VENICE BY DAY.

HE splendor of the Orient, here of old

THE

Throned with the West, upon a waveless sea,

Her various-vested, resonant jubilee

Maintains, though Venice hath been bought and sold.
In their high stalls of azure and of gold
Yet stand, above the servile concourse free,
Those brazen steeds, the Car of Victory
Hither from far Byzantium's porch that rolled.
The wingéd Lions, Time's dejected thralls,

Glare with furled plumes. The pictured shapes that glow

Like sunset clouds condensed upon the walls,

Still boast old wars, or feasts of long ago;
And still the sun his amplest glory pours

On all those swelling domes and watery floors.

Aubrey de Vere.

A

VENICE IN THE EVENING.

LAS! mid all this pomp of the ancient time, And flush of modern pleasure, dull Decay O'er the bright pageant breathes her shadowy gray. As on from bridge to bridge I roam and climb, It seems as though some wonder-working chime (Whose spell the vision raised and still can sway) To some far source were ebbing fast away; As though, by man unheard, with voice sublime

It bade the sea-born Queen of Cities follow
Her sire into his watery realm far down,
Beneath my feet the courts sound vast and hollow;
And more than evening's darkness seems to frown
On sable barks that, swift yet trackless, fleet
Like dreams o'er dim lagune and watery street.

Aubrey de Vere.

VENICE.

NIGHT in her dark array

Steals o'er the ocean,

And with departed day

Hushed seems its motion.
Slowly o'er yon blue coast
Onward she's treading,
Till its dark line is lost,
'Neath her veil spreading.
The bark on the rippling deep
Hath found a pillow,

And the pale moonbeams sleep

On the green billow.

Bound by her emerald zone

Venice is lying,

And round her marble crown

Night-winds are sighing.
From the high lattice now

Bright eyes are gleaming,
That seem on night's dark brow,
Brighter stars beaming.
Now o'er the blue lagune

Light barks are dancing,
And 'neath the silver moon
Swift oars are glancing.
Strains from the mandolin
Steal o'er the water,
Echo replies between
To mirth and laughter.
O'er the wave seen afar

Brilliantly shining,

Gleams like a fallen star

Venice reclining.

Frances Anne Kemble.

H

THE PIAZZA OF ST. MARK AT MIDNIGHT.

[USHED is the music, hushed the hum of voices; Gone is the crowd of dusky promenaders,

Slender-waisted, almond-eyed Venetians,

Princes and paupers. Not a single footfall
Sounds in the arches of the Procuratie.

One after one, like sparks in cindered paper,
Faded the lights out in the goldsmiths' windows.
Drenched with the moonlight lies the still Piazza.

Fair as the palace builded for Aladdin,
Yonder St. Mark uplifts its sculptured splendor, -
Intricate fretwork, Byzantine mosaic,

Color on color, column upon column,
Barbaric, wonderful, a thing to kneel to!
Over the portal stand the four gilt horses,

Gilt hoof in air, and wide distended nostril,

Fiery, untamed, as in the days of Nero.
Skyward, a cloud of domes and spires and crosses;
Earthward, black shadows flung from jutting stone-work.
High over all the slender Campanile

Quivers, and seems a falling shaft of silver!

Hushed is the music, hushed the hum of voices.
From coigne and cornice and fantastic gargoyle,
At intervals the moan of dove or pigeon,
Fairily faint, floats off into the moonlight.
This, and the murmur of the Adriatic,
Lazily restless, lapping the mossed marble,
Staircase or buttress, scarcely break the stillness.
Deeper each moment seems to grow the silence,
Denser the moonlight in the still Piazza.
Hark! on the Tower above the ancient gateway,
The twin bronze Vulcans, with their ponderous hammers,
Hammer the midnight on their brazen bell there!
Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

IN

SAINT CHRISTOPHER.

the narrow Venetian street,

On the wall above the garden gate

(Within the breath of the rose is sweet,

And the nightingale sings there, soon and late),

Stands Saint Christopher, carven in stone,

With the little child in his huge caress,

And the arms of the baby Jesus thrown
About his gigantic tenderness;

And over the wall a wandering growth
Of darkest and greenest ivy clings,

And climbs around them, and holds them both
In its netted clasp of knots and rings,

Clothing the saint from foot to beard

In glittering leaves that whisper and dance To the child, on his mighty arm upreared, With a lusty summer exuberance.

To the child on his arm the faithful saint
Looks up with a broad and tranquil joy;
His brows and his heavy beard aslant
Under the dimpled chin of the boy,

Who plays with the world upon his palm,
And bends his smiling looks divine
On the face of the giant mild and calm,
And the glittering frolic of the vine.

He smiles on either with equal grace,
On the simple ivy's unconscious life,
And the soul in the giant's lifted face,
Strong from the peril of the strife:

For both are his own,

the innocence

That climbs from the heart of earth to heaven,

And the virtue that greatly rises thence

Through trial sent and victory given.