BEPPO.1 I. "Tis known, at least it should be, that throughout However high their rank, or low their station, With fiddling, feasting, dancing, drinking, masquing, And other things which may be had for asking. 11. The moment night with dusky mantle covers Giggling with all the gallants who beset her; III. And there are dresses splendid, but fantastical, Masks of all times and nations, Turks and Jews, And barlequins and clowns, with feats gymnastical, Greeks, Romans, Yankee-doodles, and Hindoos ; All kinds of dress, except the ecclesiastical, All people, as their fancies hit, may choose, But no one in these parts may quiz the clergy,— Therefore take heed, ye Freethinkers! I charge yc. IV. You'd better walk about begirt with briars, Although you swore it only was in fun; V But saving this, you may put on whate'er With prettier name in softer accents spoke, No place that's called "Piazza" in Great Britain. VI. This feast is named the Carnival, which being VII. And thus they bid farewell to carnal dishes, Because they have no sauces to their stews; To eat their salmon, at the least, with soy; VIII. And therefore humbly I would recommend Ketchup, Soy, Chili-vinegar, and Harvey, Or, by the Lord! a Lent will well nigh starve ye ; IX. That is to say, if your religion's Roman, Would rather dine in sin on a ragout- 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. XIZ They've pretty faces yet, those same Venetians, In ancient arts by moderns mimick'd ill; And like so many Venuses of Titian's (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,3 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: "Tis but a portrait of his son, and wife, And self; but such a woman! love in life !5 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, 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, Their jealousy (if they are ever jealous) 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: 'Tis 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. |