Alexandria gazette & daily advertiser. [volume] (Alexandria [Va.]) 1817-1822, 1818-07-21
ALEXANDRIA:
TUESDAY MORNING, JULY21, 1918.
~. cAYTo OF cHlLDE HAROLD:
Continued

the long famed Venice, whose fall from
greatness furnishes the exalted imagiaa-
ton Of the author with variety of me-
lanchoIy reflections on her former grandeur
and her present state Of depression, and
suggested TO him some profound thoughts
upon The pleasure that may be derived even
from ruined states, and from the arts, tho
faded OF sunk into decay, by the assocla-
ton Of ideas. Thus Venice, though her
glores have vanished, still continues o
supply the world with the most interesting
topics for contemplation, and subjects Tor
every muse.
" In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songiess gCniolier
Her palaces are cumbling 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 vet forget how Venice once was dear,
| The pleasant place OF all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque OF Italy!
" But unto us she hath a spell beyond
Her name in story, and her long array
OF mighty shadows, whose dim forms des-
pond
Above the do-eless city's VANISHED sway;
Ours is trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto: Aylock and the Moor
And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn
away
The key-sioncs ofthe arch! though all were
DER,
For us repeopled were the solitary shore.
The beings of the mind are not OF clay;
Essentially immortal, they create
And multiply in US brighter ray
And more beloved existence: that which
fate
Prohibits to dull life, in this our state
Ofmorlal bondage, by these spirits supplied
First exiles, then replaces what we hate /;
Watering the heart, whose early flowers
have died,
And with lresher growth replenishing the
void.
Such is the refuge Of our youth and age,
The first from hope. the last from vacancy I;
And this worn feeling peoples many an age,
And may be that which grows beneath
mine eye:
Yet there are things whose strong reality
Out-shines our fairy land, in shape and hues
More beautiful than our fantastic sky,
And the strange consultations which the
muse
Ger her wild universe is skllful to ditfuse.
This leads the author 10 the recollection
of his native land, and TO the thoughts Of
its language, in his expressing Of which,
the asprirgs OF the poet after Immortality
disclose themselves, though with sufficient
modesty.
give taught me other tongues--ahd in
strange eyes
Have made me not stranger: to the mind
Which is itself, no changes bring surprise
Nor is it harsh TO make, nor hard TO find
A country with-Gy, or lrihIom mankind;
Yet 1p0s born rhere men are proved 10 be,
Not aithOR cause; and should leave be-
hind
The inviolate island of the sage and free,
And seek me out home by a remoter sea
" Perhaps loved it well and should lay
My ashes in a soil which is not mine,
Ny spirit shall resume it-ifwe may
Embodied seek sanctuary. Irvine
My hopes OF being remembered in my line
With my lands language. lftoo fond and
far,
These aspirations in their scope incline,-
Ii my fame should be as my fortunes are,
OF hasty growth OF blight, and dull oblivion
bar,
" 1Iy name from out the temple where the
dead
Are honored by the nations-let it be
And light the laurels on lottier head
And be the Spartan's epitaPh on me
Sparta hath many a wOrthicr son than
he's
Mean time seek no sympathies,. nor need
The thOrns which have reaped are of the
tree
| planted. They have torn me--and |
bleed:
should have known what fruit would
spring from such seed.
His lordship then draws gloomy picture
of the total declension OF Venice from what
she was when she g safe in state, throned
on her hundred isles" to he. present state
OF humilisted condition, wnen
" Her thirteen hundred years OF freedom
DONE"
she
Sinks like sea-weed into whence she
rose"
On which the author bursts into the fol-,
lowing beautiful apostIpphe-
Better be whelmed beneath the waves
And chine even I'm iestruction's dpntb her