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.

Grow, ivy, up to his countenance,

But it cannot smile on my life as on thine; Look, Saint, with thy trustful, fearless glance, Where I dare not lift these eyes of mine.

I love thee in thy desolation,

In thy vestment of mourning;

And in thy gondolas

Which lose themselves among the canals,

Like an uncompleted dream.

I love thee with fervent regret,
For thy beautiful Past,

And for the reminiscences

Of the sacred love,

And of the being I have lost.

Aleksandri. Tr. Henry Stanley.

ONE

..

BIONDINETTA.

NE evening in the Piazzetta, Mocenigo, the handsome: 'Biondinetta, Biondinetta! He exclaimed gayly, meeting me; "Dost thou know, dear Venetian, That thy Madonna has given thee The small hand of a Patrician,

And large eyes to be loved?

"Dost thou know that it seems to me,

Cospetto! a great sin,

That you should carry water to sell

On your delicate shoulder?

Come with me, dear one, come,

For I would bring you up

To rule like a queen
In palaces of looking-glass."

One day beside the fountain

Titian said to me, softly:

"There is no hand in a condition

To attempt thy portrait;

But I swear by the superb sun,
If thou wishest it, on the spot,
I will make thee immortal,
Attempting only thy shadow."

To-day, in the morning mist,
The new Doge perceived me,
And in the piazza of St. Mark,
Was coming down from the palace.
"Venetian maiden,

Biondinetta!" said he,

To-morrow into the Adriatic Sea I am to throw this ring.

"To-morrow, in purple and in gold, I am to be crowned,

And in the old Bucentaur

To be carried through Venice.
Say that thou wilt be my wife,

I swear by Saint Mark

To devote to thee, Biondina, to thee,

All the pomp of a monarch."

But Biondinetta, the discerning one,

Pursuing rapidly her course,
To all three with sweet words
Answered thus, laughing:

There is no clearer looking-glass, There is no portrait more angelic, Than that which shows itself to me When I look into the fountain.

There are no marks of grandeur,

Nor rings of ruby,

With a sweeter glistening

Than the eyes of Tonin.

Than the gondolas in the Piazzetta

There is no throne more to be desired

By his beloved Biondinetta

When he rows her, the happy one."

Aleksandri. Tr. Henry Stanley.

THE GONDOLA.

ILTS the gondola lightly over the wave like a cradle,

TILTS

And the chest thereupon me of a coffin reminds. Just so we, 'twixt cradle and coffiu, go tilting and floating

On Time's larger canal carelessly on through our life. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Tr. J. S. Dwight.

THE WHITE FLAG ON THE LAGOON BRIDGE AT VENICE.

HE twilight is deepening, still is the wave;

THE

I sit by the window mute as by a grave;

Silent, companionless, secret I pine;

Through my tears where thou liest, I look, Venice mine!

On the clouds, brokenly strewn through the west,
Dies the last ray of the sun sunk to rest,
And a sad sibillance under the moon

Sighs from the broken heart of the Lagoon.