Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.
To Venice
By Vasile Alecsandri (18211890)Translated by Henry Stanley
T
My thoughts fly with longing
When, in the clouded night,
My painful feelings
Are oppressed by bitter regret.
By a venomous serpent
Flies, flies, till wearied out,
And, deadened, drops
Beside its flowery nest.
Whosoever has been able to taste
The sweetness of love
Amid thy life of poesy
For eternity will not forget thee!
In thy vestment of mourning;
And in thy gondolas
Which lose themselves among the canals,
Like an uncompleted dream.
For thy beautiful Past,
And for the reminiscences
Of the sacred love,
And of the being I have lost.