{"id":6442,"date":"2019-07-02T05:30:54","date_gmt":"2019-07-02T05:30:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.slow-words.com\/?p=6442"},"modified":"2019-07-09T16:53:19","modified_gmt":"2019-07-09T16:53:19","slug":"a-dream-of-venice-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.slow-words.com\/it\/a-dream-of-venice-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Dream Of Venice"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/em><\/p>\n

Numb, half asleep, and dazed with whirl of wheels,
\nAnd gasp of steam, and measured clank of chains,
\nI heard a blithe voice break a sudden pause,
\nRinging familiarly through the lamp-lit night,
\n“Wife, here’s your Venice!”
\nI was lifted down,
\nAnd gazed about in stupid wonderment,
\nHolding my little Katie by the hand\u2014
\nMy yellow-haired step-daughter. And again
\nTwo strong arms led me to the water-brink,
\nAnd laid me on soft cushions in a boat,\u2014
\nA queer boat, by a queerer boatman manned\u2014
\nSwarthy-faced, ragged, with a scarlet cap\u2014
\nWhose wild, weird note smote shrilly through the dark.
\nOh yes, it was my Venice! Beautiful,
\nWith melancholy, ghostly beauty\u2014old,
\nAnd sorrowful, and weary\u2014yet so fair,
\nSo like a queen still, with her royal robes,
\nFull of harmonious colour, rent and worn!
\nI only saw her shadow in the stream,
\nBy flickering lamplight,\u2014only saw, as yet,
\nWhite, misty palace-portals here and there,
\nPillars, and marble steps, and balconies,
\nAlong the broad line of the Grand Canal;
\nAnd, in the smaller water-ways, a patch
\nOf wall, or dim bridge arching overhead.
\nBut I could feel the rest. ‘Twas Venice!\u2014ay,
\nThe veritable Venice of my dreams.<\/p>\n

I saw the grey dawn shimmer down the stream,
\nAnd all the city rise, new bathed in light,
\nWith rose-red blooms on her decaying walls,
\nAnd gold tints quivering up her domes and spires\u2014
\nSharp-drawn, with delicate pencillings, on a sky
\nBlue as forget-me-nots in June. I saw
\nThe broad day staring in her palace-fronts,
\nPointing to yawning gap and crumbling boss,
\nAnd colonnades, time-stained and broken, flecked
\nWith soft, sad, dying colours\u2014sculpture-wreathed,
\nAnd gloriously proportioned; saw the glow
\nLight up her bright, harmonious, fountain’d squares,
\nAnd spread out on her marble steps, and pass
\nDown silent courts and secret passages,
\nGathering up motley treasures on its way;\u2014
\nGroups of rich fruit from the Rialto mart,
\nScarlet and brown and purple, with green leaves\u2014
\nFragments of exquisite carving, lichen-grown,
\nFound, ‘mid pathetic squalor, in some niche
\nWhere wild, half-naked urchins lived and played\u2014
\nA bright robe, crowned with a pale, dark-eyed face\u2014
\nA red-striped awning ‘gainst and old grey wall\u2014
\nA delicate opal gleam upon the tide.
\nI looked out from my window, and I saw
\nVenice, my Venice, naked in the sun\u2014
\nSad, faded, and unutterably forlorn!\u2014
\nBut still unutterably beautiful.<\/p>\n

For days and days I wandered up and down\u2014
\nHolding my breath in awe and ecstasy,\u2014
\nFollowing my husband to familiar haunts,
\nMaking acquaintance with his well-loved friends,
\nWhose faces I had only seen in dreams
\nAnd books and photographs and his careless talk.
\nFor days and days\u2014with sunny hours of rest
\nAnd musing chat, in that cool room of ours,
\nPaved with white marble, on the Grand Canal;
\nFor days and days\u2014with happy nights between,
\nHalf-spent, while little Katie lay asleep
\nOut on the balcony, with the moon and stars.<\/p>\n

