I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs,

    A palace and a prison on each hand:

    I saw from out the wave her structures rise

    As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand:

    A thousand years their cloudy wings expand

    Around me, and a dying Glory smiles

    O'er the far times, when many a subject land

    Looked to the wingéd Lion's marble piles,

Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!



    She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,

    Rising with her tiara of proud towers

    At airy distance, with majestic motion,

    A ruler of the waters and their powers:

    And such she was--her daughters had their dowers

    From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East

    Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers:

    In purple was she robed, and of her feast

Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.



    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!