DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.55699#0105
77
LORD BYRON'S PALACE.
In Venice Tasso’s echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier ;
Her palaces are crumbling 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 yet forget how Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth; the masque of Italy.
Childe Harold.
The opposite page presents a view of the palace oc-
cupied by Lord Byron during his residence in Venice.
When, after his unfortunate marriage, and the de-
struction of those hopes which he at one period enter-
tained of becoming, under the mild influence of a vir-
tuous and sensible woman, a better and a happier man,
Lord Byron once more left England in search of that
peace of mind, which was destined never to be his,
Venice naturally occurred to him as a place where, for a
time at least, he should find a suitable residence. He
had, in his own language, “loved it from his boyhood5”
and there was a poetry connected with its situation, its
habits, and its history, which excited both his imagina-
tion and his curiosity. At the same time the melan-
choly with which his heart was filled was soothed and
cherished by the associations which every object in
Venice inspired. The prospect of dominion subdued, of
a high spirit humbled, of splendour tarnished, of palaces
LORD BYRON'S PALACE.
In Venice Tasso’s echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier ;
Her palaces are crumbling 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 yet forget how Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth; the masque of Italy.
Childe Harold.
The opposite page presents a view of the palace oc-
cupied by Lord Byron during his residence in Venice.
When, after his unfortunate marriage, and the de-
struction of those hopes which he at one period enter-
tained of becoming, under the mild influence of a vir-
tuous and sensible woman, a better and a happier man,
Lord Byron once more left England in search of that
peace of mind, which was destined never to be his,
Venice naturally occurred to him as a place where, for a
time at least, he should find a suitable residence. He
had, in his own language, “loved it from his boyhood5”
and there was a poetry connected with its situation, its
habits, and its history, which excited both his imagina-
tion and his curiosity. At the same time the melan-
choly with which his heart was filled was soothed and
cherished by the associations which every object in
Venice inspired. The prospect of dominion subdued, of
a high spirit humbled, of splendour tarnished, of palaces