O Venice, Venice!\u2014with thy water-streets\u2014
\nThy gardens bathed in sunset, flushing red
\nBehind San Giorgio Maggiore’s dome\u2014
\nThy glimmering lines of haughty palaces
\nShadowing fair arch and column in the stream\u2014
\nThy most divine cathedral, and its square,
\nWith vagabonds and loungers daily thronged,
\nTaking their ice, their coffee, and their ease\u2014
\nThy sunny campo’s, with their clamorous din,
\nTheir shrieking vendors of fresh fish and fruit\u2014
\nThy churches and thy pictures\u2014thy sweet bits
\nOf colour\u2014thy grand relics of the dead\u2014
\nThy gondoliers and water-bearers\u2014girls
\nWith dark, soft eyes, and creamy faces, crowned
\nWith braided locks as bright and black as jet\u2014
\nWild ragamuffins, picturesque in rags,
\nAnd swarming beggars and old witch-like crones,
\nAnd brown-cloaked contadini, hot and tired,
\nSleeping, face-downward, on the sunny steps\u2014
\nThy fairy islands floating in the sun\u2014
\nThy poppy-sprinkled, grave-strewn Lido shore\u2014
\nThy poetry and thy pathos\u2014all so strange!\u2014
\nThou didst bring many a lump into my throat,
\nAnd many a passionate thrill into my heart,
\nAnd once a tangled dream into my head.<\/p>\n

‘Twixt afternoon and evening. I was tired;
\nThe air was hot and golden\u2014not a breath
\nOf wind until the sunset\u2014hot and still.
\nOur floor was water-sprinkled; our thick walls
\nAnd open doors and windows, shadowed deep
\nWith jalousies and awnings, made a cool
\nAnd grateful shadow for my little couch.
\nA subtle perfume stole about the room
\nFrom a small table, piled with purple grapes,
\nAnd water-melon slices, pink and wet,
\nAnd ripe, sweet figs, and golden apricots,
\nNew-laid on green leaves from our garden\u2014leaves
\nWherewith an antique torso had been clothed.
\nMy husband read his novel on the floor,
\nPropped up on cushions and an Indian shawl;
\nAnd little Katie slumbered at his feet,
\nHer yellow curls alight, and delicate tints
\nOf colour in the white folds of her frock.
\nI lay, and mused, in comfort and at ease,
\nWatching them both and playing with my thoughts;
\nAnd then I fell into a long, deep sleep,
\nAnd dreamed.
\nI saw a water-wilderness\u2014
\nIslands entangled in a net of streams\u2014
\nCross-threads of rippling channels, woven through
\nBare sands, and shallows glimmering blue and broad\u2014
\nA line of white sea-breakers far away.
\nThere came a smoke and crying from the land\u2014
\nRuin was there, and ashes, and the blood
\nOf conquered cities, trampled down to death.
\nBut here, methought, amid these lonely gulfs,
\nThere rose up towers and bulwarks, fair and strong,
\nLapped in the silver sea-mists;\u2014waxing aye
\nFairer and stronger\u2014till they seemed to mock
\nThe broad-based kingdoms on the mainland shore.
\nI saw a great fleet sailing in the sun,
\nSailing anear the sand-slip, whereon broke
\nThe long white wave-crests of the outer sea,\u2014
\nPepin of Lombardy, with his warrior hosts\u2014
\nFollowing the bloody steps of Attila!
\nI saw the smoke rise when he touched the towns
\nThat lay, outposted, in his ravenous reach;
\nThen, in their island of deep waters, saw
\nA gallant band defy him to his face,
\nAnd drive him out, with his fair vessels wrecked
\nAnd charred with flames, into the sea again.
\n“Ah, this is Venice!” I said proudly\u2014”queen
\nWhose haughty spirit none shall subjugate.”<\/p>\n

