XXVI.

But when the Stars pale o'er the dazzling lights

Of the Piazza's arcades, when the sound

Of music, dancing, revelry, invites

Greek, Turk, or Persian, stretched along the ground:

When the Tale-teller hath his circle found,

Then, with light veil, and flexile step, steals by

Venetian Beauty! earth shows nought around
Like the dark heaven of that all-speaking eye,

Its passionate records past-its future prophecy!

XXVII.

Oh! when those palaces of power gone by,

Now bearing on their fronts so worn and grey,
A fall'n air of insulted majesty ;

The history of grandeur and decay :

When in their pride they rose, and the sweet ray

Of the Moon glassed them in those waters fair, How then was felt Venetian Beauty's sway! How glowed her cheek, dark eyes, and raven hair, As, idolized by love, she sighed reclining there;

XXVIII.

By him, the Italian lover, who beneath,

From the dark shadows of his gondolier,

Poured his soft lay, whose deep and passionate breath Was more than eloquence to lover's ear!

Till all but feeling slumbered, even fear

Lulled into rest where nought but love awoke;

Ah, well for her, with morn, she did not hear

The sullen plunge-the cry suppressed that broke

The Bravo's dagger well had dealt its murderous stroke!

XXIX.

Yet pass not, gliding through the Ocean streets,

Pisani's palace, where a greater dwelt

Than he-whose name age after age repeats,

As coming and departing Life have felt

The Beautiful, whose spells in common melt

Man's answering soul; the casements curtained down

Seem as if still the Mourners round him knelt:

And wherefore? he who died there, hath the crown Imperishably won of his own vast renown.

XXX.

Titian-the soul of colours! he, whose spirit

Was steeped in his Venetian sunsets, till

The feeling of their hues he did inherit;
A portion of his being to instil

Their glories in his eyes and heart, and fill
His torch with light from its eternal pyre:
Dream round Parnassian waters they who will;

Ye, who would draw down the Promethean fire,
Lo, the true Shrine which doth the kindling soul inspire!

XXXI.

'Twas this, which poured along his pictures, warms

Each shape to life; 'twas this that bodied forth Those beautiful and all-voluptuous forms, Which, breathing but the passionate love of earth, Prove to the sinking heart their human birth! Goddess, or Nymph, or, stretched on the green sod, Or in the blue stream plunged in wanton mirth: The form unveiled-the slumber feigned-the god Watching the shape divine by Love himself o'erawed;

XXXII.

And the long vales and shadowing Woods behind!
Romantic Italy! oh, who hath been

Imparadised among thy groves reclined,

Nor those delicious glimpses caught between ;— Arcadian Landscape! the thick branches green,

Of dim, rich leafiness! the blue hill far:

In the dark covert, Fawn and Satyr seen :

And, over all, presiding like a star,

Love, hallowing the scene, Joy's prophet harbinger!

XXXIII.

Italian sunsets! who e'er gazed on ye,

Nor felt your inspirations? or forgot
The stamp impressed of immortality

Ye leave on man; that 'tis his destined lot
To be, as ye, undying? each pure thought
Is called by ye to being: till the eye

Of inmost waking soul beholds ye fraught
With Nature's revelations made from high,

And, dwelling on them, feels its home is in the sky.

XXXIV.

Thou, who dost come from shores in vapours shrouded,
From the pale watery gleams of Northern skies,

Who givest to those twilight hues o'erclouded,
Beauty whose presence lives but in thine eyes,
Here view the opened Gates of Paradise!
The unfolded heaven that fills yon living West,
Steeped in rose-hues whose tints are harmonies,
Where Iris kindles to the life confessed:

The Poetry of Light, the Elysium of the Blest!

XXXV.

All-glorious Visions! hues, each tint a heaven:

Immortal emblems of those mansions bright,

For which yon pageantries alone are given:
Oh! when men bowed before that Lord of Light,
Material god! upon the mountain's height,

Was he an Idol? and his clouds, the toys,

Frail as our hopes to sink in endless night?
Faith which the grave eternally destroys,

No deathless life to come to ratify our joys?