Town banded against town, street against street,
House against house, and father against son,
The servile victims of unmeaning feuds,-

Thou didst sustain the wholeness of thy power,-
Thy altar was as a domestic hearth,

Round which thy children sat in brotherhood ;-
Never was name of Guelf or Ghibelline

Writ on thy front in letters of bright blood;
Never the stranger, for his own base ends,
Flattered thy passions, or by proffered gold
Seduced the meanest of thy citizens.-
Thus too the very sufferers of thy wrath,
Whom the unsparing prudence of the state,
For erring judgment, insufficient zeal,

Or heavier fault, had banished from its breast,
Even they, when came on thee thy hour of need,
Fell at thy feet and prayed, with humble tears,
That thou wouldst deign at least to use their wealth,
Though thou didst scorn the gift of their poor lives.*

Prime model of a Christian commonwealth!

Thou wise simplicity, which present men
Calumniate, not conceiving,-joy is mine,

*

* As in the instance of Antonio Grimani, who was living in exile at Rome at the time of the league of Cambray. He had been condemned for some error in fighting against the Turks. When Venice was in distress, he offered all his private fortune to the state. After her victory he was not only recalled, but elected Doge some years later.

That I have read and learnt thee as I ought,
Not in the crude compiler's painted shell,
But in thine own memorials of live stone,
And in the pictures of thy kneeling princes,
And in the lofty words on lofty tombs,
And in the breath of ancient chroniclers,
And in the music of the outer sea.

THE VENETIAN SERENADE.

WHEN along the light ripple the far senerade
Has accosted the ear of each passionate maid,

She may open the window that looks on the stream,-
She may smile on her pillow and blend it in dream ;
Half in words, half in music, it pierces the gloom,
"I am coming-Stalì-but you know not for whom !
Stali-not for whom !

Now the tones become clearer,-you hear more and more
How the water divided returns on the oar,—

Does the prow of the gondola strike on the stair?
Do the voices and instruments pause and prepare ?
Oh! they faint on the ear as the lamp on the view,
“I am passing—Premì-but I stay not for you!

Premi-not for you!"

Then return to your couch, you who stifle a tear,
Then awake not, fair sleeper-believe he is here;
For the young and the loving no sorrow endures,
If to-day be another's, to-morrow is yours ;—
May, the next time you listen, your fancy be true,
"I am coming-Sciàr-and for you and to you!
Sciàr-and to you!"

The Venetian words here used are the calls of the gondoliers, indicating the direction in which they are rowing. Sciare is to stop the boat.

FROM GÖTHE.

LET me this gondola boat compare to the slumberous cradle,

And to a spacious bier liken the cover demure;

Thus on the Great Canal through life we are swaying and swimming

Onward with never a care, coffin and cradle between.

A DREAM IN A GONDOLA.

I HAD a dream of waters: I was borne
Fast down the slimy tide

Of eldest Nile, and endless flats forlorn
Stretched out on either side,-

Save where from time to time arose

Red Pyramids, like flames in forced repose, And Sphynxes gazed, vast countenances bland, Athwart that river-sea and sea of sand.

It is the nature of the Life of Dream,
To make all action of our mental springs,
Howe'er unnatural, discrepant, and strange,
Be as the unfolding of most usual things;
And thus to me no wonder did there seem,
When, by a subtle change,

The heavy ample byblus-winged boat,
In which I lay afloat,

Became a deft canoe, light-wove

Of painted bark, gay-set with lustrous shells,

Faintingly rocked within a lonesome cove,

Of some rich island where the Indian dwells; Below, the water's pure white light

Took colour from reflected blooms,

And, through the forest's deepening glooms,
Birds of illuminated plumes

Came out like stars in summer-night:

And close beside, all fearless and serene,
Within a niche of drooping green,

A girl, with limbs fine-rounded and clear-brown,
And hair thick-waving down,

Advancing one small foot, in beauty stood,
Trying the temper of the lambent flood.

But on my spirit in that spiced air
Embalmed, and in luxurious senses drowned,
Another change of sweet and fair

There passed, and of the scene around
Nothing remained the same in sight or sound:
For now the Wanderer of my dream

Was gliding down a fable-stream

Of long-dead Hellas, with much treasure
Of inworking thoughtful pleasure;

While the silver line meanders

Through the tall pink oleanders,
Through the wood of tufted rushes,
Through the arbute's ruby-bushes,