The Floating City

 I

A city rose from fear and foam,
Where reeds and salt-winds be;
She piled her palaces on loam,
And wedded was to sea.
An upside-down and secret wood
Upbore her marble weight,
And every tide, with tranquil mood,
Beat time to Law and Fate.

II

No king she chose with iron crown,
But Doge in scarlet stole—
A prince constrained, held gently down
By councils’ clockwork soul.
The Lion kept his vigil stern,
Gold-winged on shield and gate;
And Ten who heard the whispers burn
Made Treason die of late.

III

O hush! The oars at dawn outcreep
From Arsenal’s red wall;
Like bees that labor while men sleep,
They arm the rose-bright gall.
From bench to bench the timbers pass,
Ropes hum, and rivets sing;
A galley blooms as through a glass—
A blossom forged of spring.

IV

The Doge upon the Bucentaur,
With ring of nuptial gleam,
Cries “Sposalizio!”—evermore
He weds thee, patient Sea.
Down sinks the gold; the ripples close;
Pale bells on water toll:
“Be thine our bread, be thine repose,
Our bulwark and our soul.”

V

But Mammon loves a holy mask,
And prudence loves disguise:
Two merchants dared a saintly task
In far Egyptian skies—
St. Mark they won, by cabbage-leaf,
By pork and pious guile;
So Venice set her Lion brief
On coin and fortress-isle.

VI

Then eastward—hark!—the morrow’s gale
Bore Crusade’s borrowed flame;
Blind Dandolo, with weathered sail,
Re-writ the sacred aim.
The Queen of Cities groaned at last,
Her bronzes torn like bread;
Three days of thunder—future, past—
And purple ashes spread.

VII

Yet spices breathed along the quay,
A dusk of clove and nard;
The Rialto weighed its perfum’d fee,
The ledgers, lean and hard.
Gondoleers in sober black
Slid under moonlit stone;
Sumptuary Night kept colors back—
Pride whispered low, alone.

VIII

The Terraferma’s dusty hand
Reached anxious to the shore;
Condottas drew in drifting sand
Thin maps of gain and war.
And still the Senate’s wary art
Unmasked the martial smile—
Brave Carmagnola played his part,
And paid the price of guile.

IX

Lepanto flamed—a cannon psalm—
The galleass, dread and high;
Chains snapped, and captive oars grew calm,
And banners bruised the sky.
But farther west a new-made chart
Bent oceans to a key;
Round Africa crept the merchant’s heart
And stole our alchemy.

X

So Beauty grew where Power waned—
Carnival’s masked accord;
Vivaldi’s viol lightly rained,
Canaletto framed a ford.
At last a thunder from the land,
Young Bonaparte’s decree—
A Doge unhelmed by trembling hand,
And silence on the sea.

XI

Yet walk, O pilgrim, where the light
On San Marco lies;
Read quarantine in marble white,
Hear banking in the cries.
From Crete to Corfu, lion-paws
Print bastions star and square;
The arsenal sleeps, but ancient laws
Still salt the evening air.

XII

And I, who sing by moon and mast,
Feel time’s obedient swell:
The City born of fear holds fast
A braver tale to tell—
That Art and Order, thrift and dream,
May over mud endure;
That Man can marry wind and stream,
And make his peril sure.

For evermore the murmuring Sea,
With slow, benignant breath,
Keeps Venice in fidelity—
A bride beyond her death.