Lord Byron, his poems on Venice

Lord Byron

I stood in Venice

“I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs ;
A palace and a prison on each hand :
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter’s wand :
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying Glory smiles
O'er the far times, when many a subject land
Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles, [isles !
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred.”
Lord Byron - Child Harold Pilgrimage Canto the Fourth - I

A Sea Cybele

“She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance, with majestic motion,
A ruler of the waters and their powers :
And such she was ; — her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East
Pour’d in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
In purple was she robed, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity Increased.”
Lord Byron - Child Harold Pilgrimage Canto the Fourth - II

The Songless Gondolier

“In Venice Tasso’s echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier ;
Her palaces aire 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!”
Lord Byron - Child Harold Pilgrimage Canto the Fourth - III

The Dogeless City

“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, can not be swept or worn away —
The keystones of the arch I though all were o'er,
For us repeopled were the solitary shore.”
Lord Byron - Child Harold Pilgrimage Canto the Fourth - IV

The Spouseless Adriatic

“The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord ;
And, annual marriage now no more renew’d,
The Bucentaur lies rutting unrestored,
Neglected garment of her widowhood!
St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stoed
Stand, but in mockery of his wither'd power,
Over the proud Place where an Emperor sued.
And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour
When Venice was a queen with an unequall’d dower.”
Lord Byron - Child Harold Pilgrimage Canto the Fourth - 11