Part 21

This Church of St. George of the Greeks is one of Venice’s most wonderful places. One has the impression of a sanctuary which is at the same time a treasure-house; gold everywhere--furniture, eikons, lamps, embroideries--not gilding, but real, heavy gold. The vestments are stiff with it. The bearded golden priest goes backwards and forwards, the gold-embroidered curtains opening and shutting for him, revealing and hiding a number of tapers and incense and shining encrusted walls; while the acolytes, in slender folded linen smocks, with gold stoles crossed over their backs, kneel before the rood-screen. There is a sense of the departed splendours of Judaism, of a Solomon’s Temple behind those half-drawn curtains; and every time that _pope_ came forth a name rose up in my mind--Melchizedek, he who was a priest and also a king. After that service at St. George’s of the Greeks, we walked home through St. Mark’s, entering it by the sacristy. The hot air, smoke of incense and dust, the shuffle of human beings and snuffling of priests caught one by the throat after that fair empty splendour of the Greek church. Caught me at least, subduing, crushing, perhaps rumpling my imagination and feelings, but making them humaner. There is, in this magnificence, a share of shabbiness; in this venerable place the sense of the deciduous, the perishable, which, in a way, is also a sense of the eternal. There is room, in St. Mark’s solemnity, for such as that consumptive girl who made head garlands for cemeteries. And St. Mark’s is the greater for her poor presence.

VERNON LEE.

A VENETIAN DAY

On her still lake the city sits While barque and boat beside her flits, Nor hears, her soft siesta taking, The Adriatic billows breaking. ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.

Sunset.... It is the hour when Venice puts forth her stealing charm.... At the evening hour, now, as in old times, a spirit takes Venice and folds it in loving arms, whispering words that are not even guessed by day. FRANCIS MARION CRAWFORD.

Night in Venice: the brilliant stars twinkle in the little pools of water which the sea has left on the marshes, the breeze murmurs in the verdant seaweeds. From time to time we perceive the light from a gondola gliding over the water. The voice of the Adriatic breaking on the opposite shores of the Lido reaches us in a monotonous and majestic sound. We give ourselves up to a thousand delicious dreams. GEORGE SAND.

SUNRISE IN VENICE

The sun rose upon Venice, and presented to me the city, whose image I had so early acquired. In the heart of a multitude, there was stillness. I looked out from the balcony on the crowded quays of yesterday; one or two idle porters were stretched in sleep on the scorching pavement, and a solitary gondola stole over the gleaming waters. This was all.

It was the Villeggiatura, and the absence of the nobility from the city invested it with an aspect even more deserted than it would otherwise have exhibited. I cared not for this. For me, indeed, Venice, silent and desolate, owned a greater charm than it could have commanded with all its feeble imitation of the worthless bustle of a modern metropolis. I congratulated myself on the choice season of the year in which I had arrived at this enchanting city. I do not think that I could have endured to be disturbed by the frivolous sights and sounds of society, before I had formed a full acquaintance with all those marvels of art that command our constant admiration while gliding about the lost capital of the Doges, and before I had yielded a free flow to those feelings of poetic melancholy which swell up in the soul as we contemplate this memorable theatre of human action, wherein have been performed so many of man’s most famous and most graceful deeds.

If I were to assign the particular quality which conduces to that dreamy and voluptuous existence which men of high imagination experience in Venice, I should describe it as the feeling of abstraction which is remarkable in that city and peculiar to it. Venice is the only city which can yield the magical delights of solitude. All is still and silent. No rude sound disturbs your reveries; Fancy, therefore, is not put to flight. No rude sound distracts your self-consciousness. This renders existence intense. We feel everything. And we feel thus keenly in a city not only eminently beautiful, not only abounding in wonderful creations of art, but each step of which is hallowed ground, quick with associations that, in their more various nature, their nearer relation to ourselves, and perhaps their more picturesque character, exercise a greater influence over the imagination than the more antique story of Greece and Rome. We feel all this in a city, too, which, although her lustre be indeed dimmed, can still count among her daughters maidens fairer than the orient pearls with which her warriors once loved to deck them. Poetry, Tradition, and Love, these are the graces that have invested with an ever-charming cestus this Aphrodite of cities.

