XIII.

   Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass,
   Their gilded collars glittering in the sun;
   But is not Doria’s menace come to pass? 
   Are they not bridled?—­Venice, lost and won,
   Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done,
   Sinks, like a seaweed, into whence she rose! 
   Better be whelmed beneath the waves, and shun,
   Even in Destruction’s depth, her foreign foes,
From whom submission wrings an infamous repose.

XIV.

   In youth she was all glory,—­a new Tyre, —
   Her very byword sprung from victory,
   The ‘Planter of the Lion,’ which through fire
   And blood she bore o’er subject earth and sea;
   Though making many slaves, herself still free
   And Europe’s bulwark ’gainst the Ottomite: 
   Witness Troy’s rival, Candia!  Vouch it, ye
   Immortal waves that saw Lepanto’s fight! 
For ye are names no time nor tyranny can blight.

XV.

   Statues of glass—­all shivered—­the long file
   Of her dead doges are declined to dust;
   But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile
   Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust;
   Their sceptre broken, and their sword in rust,
   Have yielded to the stranger:  empty halls,
   Thin streets, and foreign aspects, such as must
   Too oft remind her who and what enthrals,
Have flung a desolate cloud o’er Venice’ lovely walls.

XVI.

   When Athens’ armies fell at Syracuse,
   And fettered thousands bore the yoke of war,
   Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse,
   Her voice their only ransom from afar: 
   See! as they chant the tragic hymn, the car
   Of the o’ermastered victor stops, the reins
   Fall from his hands—­his idle scimitar
   Starts from its belt—­he rends his captive’s chains,
And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains.

XVII.

   Thus, Venice, if no stronger claim were thine,
   Were all thy proud historic deeds forgot,
   Thy choral memory of the bard divine,
   Thy love of Tasso, should have cut the knot
   Which ties thee to thy tyrants; and thy lot
   Is shameful to the nations,—­most of all,
   Albion! to thee:  the Ocean Queen should not
   Abandon Ocean’s children; in the fall
Of Venice think of thine, despite thy watery wall.

XVIII.

   I loved her from my boyhood:  she to me
   Was as a fairy city of the heart,
   Rising like water-columns from the sea,
   Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart
   And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakspeare’s art,
   Had stamped her image in me, and e’en so,
   Although I found her thus, we did not part,
   Perchance e’en dearer in her day of woe,
Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show.