Venice, III

(Childe Harold, Canto iv. Stanza 18.)

I LOVED her from my boyhood—she to me

Was as a fairy city of the heart,

Rising like water-columns from the sea,

Of joy the sojourn, and of wealth the mart;

And Otway, Radcliffe, Schiller, Shakspeare’s art,

Had stamp’d her image in me, and even so,

Although I found her thus, we did not part,

Perchance even dearer in her day of woe,

Than when she was a boast, a marvel, and a show.