be dearer to none than to yourself, I dedicate to you this poem in its completed state; and repeat once more how truly I am ever

Your obliged

And affectionate friend,

BYRON,

i STOOD in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; (1) 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 Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hund dred isles!

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, (2)
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
Át airy distance, with majestic motion,
A ruler of the waters and their powers:

And such she was-her daughters had their dower's

From the spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East

Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers,

In purple was she robed, and of her feast Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity in

creased!

III.

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more, (3) 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!

IV.

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 awayThe keystones of the arch! though all were o'er, For us repeopled were the solitary shore.

V.

The beings of the mind are not of clay;
Essentially immortal, they create

And muliply in us a brighter ray

And more beloved existence: that which Fate Prohibits to dull life, in this our state

Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied First exiles, then replaces what we hate; Watering the heart whose early flowers have died;

And with a fresher growth replenishing the void.

Such is the refuge of our youth and age,
The first from Hope, the last from Vacancy;
And this worn feeling peoples many a page,
And, may be, that which grows beneath mine
eye:

Yet there are things whose strong reality
Outshines our fairy land; in shape and hues
More beautiful than our fantastic sky,

And the strange constellations which the Muse O'er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse :

VII.

I saw or dream'd of such-but let them go-They came like truth, and disappear'd like dreams;

And whatsoe'er they were-are now but so: I could replace them if I would, still teems My mind with many a form which aptly seems Such as I sought for, and at moments found; Let these too go-for waking Reason deems Such over-weening phantasies unsound,

And other voices speak, and other sights surround.

VIII.

I've taught me other tongues-and in strange

eyes

Have made me not a stranger; to the mind Which is itself, no changes bring surprise ; Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find A country with-ay, or without mankind; Yet was I born where men are proud to be, Not without cause; and should I leave behind The inviolate island of the sage and free, And seek me out a home by a remoter sea,

VOL. I.-M

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. Itwine 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 has many a worthier son than he." (4) Mean time 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 (5) Stand, but in mockery of his withered 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.

XII.

The Suabian sued, and now the Austrian reigns—

(6)

An Emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt ;