Chapter 23

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 Looked to the wingèd Lion's marble piles, Where Venice sat 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 Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. In purple was she robed, and of her feast Monarchs partook, and deemed 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 vanished 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.

The beings of the mind are not of clay; Essentially immortal, they create And multiply in us a brighter ray And more beloved existence: that which Fate Prohibits to dull life, in this our state Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied, First exiles, then replaces what we hate; Watering the heart whose early flowers have died, And with a fresher growth replenishing the void.

ODE TO VENICE

I

O Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls Are level with the waters, there shall be A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls, A loud lament along the sweeping sea! If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee, What should thy sons do?--anything but weep: And yet they only murmur in their sleep. In contrast with their fathers--as the slime, The dull green ooze of the receding deep, Is with the dashing of the spring-tide foam That drives the sailor shipless to his home-- Are they to those that were; and thus they creep, Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping streets. Oh, agony! that centuries should reap No mellower harvest! Thirteen hundred years Of wealth and glory turned to dust and tears; And every monument the stranger meets, Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets; And even the Lion all subdued appears, And the harsh sound of the barbarian drum, With dull and daily dissonance, repeats The echo of thy tyrant's voice along The soft waves, once all musical to song, That heaved beneath the moonlight with the throng Of gondolas--and to the busy hum Of cheerful creatures, whose most sinful deeds Were but the overbeating of the heart, And flow of too much happiness, which needs The aid of age to turn its course apart From the luxuriant and voluptuous flood Of sweet sensations, battling with the blood. But these are better than the gloomy errors, The weeds of nations in their last decay, When Vice walks forth with her unsoftened terrors, And Mirth is madness, and but smiles to slay: And Hope is nothing but a false delay, The sick man's lightning half an hour ere death, When Faintness, the last mortal birth of Pain, And apathy of limb, the dull beginning Of the cold staggering race which Death is winning, Steals vein by vein and pulse by pulse away, Yet so relieving the o'er-tortured clay, To him appears renewal of his breath, And freedom the mere numbness of his chain; And then he talks of life, and how again He feels his spirit soaring--albeit weak, And of the fresher air, which he would seek: And as he whispers knows not that he gasps, That his thin finger feels not what it clasps, And so the film comes o'er him--and the dizzy Chamber swims round and round--and shadows busy, At which he vainly catches, flit and gleam, Till the last rattle chokes the strangled scream, And all is ice and blackness--and the earth That which it was the moment ere our birth.

II

There is no hope for nations!--Search the page Of many thousand years--the daily scene, The flow and ebb of each recurring age, The everlasting _to be_ which _hath been_, Hath taught us naught, or little: still we lean On things that rot beneath our weight, and wear Our strength away in wrestling with the air: For 'tis our nature strikes us down; the beasts Slaughtered in hourly hecatombs for feasts Are of as high an order--they must go Even where their driver goads them, though to slaughter. Ye men, who pour your blood for kings as water, What have they given your children in return? A heritage of servitude and woes, A blindfold bondage, where your hire is blows. What! do not yet the red-hot plowshares burn, O'er which you stumble in a false ordeal, And deem this proof of loyalty the _real_; Kissing the hand that guides you to your scars, And glorying as you tread the glowing bars? All that your sires have left you, all that Time Bequeaths of free, and History of sublime, Spring from a different theme! Ye see and read, Admire and sigh, and then succumb and bleed! Save the few spirits who, despite of all, And worse than all--the sudden crimes engendered By the down-thundering of the prison-wall, And thirst to swallow the sweet waters tendered Gushing from Freedom's fountains, when the crowd, Maddened with centuries of drought, are loud, And trample on each other to obtain The cup which brings oblivion of a chain Heavy and sore, in which long yoked they plowed The sand; or if there sprung the yellow grain, 'Twas not for them,--their necks were too much bowed, And their dead palates chewed the cud of pain;-- Yes! the few spirits who, despite of deeds Which they abhor, confound not with the cause Those momentary starts from Nature's laws Which, like the pestilence and earthquake, smite But for a term, then pass, and leave the earth With all her seasons to repair the blight With a few summers, and again put forth Cities and generations--fair when free-- For, Tyranny, there blooms no bud for thee!

III

Glory and Empire! once upon these towers With Freedom--godlike Triad!--how ye sate! The league of mightiest nations in those hours When Venice was an envy, might abate, But did not quench her spirit; in her fate All were enwrapped: the feasted monarchs knew And loved their hostess, nor could learn to hate, Although they humbled. With the kingly few The many felt, for from all days and climes She was the voyager's worship; even her crimes Were of the softer order--born of Love. She drank no blood, nor fattened on the dead, But gladdened where her harmless conquests spread; For these restored the Cross, that from above Hallowed her sheltering banners, which incessant Flew between earth and the unholy Crescent, Which if it waned and dwindled, Earth may thank The city it has clothed in chains, which clank Now, creaking in the ears of those who owe The name of Freedom to her glorious struggles; Yet she but shares with them a common woe, And called the "kingdom" of a conquering foe, But knows what all--and, most of all, _we_--know, With what set gilded terms a tyrant juggles!

