XV.

Hurled to the dust is now the Freedom lying

Who once her banners from those towers flung high,

Rent by the Thunder Storms, but freer flying,

As wilder grew the Tempests of the Sky!

And they the brave, who in their agony,

Fought-rallied-struggled-triumphed-bled-and

died,

Sleep with it now, forgot like Victory!

Their shouts that rang along those halls of pride, Are in a stillness hushed that ever shall abide !

XVII.

Till the Arch-Angel's trump shall wake the Dead!

And call, from their all dreamless sleep, the brave, The freemen who like sacrifices bled;

Their Altar-place their Country; and their grave,
The heaped up battle-field where laurels wave,
Washed by her tears, for ever unforgot!

Until the Oppressor feels that bars nor cave
Prison the soul; the body there may rot,

But to live free, or die, is man's heaven-chartered lot.

XVIII.

Her Adrian-rule, and Sceptre of the Sea,

Are torn from her: her Eastern diadem

Is shivered, and a dream of memory :

Scorn of the foeman when she bowed to them,
Cast to the Austrian as a worthless gem,

Even in her worthlessness and fall are shown

The springs that moved her-pause ere ye condemn :

Remorseless in her hate to foes alone,

Even with a Parent's love she guarded-watched her own.

XIX.

Yea, all is here romance, grotesque and wild,

And mystical, and dream-like; lo, the Square,
Where domes, and spires, and minarets are piled :

The Ducal Hall's barbaric splendour there;

Yon steeds of bronze that glitter in the air,

Bridled, at last; the Campanilè's height,

Where starry Galileo did repair;

And yonder triple shrine, that fills the sight

With a strange sense of awe, of marvel, yet delight.

XX.

The Greek-the Goth-the Saracenic, joined:

Spires reared on Moorish cupolas appear:

The long-arched front with thousand columns lined;

Behold undisciplined by art severe,

The Poetry of Architecture here!

Heaped up, and as a Conqueror's spoils displayed,

The o'ercrouded wealth of either hemisphere;

Enter where mantled in her deepest shade

Religion hath her own the sanctuary made.

XXI.

Yet the heaped spoils which round that Altar shine,
Seem more the stores that Mammon's den conceals,
Gorgeous, yet dark, than Jesus' blessed shrine:
But oh, what groups yon casements light reveals
As through the shadowy depths beneath it steals!
Shedding its last, rich, dying hues, upon

Grey age which there in wrapt devotion kneels :
As if it were a ray from God that shone,

Sign to the prostrate there of their acceptance won!

XXII.

And the deep silence and half stifled breath

Of those who pass like shades, as if they feared,

To wake the slumbers of the Dead beneath :
Or, as they felt, that He, the Eternal, heard
Each Voice within his sanctuary preferred;
Lo, where yon contrite pours on bended knee
To the confessional each slow-wrung word!
The Magdalen of grief! fair woman, she,

More erred against than erring-still her lot to be!

XXIII.

While ever from the deep and dark recess
Of yon Apostle-Statued shrine, steal forth
Notes, that in distance softening, have less
Of human feeling than of heavenly birth:
Until all lowlier thoughts of self and earth
Are stilled to sleep by that abstracting sound!—

Oh! in our mortal life are moments worth

Ages with earthlier enjoyments crowned;

Then, when the soul absorbed the present God hath

found.

XXIV.

Yet pass the door-the pageant is forgot;

The Present, from the common mind bereaves
Remembrance of the past with warnings fraught:
For Memory its impresses receives

Faintly, as its reflection the tree weaves
Upon the running stream, which, gliding on,
No shadow on its changeful bosom leaves;

Life claims its own: the light of grace

that shone

Upon the storm-tossed soul, wanes-darkens-and is

gone!

XXV.

And never yet, fair Venice! shone the sun
Where life did changes, like thine own, avow!

Even on this spot what laurels have been won—
Witness of all thy triumphs, when thy brow
Was raised as proudly, as 'tis fallen now!
Here, where thou sat'st upon thy jealous throne,
The Mart-the Carnival-the Masque, below:

With morn, the corpse by those red columns shown,

Of some pale, headless wretch, his name, life, crime, un

known.

G