evening, and tell the gondolier to go into the canal of the Giudecca.
The gondola enters on the golden track, you have left the custom-house
on your right. The stars touch with light the gold ball which carries
Fortune on it, and the lamp at the foot of the portico, the steps of
which run down into the water, lights up the white façade, and makes
it reflect itself in the slightly rippled waters. The faubourg of the
Giudecca is on our left--a red-brown by daylight and dark by night;
a few scattered lanterns alone break this black ground like the gold
sparkles which appear and disappear on a piece of burning paper, and
sometimes under the stars, as in the picture of the English painter
Orchardson, two lovers exchange their soft vows ‘in the pale light of
stars’ under the brightly spangled sky.
The Giudecca is long and low, and becomes faint and almost bluish as
it prolongs itself towards the horizon. The black keels of some boats
at anchor, their masts and fine cordage, outline themselves distinctly
against the clear sky; the dome of the Redentore, the church of the
faubourg, rounds itself above the houses. On the right we have the
Zattere and their quays with polished flagstones, looking white in the
rays of the moon, with the great palaces, regular and noble, the little
deserted jetties, and here and there the bridges at the openings of the
canals.
The Giudecca is dark; the Zattere is as light as day, but with that
veiled illumination which the moon throws over everything it floods
with its rays. The silence is profound and the calmness undisturbed;
the distant echoes, the solemn striking of the hour by the clock of St.
Mark’s, the song of a solitary sailor guarding his felucca which he has
brought timber-laden from Dalmatia, the voice of a belated gondolier
who sits swinging his legs in that nocturnal reverie which is like the
_kief_ of the East: who can render this impression at once sweet and
solemn, the incomparable charms which lulls all longings, and attaches
us to Venice with an imperishable love?
CHARLES YRIARTE.
TO VENICE: A FAREWELL
Venice, farewell, your evening tints are shed,--
Soft crimson shadows at this hour you lay
Upon each palace now that gleameth red
Ere lovelier eve gives place to lovely day.
The tender dawn, the golden noon, soft night,
Will ever stay a vision of delight.
No more on quiet lagoon, by dreamy isle,
Shall my gondola there in silence glide;
No more shall I behold you sadly smile
Where loveliest tints are gathered on your tide.
The colour, light, the dreamy dip of oar
Are tenderest memories for evermore.
CESARE MORANDI.
NIGHT IN VENICE
How beautiful is night in Venice! Then music and the moon reign
supreme; the glittering sky reflected in the waters, and every gondola
gliding with sweet sounds! Around on every side are palaces and
temples, rising from the waves which they shadow with their solemn
forms, their costly fronts rich with the spoils of kingdoms, and
softened with the magic of the midnight beam. The whole city, too, is
poured forth for festival. The people lounge on the quays and cluster
on the bridges; the light barks skim along in crowds, just touching the
surface of the water, while their bright prows of polished iron gleam
in the moonshine, and glitter in the rippling wave. Not a sound that is
not graceful: the tinkle of guitars, the sighs of serenaders, and the
responsive chorus of gondoliers. Now and then a laugh--light, joyous,
and yet musical--bursts forth from some illuminated coffee-house,
before which a buffo disports, a tumbler stands on his head, or a
juggler mystifies; and all for a sequin!
The Place of St. Mark ... is distinguished for elegance, luxury, and
enjoyment.... Under a Venetian moon it is the hour of love and of faro;
now is the hour to press your suit and to break a bank; to glide from
the apartment of rapture into the chamber of chance. For [other] tastes
there is the minstrel, the conjurer, and the story-teller, goblets
of Cyprus wine, flasks of sherbet, and confectionery that dazzle
like diamonds. And for every one, from the grave senator to the gay
gondolier, there is an atmosphere in itself a spell, and which, after
all, has more to do with human happiness than all the accidents of
fortune and all the arts of government.
LORD BEACONSFIELD.
GONDOLA AND GONDOLIER
The gondola is one of the great charms of Venice: it
alone, without art, without the genius of artists which
arrests one at every step, would be enough to fascinate
the stranger. In that gentle swinging like the swinging of
a hammock, that light plash of the oar which caresses the
ear, that incredible sensibility of the boat itself, which
seems to move like a living being, in these and in the
surrounding silence there is from the first moment a charm
which no one can escape.
CHARLES YRIARTE.
Let me this gondola boat compare to the slumberous cradle,
And to a spacious bier liken the cover demure;
Thus on the open canal through life we are swaying and swimming
Onward with never a care, coffin and cradle between.
RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES (FROM GOETHE).
