This week I am dedicating my blog posts to the theme of ‘Literary Venice’.

Recently I blogged about Lady Caroline Blanche Lindsay, ‘the epitome of the cultured and fashionable aesthetic woman’ in the nineteenth century, and the writer of a collection of poems on Venice: From a Venetian Balcony: And Other Poems. Today I’m sharing with you one of my favourites. Venice has always seemed to me a magical place, and this poem really encapsulates the ethereal beauty and romantic air of the city, which I so enjoyed describing in The Echoes of Love.

Venetian Spell

O spell of dawn!
From opal skies a roseate mist floats out,
And slowly wraps the towers and domes about.
All Venice sleeps — nay, yonder a black barge
Slides to the open from the dusky marge.

O spell of silence!
Peace of mind and soul — the plash of oars,
Perchance a distant bell from island shores;
Upon the glassy stillness of the mere
No other sound to vex a fretful ear.

O spell of age!
Historic scenes and names and memories
Are bulwarks of the city in the seas;
Each palace is a book, a scroll each wall —
The sculptured poems hold our hearts in thrall.

O spell of night!
First wanness, then the blue, then sudden dark;
Quiv’ring reflection from each tiny spark;
The water makes a mirror for the moon,
The heavens become a star-beflecked lagoon.

O spell of beauty!
Like the goddess of grey legend-lore,
Cypris or Hulda, sung in runes of yore,
She — Venice — binds men with a magic chain —
Her slaves, that gave an hour, through life remain.