In purple was she robed, and of her feast Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.

III.

In Venice, Tasso's echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone - but Beauty still is
here.

States fall, arts fade- - but Nature doth not

die,

Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,

The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!

IV.

But unto us she hath a spell beyond
Her name in story, and her long array
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond
Above the Dogeless city's vanish'd sway;
Ours is a trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor,
And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away
The keystones of the arch! though all were

o'er,

For us repeopled were the solitary shore.

V.

The beings of the mind are not of clay;
Essentially immortal, they create

And multiply in us a brighter ray

And more beloved existence: that which Fate
Prohibits to dull life, in this our state

Of mortal bondage, by these spirits supplied,
First exiles, then replaces what we hate;
Watering the heart whose early flowers have
died,

And with a fresher growth replenishing the

void.

"Skip"

VI.

Such is the refuge of our youth and age,
The first from Hope, the last from Vacancy;
And this worn feeling peoples many a page,
And, may be, that which grows beneath mine
eye;

Yet there are things whose strong reality
Outshines our fairy-land; in shape and hues
More beautiful than our fantastic sky,

And the strange constellations which the Muse
O'er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse :

VII.

I saw or dream'd of such, - but let them go -
They came like truth, and disappear'd like

dreams;

And whatsoe'er they were— are now but so; I could replace them if I would still teems My mind with many a form which aptly seems Such as I sought for, and at moments found; Let these too go - for waking reason deems Such overweening phantasies unsound, And other voices speak, and other sights surround.

VIII.

I've taught me other tongues, and in strange

eyes

Have made me not a stranger; to the mind Which is itself, no changes bring surprise; Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find A country with—ay, or without mankind; Yet was I born where men are proud to be, Not without cause; and should I leave behind The inviolate island of the sage and free, And seek me out a home by a remoter sea,

IX.

Perhaps I loved it well and should I lay
My ashes in a soil which is not mine,
My spirit shall resume it — if we may
Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine
My hopes of being remember'd in my line
With my land's language: if too fond and_far
These aspirations in their scope incline,