Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.
Torcello
By Helen Hunt Jackson (1830–1885)S
Deserted island, low and still and green.
Before fair Venice was a bride and queen
Torcello’s court was held in fairer guise
Than Doges knew. To-day death-vapors rise
From fields where once her palaces were seen,
And in her silent towers that crumbling lean
Unterrified the brooding swallow flies.
O once-loved friend, who dost in vain implore
My presence, thou art like Torcello’s land.
Thy wasted life to me seems life no more.
With all its beauty death goes hand in hand,
I shrink from thee, as on its blighted strand
Torcello’s ghosts might turn and fly the shore.