The gondolier in Venice is as fine to look at as his
gondola; he has colour, too, in the ruddy dye of his face,
the infinite variety of his amber shirts and blue trousers
and scarlet sashes; and if you really know him, he is one
of the most charming of people.
ARTHUR SYMONS.
‘Row, Zarzi!’
The gondolier rowed with increased vigour; the rowlock
now and then creaked under his effort. The Fondaco dei
Truchi melted away like worn and marvellously discoloured
ivory, like the surviving portico of a ruined mosque. The
palace of the Cornaro and the palace of the Pesaro passed
them, like two opaque giants blackened by time as by the
smoke of a conflagration. The Ca’ d’Oro passed them like a
divine play of stone and air; then the Rialto showed its
ample back already noisy with popular life, laden with its
encumbered shops, filled, ... like an enormous cornucopia
pouring on the shore all around it an abundance of the
fruits of the earth.
GABRIELE D’ANNUNZIO.
THE CHARM OF THE GONDOLA
In the palmy days of the gondolier (for he bore the traveller all the
way from Mestre to Venice) there was real poetry in the journey, as
tower, and campanile, and dome gathered from the golden haze, across
the narrowing expanse of water.... It was a vehicle no less pleasant
for the longer excursions on the lagoon. Shaded by its awning, or
sheltering under its black covering, what could be more pleasant than
to slide over the water to the sandy Lido for a refreshing dip in the
Adriatic, or seek the Cathedral of Murano, or, yet further afield, pass
by lonely islets to visit Torcello and its oldest church? Venice the
silent and the gondola are exactly suited. There is no more restful
mode of locomotion; no vibration, no rattle, no clatter, nothing
but the rhythmic wash of the water beneath the oar, so curiously
handled, or the gentle ripple as it slides past the sides; no louder
sound except now and again the gondolier’s strange cry on approaching
a corner to warn those beyond it what direction to take. But the
gondolier has another advantage. Venice is more than a few important
canals, something more than ornate palaces or stately churches.
The waterways among its three score and ten islands ramify in all
directions, and some of the most picturesque, though often dilapidated,
parts of the city are only properly accessible from the smaller
canals.... Here some ornate balcony overhangs; then a little canal
unexpectedly opens, perhaps with its central well. Here a quaintly
designed bridge carries from islet to islet those narrow alleys,
means of communication yet more intricate than the canals themselves.
Sometimes they reveal unexpected phases of domestic life, such as a
group of youngsters indulging in a bath from their own doorstep, now
disporting themselves in the warm water, now basking in the sunshine on
the stone slabs. Venetian boys take to the water almost as naturally
as ducks; and the baby, tied for safety to the door-post with a
string, solemnly contemplates the sport. Venice is at its best in the
summer-time.... A refreshing breeze from the Adriatic often tempers
even the midday heat, and it is a city which needs sunshine almost as
much as London itself.
ANON.
IN A GONDOLA
_He sings._
I send my heart up to thee, all my heart
In this my singing!
For the stars help me, and the sea bears part;
The very night is clinging
Closer to Venice’ streets to leave one space
Above me, whence thy face
May light my joyous heart to thee its dwelling-place.
_She speaks._
Say after me, and try to say
My very words, as if each word
Came from you of your own accord,
In your own voice, in your own way:
‘This woman’s heart, and soul, and brain
‘Are mine as much as this gold chain
‘She bids me wear; which’ (say again)
‘I choose to make by cherishing
‘A precious thing, or choose to fling
‘Over the boat-side, ring by ring.’
And yet once more say ... no word more!
Since words are only words. Give o’er!
Unless you call me, all the same,
Familiarly by my pet-name
Which, if the Three should hear you call,
And me reply to, would proclaim
At once our secret to them all:
Ask of me, too, command me, blame--
Do break down the partition-wall
’Twixt us, the daylight world beholds
Curtained in dusk and splendid folds.
What’s left but--all of me to take?
I am the Three’s; prevent them, slake
Your thirst! ’Tis said, the Arab sage
In practising with gems can loose
Their subtle spirit in his cruce
And leave but ashes: so, sweet mage,
Leave them my ashes when thy use
Sucks out my soul, thy heritage!
_He sings._
I.
Past we glide, and past, and past!
What’s that poor Agnese doing
Where they make the shutters fast?
Grey Zanobi’s just a-wooing
To his couch the purchased bride:
Past we glide!
II.
Past we glide, and past, and past!
Why’s the Pucci Palace flaring
Like a beacon to the blast?
Guests by hundreds--not one caring
If the dear host’s neck were wried:
Past we glide!
