IX.

Perhaps I loved it well; and should I lay
My ashes in a soil which is not mine,
My spirit shall resume it—if we may
Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine
My hopes of being remember'd in my line
With my land's language: if too fond and far
These aspirations in their scope incline, -

If

my

fame should be, as my fortunes are, Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar

X.

My name from out the temple where the dead Are honour'd by the nations-let it be

And light the laurels on a loftier head!

And be the Spartan's epitaph on me

Sparta hath many a worthier son than he." (1) Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need; The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree

I planted, they have torn me, -and I bleed: I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

XI.

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, (2) 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.

(1) The answer of the mother of Brasidas, the Lacedæmonian general, to the strangers who praised the memory of her son.

XII.

The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns—(3) 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 ! (4) Th' octogenarian chief, Byzantium's conquering foe.

XIII.

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 ?(5) 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.

XIV.

In youth she was all glory,-a new Tyre, -
Her very by-word sprung from victory,

The "Planter of the Lion," () which through fire
And blood she bore o'er subject earth and sea;
Though making many slaves, herself still free,
And Europe's bulwark 'gainst the Ottomite;
Witness Troy's rival, Candia! Vouch it, ye
Immortal waves that saw Lepanto's fight!
For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight.

(2, 3, 4, 5) See "Historical Notes," Nos. III. IV. V. VI.

(6) That is, the Lion of St. Mark, the standard of the republic, which is the origin of the word Pantaloon-Piantaleone, Pantaleon, Pantaloon.

Statues of glass

XV.

all shiver'd- the long file Of her dead Doges are declined to dust; But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust; Their sceptre broken, and their sword in rust, Have yielded to the stranger: empty halls, Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must Too oft remind her who and what enthrals, (1) Have flung a desolate cloud o'er Venice' lovely walls.

XVI.

When Athen's armies fell at Syracuse,
And fetter'd thousands bore the yoke of war,
Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse, (2)
Her voice their only ransom from afar :
See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car
Of the o'ermaster'd victor stops, the reins
Fall from his hands his idle scimitar

Starts from its belt-he rends his captive's chains, And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his

strains.

XVII.

Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine,
Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot,
Thy choral memory of the Bard divine,
Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot
Which ties thee to thy tyrants; and thy lot
Is shameful to the nations, most of all,

-

Albion ! to thee: the Ocean queen should not Abandon Ocean's children; in the fall

Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall.

(1) See "Historical Notes," at the end of this Canto, No. VII. (2) The story is told in Plutarch's Life of Nicias.

XVIII.

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.

XIX.

I can repeople with the past and of

The present there is still for eye and thought,
And meditation chasten'd down, enough;
And more, it may be, than I hoped or sought;
And of the happiest moments which were wrought
Within the web of my existence, some

From thee, fair Venice! have their colours caught: There are some feelings Time cannot benumb, Nor Torture shake, or mine would now be cold and dumb.

XX.

But from their nature will the tannen grow (2)
Loftiest on loftiest and least shelter'd rocks,
Rooted in barrenness, where nought below
Of soil supports them 'gainst the Alpine shocks
Of eddying storms; yet springs the trunk, and mocks
The howling tempest, till its height and frame
Are worthy of the mountains from whose blocks
Of bleak, gray granite into life it came,

And grew agiant tree;—the mind may grow the same

(1) Venice Preserved; Mysteries of Udolpho; the Ghost-Seer, or Armenian; the Merchant of Venice: Othello.

2) Tannen is the plural of tannc, a species of fir peculiar to the Alps,

XXI.

Existence
may be borne, and the deep root
Of life and sufferance make its firm abode
In bare and desolated bosoms: mute

The camel labours with the heaviest load,
And the wolf dies in silence, not bestow'd
In vain should such example be; if they,
Things of ignoble or of savage mood,
Endure and shrink not, we of nobler clay
May temper it to bear, it is but for a day.

XXII.

All suffering doth destroy, or is destroy'd, Even by the sufferer; and, in each event, Ends: Some, with hope replenish'd and rebuoy'd, Return to whence they came with like intent, And weave their web again; some, bow'd and bent, Wax gray and ghastly, withering ere their time, And perish with the reed on which they leant; Some seek devotion, toil, war, good or crime, According as their souls were form'd to sink or climb⚫

XXIII.

But ever and anon of griefs subdued

There comes a token like a scorpion's sting, Scarce seen, but with fresh bitterness imbued And slight withal may be the things which bring Back on the heart the weight which it would fling Aside for ever: it may be a sound

A tone of music- summer's eve—

or springA flower-the wind-the ocean-which shall

wound,

[bound;

Striking the electric chain wherewith we are darkly

which only thrives in very rocky parts, where scarcely soil sufficient for its nourishment can be found. On these spots it grows to a greater height than any other mountain tree.