English

Let us lift up the curtain, and observe
What passes in that chamber. Now a sigh,
And now a groan is heard. Then all is still
Twenty are sitting as in judgment there;
Men who have served their country and grown gray
In governments and distant embassies,
Men eminent alike in war and peace;
Such as in effigy shall long adorn
The walls of Venice — to show what she was!
Their garb is black, and black the arras is,
And sad the general aspect. Yet their looks
Are calm, are cheerful; nothing there like grief,

It was St. Mary's Eve, and all poured forth
For some great festival. The fisher came
From his green islet, bringing o'er the waves
His wife and little one; the husbandman
From the firm land, with many a friar and nun,
And village-maiden, her first flight from home,
Crowding the common ferry. All arrived;
And in his straw the prisoner turned to hear,
So great the stir in V ENICE . Old and young
Thronged her three hundred bridges; the grave Turk,
Turbaned, long-vested, and the cozening Jew
In yellow hat and threadbare gabardine,

Boy , call the Gondola; the sun is set — —
It came, and we embarked; but instantly,
As at the waving of a magic wand,
Though she had stept on board so light of foot,
So light of heart, laughing she knew not why,
Sleep overcame her; on my arm she slept.
From time to time I waked her; but the boat
Rocked her to sleep again. The moon was now
Rising full-orbed, but broken by a cloud.
The wind was hushed, and the sea mirror-like.
A single zephyr, as enamored, played
With her loose tresses, and drew more and more

Over how many tracts, vast, measureless,
Ages on ages roll, and none appear
Save the wild hunter ranging for his prey;
While on this spot of earth, the work of man,
How much has been transacted! Emperors, Popes,
Warriors, from far and wide, laden with spoil,
Landing, have here performed their several parts,
Then left the stage to others. Not a stone
In the broad pavement, but to him who has
An eye, an ear for the inanimate world,
Tells of past ages.
In that temple-porch
(The brass is gone, the porphyry remains)

Happy is he who loves companionship,
And lights on thee, L UIGI . Thee I found,
Playing at Mora on the cabin-roof
With Punchinello — 'T is a game to strike
Fire from the coldest heart. What then from thine?
And, ere the twentieth throw, I had resolved,
Won by thy looks. Thou wert an honest lad;
Wert generous, grateful, not without ambition.
Had it depended on thy will alone,
Thou wouldst have numbered in thy family
At least six Doges and the first in fame.
But that was not to be. In thee I saw

There is a glorious city in the sea.
The sea is in the broad, the narrow streets,
Ebbing and flowing; and the salt sea-weed
Clings to the marble of her palaces.
No track of men, no footsteps to and fro,
Lead to her gates. The path lies o'er the sea,
Invisible; and from the land we went,
As to a floating city — steering in,
And gliding up her streets as in a dream,
So smoothly, silently — by many a dome,
Mosque-like, and many a stately portico,
The statues ranged along an azure sky;

" In  this neglected mirror (the broad frame
Of massy silver serves to testify
That many a noble matron of the house
Has sat before it) once, alas! was seen
What led to many sorrows. From that time
The bat came hither for a sleeping place;
And he, who cursed another in his heart,
Said, " Be thy dwelling, through the day and night,
Shunned like Coll'alto" " — 'T was in that old pile,
Which flanks the cliff with its gray battlements
Flung here and there, and, like an eagle's nest,
Hangs in the Trevisan, that thus the steward,

AM I in I TALY ? Is this the Mincius?
Are those the distant turrets of Verona?
And shall I sup where J ULIET at the masque
Saw her loved M ONTAGUE , and now sleeps by him?
Such questions hourly do I ask myself;
And not a stone, in a cross-way, inscribed
" To Mantua " — " To Ferrara " — but excites
Surprise, and doubt, and self-congratulation.
O I TALY , how beautiful thou art!
Yet I could weep — for thou art lying, alas!
Low in the dust; and we admire thee now
As we admire the beautiful in death.

The song was one that I had heard before,
But where I knew not. It inclined to sadness;
And, turning round from the delicious fare
My landlord's little daughter Barbara
Had from her apron just rolled out before me,
Figs and rock-melons — at the door I saw
Two boys of lively aspect. Peasant-like
They were, and poorly clad, but not unskilled;
With their small voices and an old guitar
Winning their way to my unguarded heart
In that, the only universal tongue
But soon they changed the measure, entering on

I love to sail along the Larian Lake
Under the shore — though not, where'er he dwelt,
To visit Pliny; not, in loose attire,
When from the bath or from the tennis-court,
To catch him musing in his plane-tree walk,
Or angling from his window: and, in truth,
Could I recall the ages past and play
The fool with Time, I should perhaps reserve
My leisure for Catullus on his lake,
Though to fare worse, or Virgil at his farm
A little further on the way to Mantua .
But such things cannot be. So I sit still,