_She sings._
I.
The Moth’s kiss, first!
Kiss me as if you made believe
You were not sure, this eve,
How my face, your flower, had pursed
Its petals up; so, here and there
You brush it, till I grow aware
Who wants me, and wide open burst.
II.
The Bee’s kiss, now!
Kiss me as if you entered gay
My heart at some noonday,
A bud that dares not disallow
The claim, so all is rendered up,
And passively its shattered cup
Over your head to sleep I bow.
_He sings._
I.
What are we two?
I am a Jew,
And carry thee, farther than friends can pursue,
To a feast of our tribe,
Where they need thee to bribe
The devil that blasts them unless he imbibe
Thy.... Shatter the vision for ever! And now,
As of old, I am I, Thou art Thou!
II.
Say again, what we are?
The sprite of a star,
I lure thee above where the Destinies bar
My plumes their full play
Till a ruddier ray
Than my pale one announce there is withering away
Some.... Shatter the vision for ever! And now,
As of old, I am I, Thou art Thou!
_He muses._
Oh, which were best, to roam or rest?
The land’s lap or the water’s breast?
To sleep on yellow millet-sheaves,
Or swim in lucid shallows, just
Eluding water-lily leaves,
An inch from Death’s black fingers, thrust
To lock you, whom release he must;
Which life were best on Summer eves?
_He speaks, musing._
Lie back; could thought of mine improve you?
From this shoulder let there spring
A wing; from this, another wing;
Wings, not legs and feet, shall move you!
Snow-white must they spring, to blend
With your flesh, but I intend
They shall deepen to the end,
Broader, into burning gold,
Till both wings crescent-wise enfold
Your perfect self, from ’neath your feet
To o’er your head, where, lo, they meet
As if a million sword-blades hurled
Defiance from you to the world!
Rescue me thou, the only real!
And scare away this mad Ideal
That came, nor motions to depart!
Thanks! Now, stay ever as thou art!
_Still he muses._
I.
What if the Three should catch at last
Thy serenader? While there’s cast
Paul’s cloak about my head, and fast
Gian pinions me, Himself has past
His stylet thro’ my back; I reel;
And ... is it thou I feel?
II.
They trail me, these three godless knaves,
Past every church that saints and saves,
Nor stop till, where the cold sea raves
By Lido’s wet accursed graves,
They scoop mine, roll me to its brink,
And ... on thy breast I sink!
_She replies, musing._
Dip your arm o’er the boat-side, elbow-deep,
As I do: thus: were Death so unlike Sleep,
Caught this way? Death’s to fear from flame, or steel,
Or poison doubtless; but from water--feel!
Go find the bottom! Would you stay me? There!
Now pluck a great blade of that ribbon-grass
To plait in where the foolish jewel was,
I flung away: since you have praised my hair,
’Tis proper to be choice in what I wear.
_He speaks._
Row home? must we row home? Too surely
Know I where its front’s demurely
Over the Giudecca piled;
Window just with window mating,
Door on door exactly waiting,
All’s the set face of a child:
But behind it, where’s a trace
Of the staidness and reserve,
And formal lines without a curve,
In the same child’s playing-face?
No two windows look one way
O’er the small sea-water thread
Below them. Ah, the autumn day
I, passing, saw you overhead!
First, out a cloud of curtain blew,
Then, a sweet cry, and last, came you--
To catch your lory that must needs
Escape just then, of all times then,
To peck a tall plant’s fleecy seeds,
And make me happiest of men.
I scarce could breathe to see you reach
So far back o’er the balcony,
(To catch him ere he climbed too high
Above you in the Smyrna peach)
That quick the round smooth cord of gold.
This coiled hair on your head, unrolled,
Fell down you like a gorgeous snake
The Roman girls were wont, of old,
When Rome there was, for coolness’ sake
To let lie curling o’er their bosoms.
Dear lory, may this beak retain
Ever its delicate rose stain
As if the wounded lotus-blossoms
Had marked their thief to know again!
Stay longer yet, for others’ sake
Than mine! what should your chamber do?
--With all its rarities that ache
In silence while day lasts, but wake
At night-time and their life renew,
Suspended just to pleasure you
--That brought against their will together
These objects, and, while day lasts, weave
Around them such a magic tether
That dumb they look: your harp, believe,
With all the sensitive tight strings
That dare not speak, now to itself
Breathes slumbrously as if some elf
Went in and out the chords, his wings
Make murmur wheresoe’er they graze,
As an angel may, between the maze
Of midnight palace-pillars, on
And on, to sow God’s plagues have gone
Through guilty glorious Babylon.
