VENICE.
Reading edition
“Oh! thou, that once was wedded to the sea—
Queen of the Adriatic—where are thy glories now?”
Oh Death! thy palaces are here,
Thy footsteps echo round,
And chills the heart with nameless fear
At that unearthly sound—
And Venice, at thy outer gate,
Sits widowed, bowed and desolate,
A queen, yet all discrowned,
With ashes heaped upon her head—
A mother wailing for her dead!
It was not thus in ages past
Oh! mistress of the sea,
When to the wind thy banner cast
Would rally forth the free—
It was not thus when ev’ry shore
From farthest Ind to Scylla bore
Its richest gifts for thee—
Nor thus when at Lepanti fell
The fiery hordes of Ishmaël.
Thou saw’st proconsuls on the Rhone,
The Gaul beyond the Rhine,
The Cæsar on his eastern throne,
The English Alfred’s line—
Thou saw’st the first and last crusade
And Florence in her shackles laid,
And Rome all drunk with wine,
And haughty Stamboul’s overthrow
Before the blind old Dandolo.
Thou wast when Moslems ravaged Spain,
Thou saw’st Grenada fall,—
Thou wast when France received the Dane,
When murder reigned in Gaul,—
Thou wast before the Turk was known,
When Huns were on the Roman throne,
And England yet in thrall,—
And still, as nations rose and died,
Thy Titan front the world defied!
But now thou art all desolate,
The very mock of fame,
With nothing save thy fallen state,
Thy ruins, and—a name.
And silent are thy songs of mirth,
Thy form is prostrate on the earth,
Thy brow is white with shame—
Oh God! a harlot in her woe!
Did ever grandeur fall so low?
And waving from thy palace walls
The long grass rankly grows—
Lamenting, through its dull canals,
The sluggish water flows—
And ’neath the Lion of St. Mark—
That scourge of vanished empires—hark!
The tramp of Austrian foes.
How long, Oh! Venice, o’er thy grave
Shall jeer the coward and the slave?
I stand beside the Lion’s mouth
And gaze across the sea,
The breeze is wafting from the south
No argosies to thee!
Thy hundred seers, thy fearful TEN.
Are not, and shall not be again
While God is for the free!
Yet they a deathless name shall find,
A scorn, a hissing to mankind!
Go! let her moulder where she fell—
We only weep the brave—
Her destiny befits her well,
A traitor, then a slave,—
Betraying all, herself betrayed,
And smote by parricidal blade,
She sank into her grave—
Shall nations shed a tear for her
Whose life was Freedom’s sepulchre?
ß.