IV

The name of Commonwealth is past and gone O'er the three fractions of the groaning globe: Venice is crushed, and Holland deigns to own A sceptre, and endures the purple robe; If the free Switzer yet bestrides alone His chainless mountains, 'tis but for a time, For tyranny of late is cunning grown, And in its own good season tramples down The sparkles of our ashes. One great clime, Whose vigorous offspring by dividing ocean Are kept apart and nursed in the devotion Of Freedom, which their fathers fought for and Bequeathed--a heritage of heart and hand, And proud distinction from each other land, Whose sons must bow them at a monarch's motion, As if his senseless sceptre were a wand Full of the magic of exploded science-- Still one great clime, in full and free defiance, Yet rears her crest, unconquered and sublime, Above the far Atlantic! She has taught Her Esau-brethren that the haughty flag, The floating fence of Albion's feebler crag, May strike to those whose red right hands have bought Rights cheaply earned with blood. Still, still forever, Better, though each man's life-blood were a river, That it should flow, and overflow, than creep Through thousand lazy channels in our veins, Dammed like the dull canal with locks and chains, And moving as a sick man in his sleep, Three paces, and then faltering:--better be Where the extinguished Spartans still are free, In their proud charnel of Thermopylæ, Than stagnate in our marsh,--or o'er the deep Fly, and one current to the ocean add, One spirit to the souls our fathers had, One freeman more, America, to thee!

THE EAST

From 'The Bride of Abydos'

Know ye the land where the cypress and myrtle Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime? Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle, Now melt into sorrow, now madden to crime? Know ye the land of the cedar and vine, Where the flowers ever blossom, the beams ever shine; Where the light wings of Zephyr, oppressed with perfume, Wax faint o'er the gardens of Gül in her bloom; Where the citron and olive are fairest of fruit, And the voice of the nightingale never is mute: Where the tints of the earth and the hues of the sky, In color though varied, in beauty may vie, And the purple of ocean is deepest in dye; Where the virgins are soft as the roses they twine, And all, save the spirit of man, is divine? 'Tis the clime of the East! 'tis the land of the Sun! Can he smile on such deeds as his children have done? Oh! wild as the accents of lovers' farewell Are the hearts which they bear, and the tales which they tell.

ORIENTAL ROYALTY

From 'Don Juan'

He had fifty daughters and four dozen sons, Of whom all such as came of age were stowed-- The former in a palace, where like nuns They lived till some Bashaw was sent abroad, When she whose turn it was, was wed at once, Sometimes at six years old--though this seems odd, 'Tis true: the reason is, that the Bashaw Must make a present to his sire-in-law.

His sons were kept in prison, till they grew Of years to fill a bowstring or the throne,-- One or the other, but which of the two Could yet be known unto the Fates alone: Meantime the education they went through Was princely, as the proofs have always shown; So that the heir-apparent still was found No less deserving to be hanged than crowned.

A GRECIAN SUNSET

From 'The Curse of Minerva'

Slow sinks, more lovely ere his race be run, Along Morea's hills the setting sun; Not, as in Northern climes, obscurely bright, But one unclouded blaze of living light: O'er the hushed deep the yellow beam he throws, Gilds the green wave that trembles as it glows. On cold Ægina's rock and Idra's isle The god of gladness sheds his parting smile; O'er his own regions lingering, loves to shine, Though there his altars are no more divine. Descending fast, the mountain shadows kiss Thy glorious gulf, unconquered Salamis! Their azure arches through the long expanse, More deeply purpled meet his mellowing glance, And tenderest tints, along their summits driven, Mark his gay course, and own the hues of heaven; Till, darkly shaded from the land and deep, Behind his Delphian cliff he sinks to sleep.

On such an eve his palest beam he cast, When, Athens! here thy Wisest looked his last. How watched thy better sons his farewell ray, That closed their murdered sage's latest day! Not yet--not yet--Sol pauses on the hill-- The precious hour of parting lingers still: But sad his light to agonizing eyes, And dark the mountain's once delightful dyes; Gloom o'er the lovely land he seemed to pour, The land where Phoebus never frowned before: But ere he sank below Cithæron's head, The cup of woe was quaffed--the spirit fled; The soul of him who scorned to fear or fly-- Who lived and died as none can live or die.

But lo! from high Hymettus to the plain, The queen of night asserts her silent reign. No murky vapor, herald of the storm, Hides her fair face, nor girds her glowing form. With cornice glimmering as the moonbeams play, Where the white column greets her grateful ray, And, bright around with quivering beams beset, Her emblem sparkles o'er the minaret; The groves of olive scattered dark and wide, Where meek Cephisus pours his scanty tide, The cypress saddening by the sacred mosque, The gleaming turret of the gay kiosk, And, dun and sombre 'mid the holy calm, Near Theseus's fane yon solitary palm,-- All, tinged with varied hues, arrest the eye, And dull were his that passed them heedless by.

