| |
| HUSHED is the music, hushed the hum of voices; | |
| Gone is the crowd of dusky promenaders,— | |
| Slender-waisted, almond-eyed Venetians, | |
| Princes and paupers. Not a single footfall | |
| Sounds in the arches of the Procuratie. | 5 |
| One after one, like sparks in cindered paper, | |
| Faded the lights out in the goldsmiths’ windows. | |
| Drenched with the moonlight lies the still Piazza. | |
| |
| Fair as the palace builded for Aladdin, | |
| Yonder St. Mark uplifts its sculptured splendor,— | 10 |
| Intricate fretwork, Byzantine mosaic, | |
| Color on color, column upon column, | |
| Barbaric, wonderful, a thing to kneel to! | |
| Over the portal stand the four gilt horses, | |
| Gilt hoof in air, and wide distended nostril, | 15 |
| Fiery, untamed, as in the days of Nero. | |
| Skyward, a cloud of domes and spires and crosses; | |
| Earthward, black shadows flung from jutting stone-work. | |
| High over all the slender Campanile | |
| Quivers, and seems a falling shaft of silver! | 20 |
| |
| Hushed is the music, hushed the hum of voices. | |
| From coigne and cornice and fantastic gargoyle, | |
| At intervals the moan of dove or pigeon, | |
| Fairily faint, floats off into the moonlight. | |
| This, and the murmur of the Adriatic, | 25 |
| Lazily restless, lapping the mossed marble, | |
| Staircase or buttress, scarcely break the stillness. | |
| Deeper each moment seems to grow the silence, | |
| Denser the moonlight in the still Piazza. | |
| Hark! on the Tower above the ancient gateway, | 30 |
| The twin bronze Vulcans, with their ponderous hammers, | |
| Hammer the midnight on their brazen bell there! | |
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