d 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.

V.

The Beings of the Mind are not of clay:
Essentially immortal, they create
And multiply in us a brighter ray
And more beloved existence:[384] that which Fate
Prohibits to dull life in this our state[lf]
Of mortal bondage, by these Spirits supplied,
First exiles, then replaces what we hate;
Watering the heart whose early flowers have died,
And with a fresher growth replenishing the void.

VI.

Such is the refuge of our youth and age--
The first from Hope, the last from Vacancy;[385]
And this wan feeling peoples many a page--[lg]
And, may be, that which grows beneath mine eye:[lh]
Yet there are things whose strong reality
Outshines our fairy-land; in shape and hues[li]
More beautiful than our fantastic sky,
And the strange constellations which the Muse
O'er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse:

VII.

I saw or dreamed of such,--but let them go,--
They came like Truth--and disappeared l