Classic Poem

'Twas night in Venice. Then down to the tide,
Where a tall and a shadowy gondolier
Lean'd on his oar, like a lifted spear;—
'Twas night in Venice; then side by side
We sat in his boat. Then oar a-trip
On the black boat's keel, then dip and dip,
These boatmen should build their boats more wide,
For we were together, and side by side.

The sea it was level as seas of light,
As still as the light ere a hand was laid
To the making of lands, or the seas were made.
'Twas fond as a bride on her bridal night
When a great love swells in her soul like a sea,
And makes her but less than divinity.
'Twas night,—The soul of the day, I wis.
A woman's face hiding from her first kiss.

Ah, how one wanders! Yet after it all,
To laugh at all lovers and to learn to scoff.…
When you really have naught of account to say,
It is better, perhaps, to pull leaves by the way;
Watch the round moon rise, or the red stars fall;
And then, too, in Venice! dear, motheaten town;
One palace of pictures; great frescoes spill'd down
Outside the walls from the fullness thereof:—

'Twas night in Venice. On o'er the tide—
These boats they are narrow as they can be,
These crafts they are narrow enough, and we,
To balance the boat, sat side by side—
Out under the arch of the Bridge of Sighs,
On under the arch of the star-sown skies;
We two were together on the Adrian Sea,—
The one fair woman of the world to me.