IX. That is to say, if your religion's Roman, Would rather dine in sin on a ragout- X. Of all the places where the Carnival Was most facetious in the days of yore, For dance, and song, and serenade, and ball, And masque, and mime, and mystery, and more Than I have time to tell now, or at all, Venice the bell from every city bore, And at the moment when I fix my story, That sea-born city was in all her glory, XI. They 've pretty faces yet, those same Venetians, Black eyes, arch'd brows, and sweet expressions still, Such as of old were copied from the Grecians, (The best's at Florence-see it, if ye will) They look when leaning over the balcony, Or stepp'd from out a picture by Giorgione, XII. Whose tints are truth and beauty at their best; Is loveliest to my mind of all the show; And that's the cause I rhyme upon it so, 'T is but a portrait of his son, and wife, And self; but such a woman! love in life! XIII. Love in full life and length, not love ideal, That the sweet model must have been the same; XIV. One of those forms which flit by us, when we In momentary gliding, the soft grace, The youth, the bloom, the beauty which agree, In many a nameless being we retrace, Whose course and home we knew not, nor shall know, Like the lost Pleiad seen no more below. XV. I said that like a picture by Giorgione (For beauty 's sometimes best set off afar) XVI. For glances beget ogles, ogles sighs, Sighs wishes, wishes words, and words a letter, Which flies on wings of light-heel'd mercuries, Who do such things because they know no better; And then, God knows, what mischief may arise, When love links two young people in one fetter, Vile assignations, and adulterous beds, Elopements, broken vows, and hearts, and heads. XVII. Shakspeare described the sex in Desdemona Such matters may be probably the same, To suffocate a wife no more than twenty, XVIII. Their jealousy (if they are ever jealous) Is of a fair complexion altogether, Which smothers women in a bed of feather, XIX. Didst ever see a gondola? For fear You should not, I'll describe it you exactly : 'T is a long cover'd boat, that's common here, Carved at the prow, built lightly, but compactly, Row'd by two rowers, each call'd « gondolier,» It glides along the water looking blackly, Just like a coffin clapt in a canoe, Where none can make out what you say or do. XX. And up and down the long canals they go, By night and day, all paces, swift or slow, They wait in their dusk livery of woe, But not to them do woful things belong, For sometimes they contain a deal of fun, Like mourning-coaches when the funeral's done. XXI. But to my story.—'T was some years ago, Her real name I know not, nor can guess, XXII. years She was not old, nor young, nor at the XXIII. Laura was blooming still, had made the best She look'd extremely well where'er she went: A pretty woman is a welcome guest, And Laura's brow a frown had rarely bent, Indeed she shone all smiles, and seem'd to flatter Mankind with her black eyes for looking at her. vits 4.336 |