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VIII.

She slept; but not the gentle sleep of rest,
Which leaps up to the kiss of morn's first breath:
Rather that opiate sleep more like to Death
Than Death itself, that lies upon the breast

With load more heavy than the carved stone
That shuts the dead from the glad world,—alone.

IX.

Slept all unconscious that she thus was bound,
Felt not the bondage, nor the fetter's weight,

Knew not the dreary darkness of her fate.

"Ah me! Must one with such bright beauty crown'd "Lie ever thus enthralled in slumber's chain,

"Nor wake to life and liberty again?"

X.

Then, as in answer to my cry, a voice
Came floating down the evening breeze,
Soft as the air that whispers through the trees
For him who waits the loved one of his choice.

"Fear not," it said, "she will arise and break

"Her bonds, and from that charmed sleep shall wake;

XI.

"Once more a queen shall wear the emerald crown, "The loveliest mistress of the loveliest isle;

"Be all she was before the fatal wile

"Of beauty ruined her, and dragged her down "From that high 'pride of place,' her freedom gave, "And sank her 'neath dark sorrow's whelming wave.

XII.

"All that she was she once again shall be,

"All and far more: shall waken ev'ry stain

"That marred her gone-her loss become her gain— "Waken still purer in her purity:

"E'en as a flower whose petals close at night

"To ope the brighter at the morning's light."

XIII.

Thus with sweet words of hope those strange soft notes

Died back into the silence whence they came,

Back to that realm that none can know or name.

Then lo! the mist of destiny, that floats

Across the trackless waste of coming years

Veiling our future smiles, our future tears,

XIV.

Seem'd to uplift its shroud of brooding gloom,
And let my spirit through the interspace

See clearly, e'en as if 'twere face to face
The hidden secrets of the years to come.

Oh joy! the fettered maid I see uprise,
See the free light flash back into those eyes;

XV.

Those glorious azure eyes, that seem'd to woo
The overhanging eye-lids down to kiss
Their star-like orbs dilating through their bliss.
Her golden hair shone with its brightest glow,

Not holding now in traitorous caress

Her limbs, but in its freshest loveliness,

XVI.

Streamed rippling down her back, and in the wind
Now rose, now fell, as wave of summer sea.

Her cruel chains dropped from her, and all free
She stood, whom none again shall dare to bind,
All radiant in her spotless womanhood,

In loveliness all pure, in beauty good.

XVII.

And from her parted lips there poured a song,
Full as the welling of a silver spring,
Clear as the throstle's joyous carolling;
A Pœan of glad triumph over wrong
Defeated, thrilling with that perfect joy
That knoweth no abatement, no alloy.

XVIII.

She sang of hope, of truth, of trust, of love,
Of all that brightens sorrow, all that cheers
The weary pathway of our mortal years,
That raises man below to God above.

And ever through that wondrous melody

There ran one sweet refrain "Free, once more free!"

XIX.

I strove to speak, to tell her all I fain

Would tell. Ere words would come she fled my sight, And song and sweetness vanished into night.

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And now the cold air beating on my brain
Awoke me, and I found that darkness lay
Upon the world where lately shone the day.

XX.

That day had heard what all the days before
Had longed to hear, and longed alas in vain,—
The shout that told that all the toil and pain
Was vanquished-passed those years for evermore—
Those long sad years of crushing agony,-
That captive Venice now again was free;

XXI.

Had ris'n from that most deadly life in Death,
Ris'n as at first she rose from out the wave,
Had flash'd into the light as from the grave.
That day had seen her crown'd with Freedom's wreath,
Had seen the banner of her hopes unfurl'd,
Mid the glad plaudits of a wondering world.

XXII.

Not all a dream was that strange dream of mine;
Sleep's fancies had but shed their colouring,—

As setting sun illumes the cloudlet's wing
And crimsons all the mountain's snowy line,-
Upon the page of history, and thrown

A fairy light and lustre, not its own.

XXIII.

Thou wert the maiden, Venice, that I saw,
Her beauty thine, thine too her fall and doom.
But now has broken through thy night of gloom
The day-star of a purer rule and law,
The dawn of hope, the morning-sun of peace,
Whose light now risen, ne'er again shall cease.

XXIV.

The Ocean's child and once the Ocean's Queen,
Thou wert fair Freedom's last and dearest home,
When all the world were slaves, and mighty Rome
Had humbly bowed her head with abject mien
To him whose boast was in his warlike heat,
"That grass ne'er grew beneath his horse's feet."

XXV.

Great for thy constancy was thy reward;
Emp'rors and kings bowed down before thy power,
Thy freedom gave thee more than royal dower;
The East her treasures in thy bosom poured.
Then came thy fall.-Thy glorious summer years
Were clouded with a winter's mist of tears.

XXVI.

And now once more thou risest into day
And liberty. As lily leaves, that sleep
Long months unseen beneath the watery deep,
At length awake at the glad call of May,
And gem the ripples of the sparkling stream
With the bright beauty of their snowy gleam.

XXVII.

A nobler triumph in a holier strife

Thou now may'st win than thou hast won before;

Conquer thyself; let passion nevermore

Stain the white radiance of thy future life:

Let Venice joined with Italy proclaim

One common brotherhood in Freedom's name.

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