I.

I stood in Venice, on the "Bridge of Sighs;"[376][1.H.] A Palace and a prison on each hand: I saw from out the wave her structures rise As from the stroke of the Enchanter's wand:[377] A thousand Years their cloudy wings expand Around me, and a dying Glory smiles O'er the far times, when many a subject land Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles, Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles![lb]