Came Megara before me, and behind Ægina lay, Piræus on the right, And Corinth on the left; I lay reclined Along the prow, and saw all these unite In ruin, even as he had seen the desolate sight;
For Time hath not rebuilt them, but uprear'd Barbaric dwellings on their shatter'd site, Which only make more mourn'd and more endear'd The few last rays of their far-scatter'd light, And the crush'd relics of their vanish'd might. The Roman saw these tombs in his own age, These sepulchres of cities, which excite
Sad wonder, and his yet surviving page
The moral lesson bears, drawn from such pilgrimage.
That page is now before me, and on mine His country's ruin added to the mass
Of perish'd states he mourn'd in their decline, And I in desolation: all that was
Of then destruction is; and now, alas!
Rome Rome imperial, bows her to the storm, In the same dust and blackness, and we pass The skeleton of her Titanic form,
Wrecks of another world, whose ashes still are warm.
Yet, Italy! through every other land
Thy wrongs should ring, and shall, from side to side; Mother of Arts! as once of arms; thy hand Was then our guardian, and is still our guide; Parent of our Religion! whom the wide Nations have knelt to for the keys of heaven! Europe, repentant of her parricide,
Shall yet redeem thee, and, all backward driven, Roll the barbarian tide, and sue to be forgiven.
(CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iv. Stanzas 1-4.)
I STOOD in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: A thousand years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying Glory smiles
O'er the far times, when many a subject land Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!
She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance, with majestic motion,
A ruler of the waters and their powers:
And such she was ;-her daughters had their dowers From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. In purple was she robed, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increased.
In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, And silent rows the songless gondolier; Her palaces are crumbling to the shore, And music meets not always now the ear: Those days are gone-but Beauty still is here. States fall, arts fade—but Nature doth not die, Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, The pleasant place of all festivity, The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!
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, can not be swept or worn away— The keystones of the arch! though all were o'er, For us repeopled were the solitary shore.
(CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iv. Stanzas 11-13.)
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.
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
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. 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.
(CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iv. Stanza 18.)
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, 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.
AN AUGUST EVENING IN ITALY.
(CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iv. Stanzas 27-29.)
THE moon is up, and yet it is not night— Sunset divides the sky with her a sea Of glory streams along the Alpine height Of blue Friuli's mountains; Heaven is free From clouds, but of all colours seems to be Melted to one vast Iris of the West, Where the Day joins the past Eternity; While, on the other hand, meek Dian's crest Floats through the azure air—an island of the blest!
A single star is at her side, and reigns
With her o'er half the lovely heaven; but still Yon sunny sea heaves brightly, and remains Roll'd o'er the peak of the far Rhætian hill, As day and Night contending were, until Nature reclaim'd her order :-gently flows The deep-dyed Brenta, where their hues instil The odorous purple of a new-born rose,
Which streams upon her stream, and glass'd within it glows,
Fill'd with the face of heaven, which, from afar,
Çomes down upon the waters; all its hues, From the rich sunset to the rising star,
Their magical variety diffuse :
And now they change; a paler shadow strews Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting day
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues With a new colour as it gasps away,
The last still loveliest, till-'tis gone-and all is gray.
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