LORD BEACONSFIELD.

VENICE: NIGHT ILLUSION--MORNING REALITY

If, instead of entering Venice by the Adriatic, the visitor ... crosses at night the long viaduct which connects the town with the mainland, what a strange impression he will receive! To glide silently in the middle of the night over still black waters, to see glimmering lanterns flitting right and left, to hear the splash of an oar on the water, to glide between high banks of architecture, processions of palaces that flit by more felt than seen, as in an etching of Piranesi,--to pass under bridges, hear cries without catching their meaning, every moment to brush past those sombre catafalques which are other gondolas gliding through the darkness as silently as your own,--then, from time to time, to see as in a flash of lightning the outline of a figure leaning forward on its oar, a lamp burning and casting a keen reflection at the corner of a winding canal, a window brilliantly lighted and making a flaring hole in the midst of night,--to get entangled in dark water-lanes, turning, twisting, moving, without the feeling of movement, and all at once to land at a staircase which plunges its steps down into the water, and leads into a large and noble hall of fine architectural proportions, in a palace gleaming with lights, full of life and activity, and of busy men who bring one back after that strange journey to the commonplaces of hotel life,--this is certainly the most wonderful of dreams, a sort of ideal nightmare.

It has scarcely lasted an hour; but you are tired from a long journey; you soon fall asleep from weariness, hardly asking yourself, in the first uncertainty and fatigue, over what Styx you have sailed, what strange city you have traversed, and whether you have not been the dupe of a dream. In the morning you rush out upon the balcony, and there, amidst dazzling fight and a very debauch of colours, with a shimmering of pearl and silver, triumphant upon the waters of her lagoon, you behold that Venice which you have never seen except in Byron, in Otway, Musset, and George Sand. She glows, she sings in silvery radiance; here in very truth is the Queen of the Adriatic! A pigeon of St. Mark’s flies over the balcony, throwing its shadow on the flagstones, and you cherish the long-awaited sight! Here are the islands, the Arsenal, the Lido, the Mole, the Redentore, Santa Maria Maggiore, the Ducal Palace, the gondoliers; in a word, all the city of Canaletto! But is it not an illusive scene, a phantasmagoria, a treacherous dream?--if it were but a mirage after all?

And when you begin to wander about the town, stupefied, dazzled, confused, blinded; when you go into the museums, the churches; when cradled in your gondola you pass down that marvellous avenue, the Grand Canal; when you shall have seen face to face, in their full glory, Veronese, Tintoret, Vittoria, the gentle Carpaccio, the Bellini, those sweet and solemn masters, the Vivarini, the Palmas, the great Titian, Sansovino, Verocchio, the Lombardi, the elegant and noble Leopardi, Calendario the rebel, whose genius did not save him from condign punishment; when you shall have viewed all these painters, sculptors, architects, these mighty spirits who, in the palaces of the Doges, at the Frari, in the Arsenal, at Santa Maria Formosa, at San Rocco and the Procuratie, or on either bank of the Grand Canal, have celebrated the glory of Venice with their gorgeous palettes, have moulded and carved the bronze and marble with their puissant hands, have raised to the sky the clear profiles of the campaniles in their hues of white and rose, have cast upon the green mirror of the waters of Canareggio the delicate network of Gothic palaces, or the sudden projections of classic entablatures and balconies; after all this, you will come in worn out, confused, overwhelmed by the force and greatness of these men of the Renaissance, and you will call out to your gondolier, ‘To the Lido,’ in order that you may find rest in Nature from the dazzling things of art. In another week you will be looking at Tintoret with a careless eye; for masterpieces crowd too thick upon one another; bronzes, enamels, triptychs, marbles, figures of doges lying on their sculptured tombs, famous condottieri buried in their armour, or standing haughty and valorous in full panoply on their mausoleums, will leave you indifferent. You are hungry for the open air, for the lagoon, the changing aspects of the pearl-grey waves, for Nature’s own reflections as Guardi and Canaletto caught them.... As you get further from the shore, you turn to enjoy the view, for it is the most splendid scene ever dreamt by the imagination; and before this picture of Venice--a picture signed by the Master of masters--you forget the immortal works made by hands that have been stiff for centuries.

