No More Learning

with thy name this song begun!
My daughter! with thy name thus much shall end! --
I see thee not--I hear thee not--but none
Can be so wrapt in thee; Thou art the Friend
To whom the shadows of far years extend:
Albeit my brow thou never should'st behold,
My voice shall with thy future visions blend,
And reach into thy heart,--when mine is cold,--
A token and a tone, even from thy father's mould.

CXVI.

To aid thy mind's developement,--to watch
Thy dawn of little joys,--to sit and see
Almost thy very growth,--to view thee catch
Knowledge of objects,--wonders yet to thee!
To hold thee lightly on a gentle knee,
And print on thy soft cheek a parent's kiss,--
This, it should seem, was not reserved for me--
Yet this was in my nature:--as it is,
I know not what is there, yet something like to this.

CXVII.

Yet, though dull Hate as duty should be taught,[353]
I know that thou wilt love me: though my name
Should be shut from thee, as a spell still fraught
With desolation, and a broken claim:
Though the grave closed between us,--'twere the same,
I know that thou wilt love me--though to drain[354]
_My_ blood from out thy being were an aim,
And an attainment,--all would be in vain,--
Still thou would'st love me, still that more than life retain.

CXVIII.

The child of Love! [355] though born in bitterness,
And nurtured in Convulsion! Of thy sire
These were the elements,--and thine no less.
As yet such are around thee,--but thy fire
Shall be more tempered, and thy hope far higher!
Sweet be thy cradled slumbers!
O'er the sea
And from the mountains where I now respire,
Fain would I waft such blessing upon thee,
As--with a sigh--I deem thou might'st have been to me! [la]

CANTO THE FOURTH[375]

I.

I stood in Venice, on the "Bridge of Sighs;"[376][1. H. ]
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:[377]
A thousand Years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying Glory smiles
O'er the far times, when many a subject land
Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles! [lb]

II.

She looks a sea Cybele,[378] 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[lc]
Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. [379]
In purple was she robed,[380] and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased. [ld]

III.

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,[2. H. ]
And silent rows the songless Gondolier;[381]
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,[le]
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 vanished sway;
Ours is a trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto;[382] Shylock and the Moor,
And Pierre,[383] can not be swept or worn away--
The keystones of the Arch! though all were o'er,
For us repeopled were the solitary shore.