| |
| | “Venite all’ agile, |
| Barchetta mia, |
| Santa Lucia, |
| Santa Lucia!” |
| Venetian Song |
I SAIL adown thy silvery street | |
| What time the night and moonlight meet; | |
| Thy white bare breast heaves soft below, | |
| To music’s languid overflow, | |
| Venezia! | 5 |
| |
| I hear the choruses afar, | |
| Where palaces and churches are; | |
| Their voices mingle with the hours | |
| Pealed forth from thy electric towers, | |
| Venezia! | 10 |
| |
| One song they sing night after night | |
| Too rapt to ’scape from its delight; | |
| Thy shining ways forever hear | |
| How well thou lovest thy Lucia, | |
| Venezia! | 15 |
| |
| I know not who this saint may be, | |
| And yet her lovely face I see, | |
| Bending above me fair and sweet | |
| What time the night and moonlight meet, | |
| Venezia! | 20 |
| |
| The gondolas move to and fro, | |
| Silenter than thy waters go. | |
| They would not breathe because their breath | |
| Might send that lovely face to death, | |
| Venezia! | 25 |
| |
| Thy soul that face will keep and save, | |
| Though Tintoret be in his grave! | |
| Because it is the supreme thing | |
| Of which thy sons and lovers sing, | |
| Venezia! | 30 |
| |
| Forever from thy stately doors | |
| This steadfast flood of music pours, | |
| Till all thy brooding palaces | |
| Cease dreaming of their bygone days, | |
| Venezia! | 35 |
| |
| And high above thy sculptured stairs, | |
| Above thy great San Marco’s prayers, | |
| Rises to put thy prayers to shame, | |
| Lucia’s name, Lucia’s name, | |
| Venezia! | 40 |
| |
