Lord Byron – Childe Harold Canto 4 part 1
Childe’s first station on his pilgrimage through Italy is “Where Venice sate in state, thron’d on her hundred isles!”. He remembers how she was “A ruler of the waters and their powers: and such she was; – her daughters had their dowers from spoils of nations,…”. He regrets “those days are gone – but Beauty still is here.” She is ” The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy”. After “The Suabian sued, and the Austrian reigns – An emperor tramples where an Emperor knelt”. He sees “Venice, lost and won, her thirteen hundred years of freedom done, sinks, like a seaweed, into whence she rose!” and “Too often remind her who and what enthrals, have flung a desolatre cloud o’er Venice’ lovely walls”.