It was the night. The great stars hung, like globes
\nOf gold, in purple skies, and cast their light
\nIn palpitating ripples down the flood
\nThat washed and gurgled through the silent streets\u2014
\nWhite-bordered now with marble palaces.
\nIt was the night. I saw a grey-haired man,
\nSitting alone in a dark convent-porch\u2014
\nIn beggar’s garments, with a kingly face,
\nAnd eyes that watched for dawnlight anxiously\u2014
\nA weary man, who could not rest nor sleep.
\nI heard him muttering prayers beneath his breath,
\nAnd once a malediction\u2014while the air
\nHummed with the soft, low psalm-chants from within.
\nAnd then, as grey gleams yellowed in the east,
\nI saw him bend his venerable head,
\nCreep to the door, and knock.
\nAgain I saw
\nThe long-drawn billows breaking on the land,
\nAnd galleys rocking in the summer noon.
\nThe old man, richly retinued, and clad
\nIn princely robes, stood there, and spread his arms,
\nAnd cried, to one low-kneeling at his feet,
\n“Take thou my blessing with thee, O my son!
\nAnd let this sword, wherewith I gird thee, smite
\nThe impious tyrant-king, who hath defied,
\nDethroned, and exiled him who is as Christ.
\nThe Lord be good to thee, my son, my son,
\nFor thy most righteous dealing!”
\nAnd again
\n‘Twas that long slip of land betwixt the sea
\nAnd still lagoons of Venice\u2014curling waves
\nFlinging light, foamy spray upon the sand.
\nThe noon was past, and rose-red shadows fell
\nAcross the waters. Lo! the galleys came
\nTo anchorage again\u2014and lo! the Duke
\nYet once more bent his noble head to earth,
\nAnd laid a victory at the old man’s feet,
\nPraying a blessing with exulting heart.
\n“This day, my well-belov\u00e8d, thou art blessed,
\nAnd Venice with thee, for St. Peter’s sake.
\nAnd I will give thee, for thy bride and queen,
\nThe sea which thou has conquered. Take this ring,
\nAs sign of her subjection, and thy right
\nTo be her lord for ever.”
\nOnce again
\nI saw that old man,\u2014in the vestibule
\nOf St. Mark’s fair cathedral,\u2014circled round
\nWith cardinals and priests, ambassadors
\nAnd the noblesse of Venice\u2014richly robed
\nIn papal vestments, with the triple crown
\nGleaming upon his brows. There was a hush:\u2014
\nI saw a glittering train come sweeping on,
\nFrom the blue water and across the square,
\nThronged with an eager multitude,\u2014the Duke,
\nAnd with him Barbarossa, humbled now,
\nAnd fain to pray for pardon. With bare heads,
\nThey reached the church, and paused. The Emperor knelt,
\nCasting away his purple mantle\u2014knelt,
\nAnd crept along the pavement, as to kiss
\nThose feet, which had been weary twenty years
\nWith his own persecutions. And the Pope
\nLifted his white haired, crowned, majestic head,
\nAnd trod upon his neck,\u2014crying out to Christ,
\n“Upon the lion and adder shalt thou go\u2014
\nThe dragon shalt thou tread beneath thy feet!”
\nThe vision changed. Sweet incense-clouds rose up
\nFrom the cathedral altar, mix’d with hymns
\nAnd solemn chantings, o’er ten thousand heads;
\nAnd ebbed and died away along the aisles.
\nI saw a train of nobles\u2014knights of France\u2014
\nPass ‘neath the glorious arches through the crowd,
\nAnd stand, with halo of soft, coloured light
\nOn their fair brows\u2014the while their leader’s voice
\nRang through the throbbing silence like a bell.
\n“Signiors, we come to Venice, by the will
\nOf the most high and puissant lords of France,
\nTo pray you look with your compassionate eyes
\nUpon the Holy City of our Christ\u2014
\nWherein He lived, and suffered, and was lain
\nAsleep, to wake in glory, for our sakes\u2014
\nBy Paynim dogs dishonoured and defiled!
\nSigniors, we come to you, for you are strong.
\nThe seas which lie betwixt that land and this
\nObey you. O have pity! See, we kneel\u2014
\nOur Masters bid us kneel\u2014and bid us stay
\nHere at your feet until you grant our prayers!”
\nWherewith the knights fell down upon their knees,
\nAnd lifted up their supplicating hands.
\nLo! the ten thousand people rose as one,
\nAnd shouted with a shout that shook the domes
\nAnd gleaming roofs above them\u2014echoing down,
\nThrough marble pavements, to the shrine below,
\nWhere lay the miraculous body of their Saint
\n(Shed he not heavenly radiance as he heard?\u2014
\nPerfuming the damp air of his secret crypt),
\nAnd cried, with an exceeding mighty cry,
\n“We do consent! We will be pitiful!”
\nThe thunder of their voices reached the sea,
\nAnd thrilled through all the netted water-veins
\nOf their rich city. Silence fell anon,
\nSlowly, with fluttering wings, upon the crowd;
\nAnd then a veil of darkness.
\nAnd again
\nThe filtered sunlight streamed upon those walls,
\nMarbled and sculptured with divinest grace;
\nAgain I saw a multitude of heads,
\nSoft-wreathed with cloudy incense, bent in prayer\u2014
\nThe heads of haughty barons, arm\u00e8d knights
\nAnd pilgrims girded with their staff and scrip,
\nThe warriors of the Holy Sepulchre.
\nThe music died away along the roof;
\nThe hush was broken\u2014not by him of France\u2014
\nBy Enrico Dandolo, whose grey head
\nVenice had circled with the ducal crown.
\nThe old man looked down, with his dim, wise eyes,
\nStretching his hands abroad, and spake. “Seigneurs,
\nMy children, see\u2014your vessels lie in port
\nFreighted for battle. And you, standing here,
\nWait but the first fair wind. The bravest hosts
\nAre with you, and the noblest enterprise
\nConceived of man. Behold, I am grey-haired,
\nAnd old and feeble. Yet am I your lord.
\nAnd, if it be your pleasure, I will trust
\nMy ducal seat in Venice to my son,
\nAnd be your guide and leader.”
\nWhen they heard,
\nThey cried aloud, “In God’s name, go with us!”
\nAnd the old man, with holy weeping, passed
\nAdown the tribune to the altar-steps;
\nAnd, kneeling, fixed the cross upon his cap.
\nA ray of sudden sunshine lit his face\u2014
\nThe grand, grey, furrowed face\u2014and lit the cross,
\nUntil it twinkled like a cross of fire.
\n“We shall be safe withhim,” the people said,
\nStraining their wet, bright eyes; “and we shall reap
\nHarvests of glory from our battle-fields!”<\/p>\n

