Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 4.djvu/231



I.

Venice! Venice! when thy marble walls

Are level with the waters, there shall be

A cry of nations o'er thy sunken halls,

A loud lament along the sweeping sea!

If I, a northern wanderer, weep for thee,

What should thy sons do?—anything but weep:

And yet they only murmur in their sleep.

In contrast with their fathers—as the slime,

The dull green ooze of the receding deep,

Is with the dashing of the spring-tide foam,

That drives the sailor shipless to his home,

Are they to those that were; and thus they creep,

Crouching and crab-like, through their sapping streets.

Oh! agony—that centuries should reap

No mellower harvest! Thirteen hundred years

Of wealth and glory turned to dust and tears;

And every monument the stranger meets,

Church, palace, pillar, as a mourner greets;

And even the Lion all subdued appears,

Rh