CHARLES YRIARTE.

SUNSET AND VENICE

This perfect evening slowly falls Without a stain, without a cloud; The sun has set--and all the bells Of Venice in the skies are loud,

Clashing and chiming far and near ‘Ave Maria,’ while the moon, Large-globed and red, climbs through the mist To loiter o’er the dark lagoon.

And now the loud o’ermastering sound Ceases, and silence, like a tide, Flows o’er the shores of sea and sky, And the gray earth is sanctified.

Beneath me the long gardens lie; Cool alleys trellised with the vine; And on the rustling mulberry-trees Shadows the solitary pine.

Stone-black, it spreads against the fire That westward reddens and above Pales into gold and rose and pearl, And then to azure, warm as love.

How sweet the air, how calm the eve! How still the light, how still the pine! But O the more I know their rest, The more I feel it is not mine.

Great Nature loves our joy and calm; But to our restless scorn and grief, Wild weariness of love, she gives No tenderness, and no relief.

Unkind, alas, she is to me! What has her heart to do with strife? ‘Seek peace,’ she says, ‘my law of peace.’-- I cannot, let me live my life.

STOPFORD A. BROOKE.

AT SUNSET

Fusina’s fence of boughs No more allows Me vision of a red wheel in the west, Yet cloud and wave retain Their splendid stain, Ere Venice by the night be repossessed.

I drift, as in a dream, Down the blue stream By oozy beds of weed and shell and slime; And Gigio, when he breaks The water, makes A lazy sound that fits the silent time.

Now, with the sinking fires, Yon train of spires Melts on its mirror in a mist of grey, While an obscurer pall Wraps the white wall Of lonely hills that deep in distance lay.

Swung high in convent-tower Bells mark the hour For grave Armenian monks to bend in prayer; They from their quiet isle Watch the last smile Of sunset fade upon the golden air.

Ah! could the pageant stay! Would yesterday Were impotent to sweep it from my sight; This were my hour to die, And silently To step from world of flame to world of night!

PERCY PINKERTON.

SUNSET

The autumn evening dies, and all the west Is warm soft gold to half the heaven’s height: And in the silent air I float and rest On waters that are lovers of the light.

The clear curved dome of the Redeemer’s Church Is black against the yellow arch of sky; And purple-peaked within the sunset’s porch, The Euganean hills like islands lie--

Children of Padua, but to Venice friends! Who that has seen them in the evening hour, But has forgotten earthly cares and ends, All things but Love that never loses power;

And from St. George among the Seaweed, set A sapphire isle in golden waters, down To the Armenian Convent where the fret Of the sea winds has turned the cypress brown,

The spacious waters in full tide are spread, A lustrous cloth of gold with colours splashed;-- Blue liquid belts and mirrored clouds blood-red, Green blazing sea-marsh, broidered waves that flashed

Now ebony, now scarlet, when the tide, Smoothing the ripple on the shallow’s rim, Flowed strong to southward where, in towered pride, Islanded Venice sang her evening hymn.

How calm, how passionless, how golden-fair! Beauty, I thought, stood tiptoe on his height-- When down the near canal, and tossed in air, Two lofty sails moved slow athwart the light;

And their tall masts and soaring booms aslope, Were sky-companions of the lonely dome, That on Giudecca bids the sinner hope, And seen from Malamocco speaks of home.

The moving sails, the thought of ocean’s life, The sense of human will within the ship, Enriched the peace with which they seemed at strife, And filled the cup of Beauty to the lip.