And while such murmurs flow, the nymph
Bends o’er the harp-top from her shell,
As the dry limpet for the lymph
Come with a tune he knows so well.
And how your statues’ hearts must swell:
And how your pictures must descend
To see each other, friend with friend!
Oh, could you take them by surprise,
You’d find Schidone’s eager Duke
Doing the quaintest courtesies
To that prim Saint by Haste-thee-Luke
And, deeper into her rock den,
Bold Castelfranco’s Magdalen
You’d find retreated from the ken
Of that robed counsel-keeping Ser--
As if the Tizian thinks of her,
And is not, rather, gravely bent
On seeing for himself what toys
Are these, his progeny invent,
What litter now the board employs
Whereon he signed a document
That got him murdered! Each enjoys
Its night so well, you cannot break
The sport up, so, indeed, must make
More stay with me, for others’ sake.
_She speaks._
I.
To-morrow, if a harp-string, say,
Is used to tie the jasmine back
That overfloods my room with sweets,
Contrive your Zorzi somehow meets
My Zanze! If the ribbon’s black,
The Three are watching; keep away!
II.
Your gondola--let Zorzi wreathe
A mesh of water-weeds about
Its prow, as if he unaware
Had struck some quay or bridge-foot stair;
That I may throw a paper out
As you and he go underneath.
There’s Zanze’s vigilant taper; safe are we!
Only one minute more to-night with me?
Resume your past self of a month ago!
Be you the bashful gallant, I will be
The lady with the colder breast than snow:
Now bow you, as becomes, nor touch my hand
More than I touch yours when I step to land,
And say, ‘All thanks, Siora!’--
Heart to heart,
And lips to lips! Yet once more, ere we part,
Clasp me, and make me thine, as mine thou art!
_He is surprised, and stabbed._
It was ordained to be so, Sweet,--and best
Comes now, beneath thine eyes, and on thy breast.
Still kiss me! Care not for the cowards! Care
Only to put aside thy beauteous hair
My blood will hurt! The Three, I do not scorn
To death, because they never lived: but I
Have lived indeed, and so--(yet one more kiss)--can die!
ROBERT BROWNING.
THE INVITATION TO THE GONDOLA
Come forth; for Night is falling,
The moon hangs round and red
On the verge of the violet waters,
Fronting the daylight dead.
Come forth; the liquid spaces
Of sea and sky are as one,
Where outspread angel flame-wings
Brood o’er the buried sun.
Bells call to bells from the islands,
And far-off mountains rear
Their shadowy crests in the crystal
Of cloudless atmosphere.
A breeze from the sea is wafted;
Lamp-litten Venice gleams
With her towers and domes uplifted
Like a city seen in dreams.
Her waterways are atremble
With melody far and wide,
Borne from the phantom galleys
That o’er the darkness glide.
There are stars in heaven, and starry
Are the wandering lights below:
Come forth! for the Night is calling,
Sea, city, and sky are aglow!
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.
THE GONDOLA
Didst ever see a gondola? For fear
You should not, I’ll describe it you exactly:
’Tis a long cover’d boat that’s common here,
Carved at the prow, built lightly, but compactly,
Rowed by two rowers, each called ‘Gondolier,’
It glides along the water looking blackly,
Just like a coffin clapt in a canoe,
Where none can make out what you say or do.
And up and down the long canals they go,
And under the Rialto shoot along,
By night and day, all paces, swift or slow,
And round the theatres, a sable throng,
They wait in their dusk livery of woe,--
But not to them do woeful things belong.
For sometimes they contain a deal of fun,
Like mourning coaches when the funeral’s done.
LORD BYRON.
A DREAM IN A GONDOLA
I had a dream of waters: I was borne
Fast down the slimy tide
Of eldest Nile, and endless flats forlorn
Stretched out on either side,--
Save where from time to time arose
Red pyramids, like flames in forced repose,
And Sphinxes gazed, vast countenances bland,
Athwart the river-sea and sea of sand.
It is the nature of the Life of Dream,
To make all action of our mental springs,
Howe’er unnatural, discrepant and strange,
Be as the unfolding of most usual things;
And thus to me no wonder did there seem,
When by a subtle change,
The heavy ample hyblus-wingèd boat
In which I lay afloat,
Became a deft canoe, light-wove
Of painted bark, gay-set with lustrous shells,
Faintingly rocked within a lonesome cove,
Of some rich island where the Indian dwells;
Below, the water’s pure-white light
Took colour from reflected blooms,
And, through the forest’s deepening glooms,
Birds of illuminated plumes
Came out like stars in summer night:
And close beside, all fearless and serene,
Within a niche of drooping green,
A girl, with limbs fine-rounded and clear-brown,
And hair thick-waving down,
Advancing one small foot, in beauty stood,
Trying the temper of the lambent flood.
