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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MOURN NOT FOR VENICE - LET HER REST by THOMAS MOORE

Subject(s): TRAVEL;
MOURN not for VENICE - let her rest
In ruin, ' mong those States unblest,
Beneath whose gilded hoofs of pride,
Where'er they trampled, Freedom died .
No -let us keep our tears for them,
Where'er they pine, whose fall hath been
Not from a blood - stained diadem,
Like that which deckt this ocean queen,
But from high daring in the cause
Of human Rights-the only good
And blessed strife , in which man draws
His mighty sword on land or flood.


Mourn not for VENICE; tho' her fall
Be awful , as if Ocean's wave
Swept o'er her, she deserves it all ,
And Justice triumphs o'er her grave.
Thus perish every King and State
That run the guilty race she ran ,
Strong but in ill and only great
By outrage against God and man!


True, her high spirit is at rest,
And all those days of glory gone,
When the world's waters, east and west,
Beneath her white-winged commerce shone;
When with her countless barks she went
To meet the Orient Empire's might, '
And her Giustinianis sent
Their hundred heroes to that fight .


Vanisht are all her pomps, ' tis true,
But mourn them not- for vanisht too
(Thanks to that Power, who, scon or late ,
Hurls to the dust the guilty Great. )




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