Laurella and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

In Venice! This night so delicious—its air
Full of moonlight, and passionate snatches of song,
And quick cries, and perfume of romances, which throng
To my brain, as I steal down this marble sea-stair,
And my gondola comes:
And I hear the slow, rhythmical sweep of the oar
Drawing near and more near—and the noise of the prow,
And the sharp, sudden splash of her stoppage—and now
I step in; we are off o'er the street's heaving floor,
As my gondola glides—
Away past these palaces silent and dark,
Looming ghostly and grim o'er their bases, where clings
Rank sea-weed which gleams, flecked with light, as it swings
To the plash of the waves, where they reach the tide-mark
On the porphyry blocks—with a song full of dole,
A forlorn barcarole,
As my gondola glides.

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II.

And the wind seems to sigh through that lattice rust-gnawn,
A low dirge for the past: the sweet past when it played
In the pearl-braided hair of some beauty, who stayed
But one shrinking half-minute—her mantle close-drawn
O'er the swell of her bosom and cheeks passion-pale,
Ere her lover came by, and they kissed. ‘They are clay,
Those fire-hearted men with the regal pulse-play.’
‘They are dust!’ sighs the wind with its whisper of wail;
‘Those women snow-fair, flower-sweet, passion-pale!’
And the waves make reply with their song full of dole,
Their forlorn barcarole,
As my gondola glides.

III.

Dust—those lovers! But love ever lives, ever new,
Still the same: so we shoot into bustle and light,
And lamps from the festal casinos stream bright
On the ripples; and here's the Rialto in view;
And black gondolas, spirit-like, cross or slide past,
And the gondoliers cry to each other: a song
Far away, from sweet voices in tune, dies along
The waters moon-silvered. So on to the vast
Shadowy span of an arch where the oar-echoes leap
Through chill gloom from the marble; then moonlight once more,

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And laughter and strum of guitars from the shore,
And sonorous bass-music of bells booming deep
From St. Mark's. Still those waves with their song full of dole,
Their forlorn barcarole,
As my gondola glides.

IV.

Here the night is voluptuous with odorous sighs
From verandahs o'erstarred with dim jessamine flowers,
Their still scent deep-stirred by the tremulous showers
Of a nightingale's notes as his song swells and dies—
While my gondola glides.

V.

Dust—those lovers! who floated and dreamed long ago,
Gazed, and languished, and loved, on these waters—where I
Float and dream and gaze up in the still summer sky,
Whence the great stars look down—as they did long ago:
Where the moon seems to dream with my dreaming—disc-hid
In a gossamer veil of white cirrus—then breaks
The dream-spell with a pensive half-smile, as she wakes
To new splendour. But lo! while I mused, we have slid
From the open, the stir, down a lonely lane-way,
Into hush and dark shadow! fresh smells of the sea
Come cool from beyond; a faint lamp mistily

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Hints fair shafts and quaint arches, in crumbling decay;
And the waves still break in with their song full of dole,
Their forlorn barcarole,
As my gondola glides.

VI.

Then the silent lagune stretched away through the night,
And the stars, and the fairy-like city behind,
Domes and spires rising spectral and dim: till the mind
Becomes tranced in a vague, subtle maze of delight;
And I float in a dream, lose the present—or seem
To have lived it before. Then a sense of deep bliss,
Just to breathe—to exist—in a night such as this;
Just to feel what I feel, drowns all else. But the gleam
Of the lights, as we turn to the city once more,
And the music, and clangour of bells booming slow,
And this consummate vision—St. Mark's! the star-glow
For background—crowns all. Then I step out on shore.
The Piazzetta! my life-dream accomplished at last,
(As my gondola goes)
I am here: here alone with the ghost of the past!
But the waves still break in with their song full of dole,
Their forlorn barcarole,
As my gondola goes;
And the pulse of the oar swept through silvery spray
Dies away in the gloom, dies away, dies away—
Dies away—dies away—!