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.

THE SAME.

(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.

THE SAME.

(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 nightSunset 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,

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 colour as it gasps away,

The last still loveliest, till-'tis gone-and all is gray.

THE AVE MARIA.

(DON JUAN, Canto iii. Stanzas 102-109.)

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 seem'd stirr'd 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.

Sweet hour of twilight !—in the solitude

Of the 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 bell's that rose the boughs along ; The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line,

His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throng Which learn'd from this example not to fly From a true lover,-shadow'd my mind's eye.

Oh, 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'erlabour'd steer;
Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone clings,

Whate'er our household gods protect of dear,

Are gather'd 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!

When Nero perish'd by the justest doom
Which ever the destroyer yet destroy'd,

Amidst the roar of liberated Rome,

Of nations freed, and the world overjoy'd,
Some hand unseen strew'd flowers upon his tomb :
Perhaps the weakness of a heart not void

Of feeling for some kindness done, when power
Had left the wretch an uncorrupted hour.