Anon there rose a vapour from the sea\u2014
\nA dim white mist, that thickened into fog.
\nThe campanile and columns were blurred out,
\nCathedral domes and spires, and colonnades
\nOf marble palaces on the Grand Canal.
\nJoy-bells rang sadly and softly\u2014far away;
\nBanners of welcome waved like wind-blown clouds;
\nGlad shouts were muffled into mournful wails.
\nA Doge was come to be enthroned and crowned,\u2014
\nNot in the great Bucentaur\u2014not in pomp;
\nThe water-ways had wandered in the mist,
\nAnd he had tracked them, slowly, painfully,
\nFrom San Clemente to Venice, in a frail
\nAnd humble gondola. A Doge was come;
\nBut he, alas! had missed his landing-place,
\nAnd set his foot upon the blood-stained stones
\nBetwixt the blood-red columns. Ah, the sea\u2014
\nThe bride, the queen\u2014she was the first to turn
\nAgainst her passionate, proud, ill-fated lord!<\/p>\n

Slowly the sea-fog melted, and I saw
\nLong, limp dead bodies dangling in the sun.
\nTwo granite pillars towered on either side,
\nAnd broad blue waters glittered at their feet.
\n“These are the traitors,” said the people; “they
\nWho, with our Lord the Duke, would overthrow
\nThe government of Venice.”
\nAnd anon,
\nThe doors about the palace were made fast.
\nA great crowd gathered round them, with hushed breath
\nAnd throbbing pulses. And I knew their lord,
\nThe Duke Faliero, knelt upon his knees,
\nOn the broad landing of the marble stairs
\nWhere he had sworn the oath he could not keep\u2014
\nVexed with the tyrannous oligarchic rule
\nThat held his haughty spirit netted in,
\nAnd cut so keenly that he writhed and chafed
\nUntil he burst the meshes\u2014could not keep!
\nI watched and waited, feeling sick at heart;
\nAnd then I saw a figure, robed in black\u2014
\nOne of their dark, ubiquitous, supreme
\nAnd fearful tribunal of Ten\u2014come forth,
\nAnd hold a dripping sword-blade in the air.
\n“Justice has fallen on the traitor! See,
\nHis blood has paid the forfeit of his crime!”
\nAnd all the people, hearing, murmured deep,
\nCursing their dead lord, and the council, too,
\nWhose swift, sure, heavy hand had dealt his death.<\/p>\n

Then came the night, all grey and still and sad.
\nI saw a few red torches flare and flame
\nOver a little gondola, where lay
\nThe headless body of the traitor Duke,
\nStripped of his ducal vestments. Floating down
\nThe quiet waters, it passed out of sight,
\nBearing him to unhonoured burial.
\nAnd then came mist and darkness.
\nLo! I heard
\nThe shrill clang of alarm-bells, and the wails
\nOf men and women in the wakened streets.
\nA thousand torches flickered up and down,
\nLighting their ghastly faces and bare heads;
\nThe while they crowded to the open doors
\nOf all the churches\u2014to confess their sins,
\nTo pray for absolution, and a last
\nLord’s Supper\u2014their viaticum, whose death
\nSeemed near at hand\u2014ay, nearer than the dawn.
\n“Chioggia is fall’n!” they cried,”and we are lost!”<\/p>\n

