Venice

I am Venezia, that Sad Magdalen,
Who with her lovers' arms the turbaned East
Smote, and through lusty centuries of gain
Lived a wild queen of battle and of feast.
I netted, in gold meshes of my hair,
The great of soul; painter and poet, priest,
Bent at my will with picture, song, and prayer,
And ever love of me their fame increased,
Till I, queen, became the slave of slaves,
And, like the ghost-kings of the Urnbrian plain,
Saw from my centuries torn, as from their graves,
The priceless jewels of my haughty reign.
Gone are my days of gladness; now in vain
I hurt the tender with my speechless pain.
VENICE, June, 1891