Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.
In My Gondola
By Walter Thornbury (1828–1876)W
The Campanile springs,
Where round St. Mark’s the angels still
Poise their unfaded wings,
I in my floating hearse dream on
While my old boatman sings.
Where the bronze charger stands;
To that old house,—a palace once,
Now spoiled by Austrian hands,—
Its marbles rent by heat and cold,
Ill clamped with rusty bands.
Where dusky Titians glow,
And where Bellini’s jewelled saints
All congregate below.
No, not to-day the chapel dim,
Half lit by silver lamps,
Nor that old Doge’s nameless tomb,
Defaced by carking damps.
O’er glories dead and past,
O’er pride dethroned by cruel Time,
That rude Iconoclast.
O, how this city, Ocean’s Queen,
Is beggared now at last!
Still boasts its faded kings;
Where, quaint and querulous with age,
The old custode sings,
And feebly tries to reach the web
Where the lean spider clings.
Are stamped with globes and stars,
And where above the throne of state,
Still glowers a painted Mars.
Out on that curséd Austrian drum,
Beneath the window-bars!
Bends at the shrine, now bare,
No starry candles glimmer bright
Through the dim, balmy air;
And yet a halo seems to shine
Round the one picture there.
Aping a royal pride,
His golden wealth flashed lustre down
Upon the passing tide,
His purple gondolas long since
A Tyrian glory dyed.
Upon the old stained floor,
Where stones turn emerald in the beams
That through the vine-leaves pour;
It ever falls, yet can’t efface
One blot of human gore.
And on the marble stair,
Where the quick lizard flits across,
Fearing the very air.
A bad man’s conscience knew such fears,
Long centuries since, just there.
The Adriatic’s tide
Had just received the ring that joined
The bridegroom to the bride;
The golden barge with sails of silk
Moved homeward o’er the tide;
With gems the windows shone;
The poorest fishing-girl that day
Her bridal dress had on;
Flags shook from every roof,—the bells
All day had madly gone.
The perfumes on his cloak,
Here the Doge sat, and heard the wave
Moan as if one had spoke;
And thought of how the gory rack
Those pale lean limbs had broke.
Knelt down awhile to pray,
Then stood erect and eyed the crowd
Like a royal stag at bay,
And smiled on doves that o’er him flew
To some isle far away.
A groaning man did lie,
And of the burning roof, where one
Prepared himself to die;
And e’en the strangler’s burly knave
Had tear-drops in his eye;
The Forty bend and write,
Smiling so grimly when they hear
The brawny headsman smite.—
His dream was broken by a star,
That flashed across the night.
A roll of paper float,
Dropped by that sable gondolier
That turns yon corner,—note
How pale his face turns,—“Doge, beware!”
Upon his vision smote.
Rose to a window grate.
The morning came; they found a plume
Beside the water-gate;
A letter torn, some drops of blood.
The Doge had fled,—too late!
My dream has passed away;
Back with my floating hearse, and quick,
Before that dying ray
Leave the last roof, and darkness pall
The dead corse of the day.
Flutter at my wild cry,
Now that I see yon saints look up
Devoutly to the sky;
Where Christ upon a golden throne
Is robed and crowned on high.
Brought from the Asian shore;
Those are the brazen steeds the Greeks
Bridled in days of yore;
Yonder the wingéd lion tries
From his stone chains to soar.
Slaves snore in every boat;
Slaves’ songs at night along the tide
On these free breezes float;
Slaves stab and gamble in the square,
And tear poor Freedom’s throat.
Unworthy such a home,
Laugh, sing, and sleep beneath the shade
Cast by their giant dome,
Slaves of the butcher and the priest,—
Of Austria and of Rome.
Leads on the bayonets. See
Insolent soldiers pacing round
A city once so free.
Rise, hero of yon lonely isle,
And give them liberty.