Anon I saw them hurrying to and fro,
\nWith eager eyes and hearts and blither feet\u2014
\nGrave priests, with warlike weapons in their hands,
\nAnd delicate women, with their ornaments
\nOf gold and jewels for the public fund\u2014
\nMix’d with the bearded crowd, whose lives were given,
\nWith all they had, to Venice in her need.
\nNo more I heard the wailing of despair,\u2014
\nBut great Pisani’s blithe word of command,
\nThe dip of oars, and creak of beams and chains,
\nAnd ring of hammers in the arsenal.
\n“Venice shall ne’er be lost!” her people cried\u2014
\nWhose names were worthy of the Golden Book\u2014
\n“Venice shall ne’er be conquered!”
\nAnd anon
\nI saw a scene of triumph\u2014saw the Doge,
\nIn his Bucentaur, sailing to the land\u2014
\nChioggia behind him blackened in the smoke,
\nVenice before, all banners, bells, and shouts
\nOf passionate rejoicing! Ten long months
\nHad Genoa waged that war of life and death;
\nAnd now\u2014behold the remnant of her host,
\nShrunken and hollow-eyed and bound with chains\u2014
\nTrailing their galleys in the conqueror’s wake!<\/p>\n

Once more the tremulous waters, flaked with light;
\nA covered vessel, with an arm\u00e8d guard\u2014
\nA yelling mob on fair San Giorgio’s isle,
\nAnd ominous whisperings in the city squares.
\nCarrara’s noble head bowed down at last,
\nBeaten by many storms,\u2014his golden spurs
\nCaught in the meshes of a hidden snare!
\n“O Venice!” I cried, “where is thy great heart
\nAnd honourable soul?”
\nAnd yet once more
\nI saw her\u2014the gay Sybaris of the world\u2014
\nThe rich voluptuous city\u2014sunk in sloth.
\nI heard Napoleon’s cannon at her gates,
\nAnd her degenerate nobles cry for fear.
\nI saw at last the great Republic fall\u2014
\nConquered by her own sickness, and with scarce
\nA noticeable wound\u2014I saw her fall!
\nAnd she had stood above a thousand years!
\nO Carlo Zeno! O Pisani! Sure
\nYe turned and groaned for pity in your graves.
\nI saw the flames devour her Golden Book
\nBeneath the rootless “Tree of Liberty;”
\nI saw the Lion’s legend blotted out,
\nFor “rights of men”\u2014unutterable wrongs!\u2014
\nDandolo’s brazen horses borne away\u2014
\nThe venerable Bucentaur, with its wealth
\nOf glorious recollections, broken up.
\nI heard the riotous clamour; then the change
\nTo passionate minor cadence\u2014then the sad
\nAnd hopeless silence settle down; and then\u2014
\nI woke. The flickering water-gleam was gone
\nFrom off the ceiling, and white snows of light
\nFell softly on the marble walls and floors,
\nAnd on the yellow head of little Kate
\nMusingly bent down from the balcony.
\nThe lapping of the tide\u2014the dip of oars\u2014
\nThe sad, sweet songs, and sadder city bells,
\nMellowly borne along the water-streets:\u2014
\nThe swirl and ripple around lumbering keels
\nOf heavy, slow, Rialto market-boats,
\nAdown the broad and misty highway, lit
\nWith moonbeams and the far-strown light of lamps,
\nFollowing the track of vanished gondolas:\u2014
\nThe flutter of a fig-leaf in the wind,
\nA faded fig-leaf, flapping faded walls,
\nWith faded, crumbling, delicate sculpture-crusts:\u2014
\nThe voice of dreaming Katie crooning out
\nA snatch of melody that the Austrian band
\nPlayed in San Marco’s Place some hours agone,
\nWhile patriots, ‘neath their shadowy colonnades,
\nSauntered, and shut their ears, and ate their hearts:\u2014
\nA measured footstep, pacing to and fro\u2014
\nThe brush of two strong hands upon my brows\u2014
\nThe tenor-music of dear English lips,
\nWhispering, between two kisses, cheerily,
\n“Wake up, my wife; Nina has brought our tea:”\u2014
\nThese were the sounds that called me back to life.
\nRialto (Rivo alto)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Ada Cambridge (Norfolk, England, 1844-1926)<\/p>\n

 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Numb, half asleep, and dazed with whirl of wheels, And gasp of steam, and measured clank of chains, I … Continua<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6445,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[3748],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slow-words.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6442"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slow-words.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slow-words.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slow-words.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slow-words.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6442"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.slow-words.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13909,"href":"https:\/\/www.slow-words.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6442\/revisions\/13909"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slow-words.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slow-words.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slow-words.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slow-words.com\/it\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}