Venice :: :: University of Virginia Library

Venice

By Alfred Domett

Domett, Alfred (1811-1887)

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VENICE

PART I.

II.

PART II.

III.

PART III.

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II. PART II.

Considerations of some of the uses of Venice in history; such as to nurse the infancy of commerce (one chief source of social freedom) after feudalism had revived decaying faith and honour—and to resist the advance of the Ottoman arms, whilst its commerce preserved that inter-course of the West with the East from which the latter will eventually reap the blessings of civilization and knowledge.—The fate of nations teaches lessons of wisdom which gathered and followed will ameliorate the condition of mankind; some of those supplied by Venice.—Reflections suggested by a fallen state as to the causes and preventions of national decline—physical causes alluded to, and their cure—the advantages of savage and civilized life to be blended and secured by study and knowledge of our mixed nature.

I

'Tis the prerogative of Time to make
Whate'er he touches, precious. Deep Reverse
Is a religion too, whose martyrs wake
An awe that good men nurse.
And wise and kind our nature's law
That Grief attracts—has power to draw
Warm pity forth—compassion pure,
Itself the mother of its cure.
We yearn with fondness for a heart left drear,
And very sad is but another name for dear!

II

Fair Magdalene of faded Cities! gay
And guilty once as sad, yet lovely now!
To hide thy crimes, thou hast but to display
That sorrowful sweet brow!
It tasks the mind, though stern it be
To dwell on them, yet gaze on thee!
Before thy beautiful distress,
Before thy death-struck loveliness,
We feel awhile our indignation fly,
Our loathing all forgot in lively sympathy!

III

But reason lifts her voice when kingdoms fail:
Grief has its hour as well as use. A state
Is but a man upon a larger scale,
A life of longer date!
And nations have their youth and age,
A part to play on history's stage;
Their manhood wasted, they decay,—
Their end fulfilled, they pass away!
And he who marks the puppet-show of things,
May dimly guess how move the secret wheels and springs.

IV

The fresh free North poured a tumultuous blaze
Of life on the dead world; then effervesced,
The brilliant barbarism of feudal days—
Slavery in spangles drest!
The stormy splendour broke away,
But two fair Angels deigned to stay!
Faith, snowy-amiced as spring-cloud,
And bright-eyed Honour, open-browed,
That sensitive bold Child of Chivalry,
In silver arms came shining, never more to flee!

V

But Commerce calm'd man's glory-fever'd veins,
For social rites and sober freedom first;
The glassy labyrinth of thy liquid lanes
The kindly infant nursed
Ere southward stemming through despair,
Great Vasco's patient heart might dare
Leap with Good Hope of Ind, new-steel'd
To see those weary mountains yield;
While opening slow in conscious grandeur mild,
An Ocean all unknown, inflam'd with morning smil'd!

VI

And thou with her whose gore to heaven shall leap,
Whose loud wrong sieges Time with cries to smite;
Thou bad'st the Moslem storm roll back—nor steep
The West in second night,
Then luminous with dawn. So came
The dusky Orient, all aflame
With gems, and by thy portal stood
With musk, and silks, and sandalwood!—
And so commercing, yet shall drink the rays
Of western light, so saved, in far-off famous days.

VII

Shall nations die in vain?—great Empires flit
Away, nor teach the next what ills to fly?
Thou Chart of rocks whereon great Empries split,
Forbid it—History!
Show Man in each reverse the fuel
For hope's more brightly-starred renewal;
Bid each defeat by fate supply,
Arms better forged for victory!
With the slow honey of experience stored
In thee its hive, O sweeten life, no more abhorred!

VIII

Nought that has ever been shall wholly die!
Dead empires whisper wisdom:—from the first
Troy, flaming through all time, to thee, well nigh
The latest bubble burst!
As sands are thickest sown with gold,
Where ravening torrents fiercest rolled,
So foaming centuries leave a spoil
Of truths that shine through blood and toil!—
Groaning along the grating path of ill,
The world strikes knowledge out in sparks increasing still!

IX

How slow is Reason's march!—how wide a plain
Of Thought's fair roses must we till and dress,
One drop of Truth's pure attar to obtain,
Whose scent is happiness!
Life, steep'd in Truth, were perfect here—
Progress is Truth becoming clear;
Evil but ignorance; rightly viewed,
The dim and rugged road to good!—
Some blessing, Venice! in thy fall we see,
And simple maxims take oracular might from thee!

X

Thy silence calls aloud to teach mankind
That wisest wickedness is worst self-hate—
The sharpest-sighted tyranny stark-blind
Against avenging Fate!
Though boundless power intensely brood
In cold sagacious lust of blood,
Make subtlest cunning slave with Time,
In patient constancy to crime,
Exhaust the ingenuity of Hell
To fence its foulness round—'tis vain—for Venice fell!

XI

Thou bids't beware of Commerce! bold balloon
That lifts so high, a touch may dash it down;
Thou teachest swoln Aristocrats how soon
Their order's flight is flown—
How soon that costly delicate wine
Of States its flavour must resign,
Unless preserved by purest spirit,
Distilled from a whole nation's merit—
Not fools chance-dowered with worth beneath the sod,
But Nature's lowly Lords—the noblemen of God!

XII

All hearts reap riches that with thee condole!
Ere yet the ungentle touches of the world
Have rubbed the down of Heaven from off the soul,
Its pinions just unfurled,
What millions then inspired by thee,
With deep disgust for treachery,
Shall find a fount, in future times,
Of virtue in thy very crimes!
For ever dear must be thy glittering story
To Childhood's span-broad World of wonder, hope and glory!

XIII

The heedless Nations rush into the snare
Of greatness—to decay exulting go!
None on the whirl of swift success beware
The precipice below!
Monotonous in ruin, all
Sweep headlong to the selfsame fall!
For pride is power's insidious neighbour,
And luxury spurns its parent labour,
And glory-winning hardship seems too hard
To sloth which deems no more e'en glory a reward!

XIV

Alas! even nations know satiety!
Even glory must be novel to allure!—
Clear signs declare a people's dotage nigh;
And evil days are sure
When things so cold as to be proud
Of strength of passion swell the crowd
Of baser worms, whose only shame
Is every high enthusiast flame!
Who impotently sneer when soaring zeal
Assaults with trampling scorn their selfish hearts of steel!

XV

Time saps a race by stealthy arts and slow!
Close, social life—thought—luxury—weaken; air
And soil outworn less stalwart nerves bestow,
And then great hearts grow rare!
From individuals to the whole
First sinks the body, then the soul;
No hope for men until they find
How much the body makes the mind!
What outward links keep flesh, heart, spirit akin,
What lurk in finespun threads of curious life within!

XVI

To blend in one the savage and refined—
The charm of each condition to preserve—
Is man's high task:—the facile, freewinged mind,
The tense and iron nerve,
The point-blank purpose—range of skill,
The cataract of a mighty will,
All must be kept—no gift refused—
E'en passion's lightenings rightly used—
Restraint, indulgence—labour, luxury—
Be mixed and meted out with cunning ministry!

XVII

Man of his complex self both mechanist
And engineer must be! Hard task and high!
The bodily frame to temper as we list,
The mind's intensity!
At will to raise and check the fire
And steam of passion and desire;
To work the weights of fear and shame,
The safety-valves of war and fame!
Until serenely swift the vessel flies,—
Then happiness has reached its height beneath the skies!

Poland.