O thou, who wast beside me when we loved This vision of the evening and the sea; Why art thou silent, why so far removed? Implore of Death, ask God to set thee free.

STOPFORD A. BROOKE.

A VENETIAN NIGHT

’Tis a goodly night; the cloudy wind which blew From the Levant hath crept into its cave, And the broad moon has brightened. What a stillness!... Around me are the stars and waters-- Worlds mirror’d in the ocean, goodlier sight Than torches glared back by a gaudy glass; And the great element, which is to space What ocean is to earth, spreads its blue depths, Soften’d with the first breathings of the spring; The high moon sails upon her beauteous way, Serenely smoothing o’er the lofty walls Of those tall piles and sea-girt palaces, Whose porphyry pillars, and whose costly fronts, Fraught with the orient spoil of many marbles, Like altars ranged along the broad canal, Seem each a trophy of some mighty deed Rear’d up from out the waters, scarce less strangely Than those more massy and mysterious giants Of architecture, those Titanian fabrics, Which point in Egypt’s plains to times that have No other record. All is gentle: nought Stirs rudely; but, congenial with the night, Whatever walks is gliding like a spirit. The tinklings of some vigilant guitars Of sleepless lovers to a wakeful mistress, And cautious opening of the casement, showing That he is not unheard; while her young hand, Fair as the moonlight of which it seems part, So delicately white, it trembles in The act of opening the forbidden lattice, To let in love through music, makes his heart Thrill like his lyre-strings at the sight; the dash Phosphoric of the oar, or rapid twinkle Of the far lights of skimming gondolas, And the responsive voices of the choir Of boatmen answering back with verse for verse; Some dusky shadow checkering the Rialto; Some glimmering palace roof, or tapering spire, Are all the sights and sounds which here pervade The ocean-born and earth-commanding city-- How sweet and soothing is this hour of calm! I thank thee, Night! for thou hast chased away Those horrid bodements which, amidst the throng, I could not dissipate: and with the blessing Of thy benign and quiet influence, Now will I to my couch, although to rest Is almost wronging such a night as this.

LORD BYRON.

VENETIAN NOCTURNE

Down the narrow Calle where the moonlight cannot enter, The houses are so high; Silent and alone we pierced the night’s dim core and centre-- Only you and I.

Clear and sad our footsteps rang along the hollow pavement, Sounding like a bell; Sounding like a voice that cries to souls in Life’s enslavement, ‘There is Death as well!’

Down the narrow dark we went, until a sudden whiteness Made us hold our breath; All the white Salute towers and domes in moonlit brightness,-- Ah! could this be Death?

A. MARY F. ROBINSON (_Madame Duclaux_).

NIGHT IN THE PIAZZA

There have been times, not many, but enough To quiet all repinings of the heart; There have been times, in which my tranquil soul, No longer nebulous, sparse, errant, seemed Upon its axis solidly to move, Centred and fast: no mere elastic blank For random rays to traverse unretained, But rounding luminous its fair ellipse Around its central sun....

O happy hours! O compensation ample for long days Of what impatient tongues call wretchedness! O beautiful, beneath the magic moon, To walk the watery way of palaces! O beautiful, o’ervaulted with gemmed blue, The spacious court, with colour and with gold, With cupolas, and pinnacles, and points, And crosses multiplex, and lips and balls (Wherewith the bright stars unreproving mix, Nor scorn by hasty eyes to be confused); Fantastically perfect this low pile Of Oriental glory; these long ranges Of classic chiselling, this gay flickering crowd, And the calm campanile. Beautiful! O beautiful! and that seemed more profound This morning by the pillar when I sat Under the great arcade, at the review, And took, and held, and ordered on my brain The faces, and the voices, and the whole mass O’ the motley facts of existence flowing by! O perfect, if ’twere all!

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.

VENETA MARINA

INTERMEZZO: VENETIAN NIGHTS

The masts rise white to the stars, White on the night of the sky, Out of the water’s night, And the stars lean down to them white. Ah! how the stars seem nigh; How far away are the stars!

