
When Venice was a queen with an unequall'd dower.

XII.

The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns -
An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt;
Kingdoms are shrunk to provinces, and chains
Clank over sceptred cities; nations melt

55

50

From Power's high pinnacle, when they have felt
The sunshine for a while, and downward go
Like lauwine loosen'd from the mountain's belt;
Oh for one hour of blind old Dandolo !
Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe.

XIII.

Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass,
Their gilded collars glittering in the sun;
But is not Doria's menace come to pass?
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 whelm'd 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 byword sprung from victory,

The 66 Planter of the Lion," 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.

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65

70

75

80

But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile

Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust;

85

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,

Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls.

90

XVI.

When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse,

And fetter'd thousands bore the yoke of war,
Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse,
Her voice their only ransom from afar:

See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car

95

Of the o'ermaster'd 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 heroic 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,

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105

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

Was as a fairy city of the heart,

she to me

110

Rising like water-columns from the sea,

Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart;

And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakespeare's art,
Had stamp'd 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.

115

[CASCATA DEL MARMORE.]

CHILDE HAROLD, CANTO IV.

THE roar of waters!

LXIX

from the headlong height

Velino cleaves the wave-worn precipice;
The fall of waters! rapid as the light
The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss;
The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss,
And boil in endless torture; while the sweat
Of their great agony, wrung out from this
Their Phlegethon, curls round the rocks of jet
That gird the gulf around, in pitiless horror set,

LXX.

5

And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again
Returns in an unceasing shower, which round,

ΙΟ

With its unemptied cloud of gentle rain,

Is an eternal April to the ground,

Making it all one emerald: - how profound

The gulf! and how the giant element

From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound,

Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent. With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent

LXXI.

To the broad column which rolls on, and shows
More like the fountain of an infant sea
Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes
Of a new world, than only thus to be
Parent of rivers, which flow gushingly,

With many windings through the vale: Look back!
Lo! where it comes like an eternity,

As if to sweep down all things in its track,

Charming the eye with dread, a matchless cataract,

15

20

25

LXXII.

Horribly beautiful! but on the verge,

From side to side, beneath the glittering morn,

An Iris sits, amidst the infernal surge,

30

Like Hope upon a death-bed, and, unworn

Its steady dyes, when all around is torn

By the distracted waters, bears serene

Its brilliant hues with all their beams unshorn:

Resembling, 'mid the torture of the scene,

35

Consents to death, but conquers agony,

And his droop'd head sinks gradually low

And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now
The arena swims around him he is gone,

Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch

who won.

CXLI.

his eyes

He heard it, but he heeded not
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother- he, their sire,
Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday -

All this rush'd with his blood- Shall he expire,

And unavenged? — Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!