Again the Ægean, heard no more afar, Lulls his chafed breast from elemental war; Again his waves in milder tints unfold Their long array of sapphire and of gold, Mixed with the shades of many a distant isle, That frown where gentler ocean deigns to smile.

AN ITALIAN SUNSET

From 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'

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 colors 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 Rolled o'er the peak of the far Rhætian hill, As Day and Night contending were, until Nature reclaimed 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 glassed within it glows,

Filled with the face of heaven, which from afar Comes 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 color as it gasps away, The last still loveliest, till--'tis gone--and all is gray.

TWILIGHT

From 'Don Juan'

T' our tale.--The feast was over, the slaves gone, The dwarfs and dancing girls had all retired; The Arab lore and poet's song were done, And every sound of revelry expired; The lady and her lover, left alone, The rosy flood of twilight sky admired;-- Ave Maria! o'er the earth and sea, That heavenliest hour of Heaven is worthiest thee!

Ave Maria! blessed be the hour, The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft Have felt that moment in its fullest power Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft, While swung the deep bell in the distant tower, Or the faint dying day hymn stole aloft, And not a breath crept through the rosy air, And yet the forest leaves seemed stirred with prayer.

Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of prayer! Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of love! Ave Maria! may our spirits dare Look up to thine and to thy Son's above! Ave Maria! oh that face so fair! Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty Dove-- What though 'tis but a pictured image strike? That painting is no idol--'tis too like.

Some kindly casuists are pleased to say, In nameless print, that I have no devotion; But set those persons down with me to pray, And you shall see who has the properest notion Of getting into heaven the shortest way: My altars are the mountains and the ocean, Earth, air, stars--all that springs from the great Whole, Who hath produced and will receive the soul.

Sweet hour of twilight!--in the solitude Of that pine forest, and the silent shore Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood, Rooted where once the Adrian wave flowed o'er To where the last Cæsarean fortress stood,-- Evergreen forest! which Boccaccio's lore And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me, How have I loved the twilight hour and thee!

The shrill cicalas, people of the pine, Making their summer lives one ceaseless song, Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine, And vesper bells that rose the boughs along: The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line, His hell-dogs and their chase, and the fair throng Which learned from this example not to fly From a true lover--shadowed my mind's eye.

O Hesperus! thou bringest all good things: Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer, To the young bird the parent's brooding wings, The welcome stall to the o'er-labored steer; Whatever of peace about our hearthstone clings, Whate'er our household gods protect of dear, Are gathered round us by thy look of rest; Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast.

Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart Of those who sail the seas, on the first day When they from their sweet friends are torn apart; Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way As the far bell of vesper makes him start, Seeming to weep the dying day's decay. Is this a fancy which our reason scorns? Ah! surely nothing dies but something mourns.

AN ALPINE STORM

From 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'

The sky is changed--and such a change!--O Night, And storm, and darkness, ye are wondrous strong, Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light Of a dark eye in woman! Far along, From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud, But every mountain now hath found a tongue, And Jura answers through her misty shroud Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud!

And this is in the night.--Most glorious night! Thou wert not sent for slumber! let me be A sharer in thy fierce and far delight-- A portion of the tempest and of thee! How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea, And the big rain comes dancing to the earth! And now again 'tis black--and now the glee Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth, As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth.

Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between Heights which appear as lovers who have parted In hate, whose mining depths so intervene That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted! Though in their souls which thus each other thwarted, Love was the very root of that fond rage Which blighted their life's bloom, and then departed; Itself expired, but leaving them an age Of years all winters--war within themselves to wage--

Now, where the quick Rhone thus hath cleft his way, The mightiest of the storms hath ta'en his stand: For here not one, but many, make their play And fling their thunderbolts from hand to hand, Flashing and cast around: of all the band, The brightest through these parted hills hath forked His lightnings; as if he did understand That in such gaps as desolation worked, There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurked.

Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings! ye, With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul To make these felt and feeling, well may be Things that have made me watchful; the far roll Of your departing voices is the knoll Of what in me is sleepless,--if I rest. But where of ye, O tempests! is the goal? Are ye like those within the human breast? Or do ye find at length, like eagles, some high nest?

THE OCEAN

From 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage'

But I forgot: my Pilgrim's shrine is won, And he and I must part;--so let it be: His task and mine alike are nearly done; Yet once more let us look upon the sea: The midland ocean breaks on him and me, And from the Alban Mount we now behold Our friend of youth, that ocean, which when we Beheld it last by Calpe's rock unfold Those waves, we followed on till the dark Euxine rolled

Upon the blue Symplegades: long years-- Long, though not very many--since have done Their work on both; much suffering and some tears Have left us nearly where we had begun: Yet not in vain our mortal race hath run,-- We have had our reward, and it is here; That we can yet feel gladdened by the sun, Can reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dear As if there were no man to trouble what is clear.

Oh that the desert were my dwelling-place, With one fair Spirit for my minister, That I might all forget the human race, And, hating no one, love but only her! Ye Elements!--in whose ennobling stir I feel myself exalted--can ye not Accord me such a being? Do I err In deeming such inhabit many a spot? Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin--his control Stops with the shore;--upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.