ON THE MAD-HOUSE AT VENICE. "I looked and saw between us and the sun A building on an island, such an one A windowless, deformed, and dreary pile; SHELLEY. HONOUR aright the philosophic thought, Frees her sad-centred thoughts, and gives them pleasant range. ΤΟ WRITTEN AT VENICE. Not only through the golden haze With which the Ocean-bride displays Her pomp to stranger eyes ;— Where following objects chase away Not thus art thou content to see Whose beauty is a thought to me When the proud Sea, for Venice' sake, Itself consents to wear The semblance of a land-locked lake, And in the dalliance of her Isles, Has levelled his strong waves, Surely may we to similar calm Our noisy lives subdue, And bare our bosoms to such balm As God has given to few ; Surely may we delight to pause On our care-goaded road, Refuged from Time's most bitter laws In this august abode. Thou knowest this,-thou lingerest here, Rejoicing to remain ; The plashing oars fall on thy ear Like a familiar strain; No wheel prolongs its weary roll, The Earth itself goes round Slower than elsewhere, and thy soul Dreams in the void of sound. Thy heart, by Nature's discipline, Kept open to be written in By good of every kind, Can harmonise its inmost sense To every outward tone, And bring to all experience High reasoning of its own. So, when these forms come freely out, And wonder is gone by, With patient skill it sets about Its subtle work of joy ; Connecting all it comprehends By lofty moods of love, The earthly Present's farthest ends,The Past's deep Heaven above. O bliss! to watch, with half-shut lid, Where darkling loveliness is hid, To mark the gloom, by slow degrees, Shines forth before our sympathies, Come out upon the broad Lagoon, Our thoughts shall make a pleasant tune, And thickly round us we will set Such visions as were seen, By Tizian and by Tintorett, And dear old Giambellin, And all their peers in art, whose eyes, Taught by this sun and sea, Flashed on their works those burning dyes, That fervent poetry ; And wove the shades so thinly-clear They would be parts of light In northern climes, where frowns severe Mar half the charms of sight. - Did ever shape that Paolo drew As Nature, in this evening view, This world of tinted fire? The glory into whose embrace, The virgin pants to rise, Is but reflected from the face Of these Venetian skies. |