* * * * *
Yet not less favoured when awake,--for now,
Across my torpid brow
Swept a cool current of the young night’s air,
With a sharp kiss, and there
Was I all clear awake,--drawn soft along
There in my dear gondola, among
The bright-eyed Venice isles,
Lit up in constant smiles.--
What had my thoughts and heart to do
With wild Egyptian bark, or frail canoe,
Or mythic skiff out of Saturnian days,
When I was there, with that rare scene to praise,
That gondola to rest in and enjoy,
That actual bliss to taste without alloy?
Cradler of placid pleasures, deep delights,
Bosomer of the poet’s wearied mind,
Tempter from vulgar passions, scorns and spites,
Enfolder of all feelings that be kind,--
Before our souls thy quiet motions spread,
In one great calm, one undivided plain,
Immediate joy, blest memories of the dead,
And iris-tinted forms of hope’s domain,
Child of the still lagoons,
Open to every show
Of summer sunsets and autumnal moons,
Such as no other space of world can know,--
Dear boat, that makest dear
Whatever thou comest near,--
In thy repose still let me gently roam,
Still on thy couch of beauty find a home;
Still let me share thy comfortable peace
With all I have of dearest upon Earth,
Friend, mistress, sister; and when death’s release
Shall call my spirit to another birth,
Would that I might thus lightly lapse away,
Alone,--by moonlight,--in a gondola.
RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES.
WERE LIFE BUT AS THE GONDOLA!
Afloat; we move. Delicious! Ah,
What else is like the gondola?
This level floor of liquid glass
Begins beneath us swift to pass.
It goes as though it went alone
By some impulsion of its own.
(How light it moves, how softly! Ah,
Were all things like the gondola!)
How light it moves, how softly! Ah,
Could life, as does our gondola,
Unvexed with quarrels, aims and cares,
And moral duties and affairs,
Unswaying, noiseless, swift, and strong,
For ever thus--thus glide along!
(How light we move, how softly! Ah,
Were life but as the gondola!)
With no more motion than should bear
A freshness to the languid air;
With no more effort than exprest
The need and naturalness of rest,
Which we beneath a grateful shade
Should take on peaceful pillows laid!
(How light we move, how softly! Ah,
Were life but as the gondola!)
In one unbroken passage borne
To closing night from opening morn,
Uplift at whiles slow eyes to mark
Some palace front, some passing bark;
Through windows catch the varying shore,
And hear the soft turns of the oar!
(How light we move, how softly! Ah,
Were life but as the gondola!) ...
How light we go, how soft we skim!
And all in moonlight seem to swim.
In moonlight is it now, or shade?
In planes of sure division made,
By angles sharp of palace walls
The clear light and the shadow falls;
O sight of glory, sight of wonder!
Seen, a pictorial portent, under.
O great Rialto, the vast round
Of thy thrice-solid arch profound!
(How light we go, how softly! Ah,
Life should be as the gondola!)
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.
THE SONGS OF THE GONDOLIERS
This evening I bespoke the celebrated _song_ of the mariners, who sing
Tasso and Ariosto to melodies of their own. This must actually be
ordered, as it is not to be heard as a thing of course, but rather
belongs to the half-forgotten traditions of former times. I entered a
gondola by moonlight, with one singer before and the other behind me.
They sing their song, taking up the verses alternately. The melody,
which we know through Rousseau, is of a middle kind, between choral
and recitative, maintaining throughout the same cadence, without any
fixed time. The modulation is also uniform, only varying with a sort
of declamation both tone and measures, according to the subject of the
verse. But the spirit--the life of it, is as follows:
Without inquiring into the construction of the melody, suffice it to
say that it is admirably suited to that easy class of people who,
always humming something or other to themselves, adapt such tunes to
any little poem they know by heart.
Sitting on the shore of an island, on the bank of a canal, or on the
side of a boat, a gondolier will sing away with a low penetrating
voice--the multitude admire force above everything--anxious only to
be heard as far as possible. Over the silent mirror it travels far.
Another in the distance, who is acquainted with the melody and knows
the words, takes it up and answers with the next verse, and then the
first replies, so that the one is as it were the echo of the other. The
song continues through whole nights, and is kept up without fatigue.
The further the singers are from each other, the more touching sounds
the strain. The best place for the listener is half-way between the two.