Classic Poem

VENICE: — THE GONDOLIERS .

O'er many a blue and palace-girt lagoon
Idly from dawn to twilight thou dost skim,
With face patrician, perfect in each limb,
Lazily humming some Bellinian tune.

Or to the Lido, where the roses strewn
Please for an hour thy vague, poetic whim,
Thou leadest in the night from bridges dim,
Thy donna, white as the attendant moon.

But then again, some quick and avid eye
May watch thee, noiseless, in the shadows lurk,
While all the town is maddened by guitars,
And, as thy heedless rival saunters by,
Can see thy sharp and jewel-hilted dirk
Angrily glint beneath Venetian stars!