ALL is bright and clear and still | |
| Round the solitary hill. | |
| |
| Beneath is spread like a green sea | |
| The waveless plain of Lombardy, | |
| Bounded by the vaporous air, | 5 |
| Islanded by cities fair; | |
| Underneath day’s azure eyes, | |
| Ocean’s nursling, Venice, lies,— | |
| A peopled labyrinth of walls, | |
| Amphitrite’s destined halls, | 10 |
| Which her hoary sire now paves | |
| With his blue and beaming waves. | |
| Lo! the sun upsprings behind, | |
| Broad, red, radiant, half reclined | |
| On the level quivering line | 15 |
| Of the waters crystalline; | |
| And before that chasm of light, | |
| As within a furnace bright, | |
| Column, tower, and dome, and spire | |
| Shine like obelisks of fire, | 20 |
| Pointing with inconstant motion | |
| From the altar of dark ocean | |
| To the sapphire-tinted skies; | |
| As the flames of sacrifice | |
| From the marble shrines did rise, | 25 |
| As to pierce the dome of gold | |
| Where Apollo spoke of old. | |
| |
| Sun-girt city! thou hast been | |
| Ocean’s child, and then his queen; | |
| Now is come a darker day, | 30 |
| And thou soon must be his prey, | |
| If the power that raised thee here | |
| Hallow so thy watery bier. | |
| A less drear ruin then than now, | |
| With thy conquest-branded brow | 35 |
| Stooping to the slave of slaves | |
| From thy throne among the waves, | |
| Wilt thou be when the sea-mew | |
| Flies, as once before it flew, | |
| O’er thine isles depopulate, | 40 |
| And all is in its ancient state, | |
| Save where many a palace-gate | |
| With green sea-flowers overgrown | |
| Like a rock of ocean’s own, | |
| Topples o’er the abandoned sea | 45 |
| As the tides change sullenly. | |
| The fisher on his watery way | |
| Wandering at the close of day | |
| Will spread his sail and seize his oar | |
| Till he pass the gloomy shore, | 50 |
| Lest thy dead should, from their sleep | |
| Bursting o’er the starlight deep, | |
| Lead a rapid mask of death | |
| O’er the waters of his path. | |
| |