And I too under the stars, Alone with the night again, And the water’s monotone; I and the night alone, And the world and the ways of men Farther from me than the stars.

ARTHUR SYMONS.

VENETIAN NIGHT

Her eyes in the darkness shone, in the twilight shed By the gondola bent like the darkness over her head. Softly the gondola rocked, lights came and went; A white glove shone as her black fan lifted and leant Where the silk of her dress, the blue of a bittern’s wing, Rustled against my knee, and, murmuring The sweet slow hesitant English of a child, Her voice was articulate laughter, her soul smiled. Softly the gondola rocked, lights came and went; From the sleeping houses a shadow of slumber leant Over our heads like a wing, and the dim lagoon, Rustling with silence, slumbered under the moon. Softly the gondola rocked, and a pale light came Over the waters, mild as a silver flame; She lay back, thrilling with smiles, in the twilight shed By the gondola bent like the darkness over her head; I saw her eyes shine subtly, then close awhile: I remember her silence, and, in the night, her smile.

ARTHUR SYMONS.

NIGHT IN VENICE

Night in Venice! Night is nowhere else so wonderful, unless it be in winter among the high Alps. But the nights of Venice and the nights of the mountains are too different in kind to be compared.

There is the ever-recurring miracle of the full moon rising, before day is dead, behind San Giorgio, spreading a path of gold on the lagoon, which black boats traverse with the glow-worm lamp upon their prow; ascending the cloudless sky and silvering the domes of the Salute; pouring vitreous sheen upon the red lights of the Piazzetta; flooding the Grand Canal, and lifting the Rialto higher in ethereal whiteness; piercing but penetrating not the murky labyrinth of _rio_ linked with _rio_, through which we wind in light and shadow, to reach once more the level glories and the luminous expanse of heaven beyond Misericordia.

This is the melodrama of Venetian moonlight; and if a single impression of the night has to be retained from one visit to Venice, those are fortunate who chance upon a full moon of fair weather. Yet I know not whether some quieter and soberer effects are not more thrilling. To-night, for example, the waning moon will rise late through veils of _scirocco_. Over the bridges of San Cristofore and San Gregorio, through the deserted Calle di Mezzo, my friend and I walk in darkness, pass the marble basements of the Salute, and push our way along its Riva to the point of the Dogana. We are out at sea alone, between the Canalozzo and the Giudecca. A moist wind ruffles the water and cools our forehead. It is so dark that we can only see San Giorgio by the light reflected on it from the Piazzetta. The same light climbs the Campanile of St. Mark, and shows the golden angel in a mystery of gloom. The only noise that reaches us is a confused hum from the Piazza. Sitting and musing there, the blackness of the water whispers in our ears a tale of death. And now we hear a splash of oars, and gliding through the darkness comes a single boat. One man leaps upon the landing-place without a word and disappears. There is another wrapped in a military cloak asleep. I see his face beneath me, pale and quiet. The _barcaruolo_ turns the point in silence. From the darkness they came; into the darkness they have gone. It is only an ordinary incident of coastguard service. But the spirit of the night has made a poem of it.

Even tempestuous and rainy weather, though melancholy enough, is never sordid here. There is no noise from carriage traffic in Venice, and the sea-wind preserves the purity and transparency of the atmosphere. It had been raining all day, but at evening came a partial clearing. I went down to the Molo, where the large reach of the lagoon was all moon-silvered, and San Giorgio Maggiore dark against the bluish sky, and Santa Maria della Salute domed with moon-irradiated pearl, and the wet slabs of the Riva shimmering in moonlight, the whole misty sky, with its clouds and stellar spaces, drenched in moonlight, nothing but moonlight sensible except the tawny flare of gas-lamps and the orange lights of gondolas afloat upon the waters. On such a night the very spirit of Venice is abroad. We feel why she is called Bride of the Sea.