Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79. | | | | Venice | | The Carnival | | Lord Byron (1788–1824) |
| | (From Beppo)
OF all the places where the Carnival | |
| Was most facetious in the days of yore, | |
| For dance, and song, and serenade, and ball, | |
| And masque, and mime, and mystery, and more | |
| Than I have time to tell now, or at all, | 5 |
| Venice the bell from every city bore; | |
| And at the moment when I fix my story | |
| That sea-born city was in all her glory. | |
| |
| They ’ve pretty faces yet, those same Venetians, | |
| Black eyes, arched brows, and sweet expressions still; | 10 |
| Such as of old were copied from the Grecians, | |
| In ancient arts by moderns mimicked ill; | |
| And like so many Venuses of Titian’s | |
| (The best ’s at Florence,—see it, if ye will), | |
| They look when leaning over the balcony, | 15 |
| Or stepped from out a picture by Giorgione, | |
| |
| Whose tints are truth and beauty at their best; | |
| And when you to Manfrini’s palace go, | |
| That picture (howsoever fine the rest) | |
| Is loveliest to my mind of all the show: | 20 |
| It may perhaps be also to your zest, | |
| And that ’s the cause I rhyme upon it so: | |
| ’T is but a portrait of his son, and wife, | |
| And self; but such a woman! love in life! | | | | |
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