Page:Poems Holley.djvu/131

She will labor for her happiness
 While I've no need to speak,
But on a lotus leaf I float,
 Unto the land they seek.

There, like a dream from out the wave,
 I see a city rise,
I stand entranced, as by a spell,
 Upon the Bridge of Sighs.
The low and measured dip of oars
 Falls softly on my ear
Blent with the tender evening song,
 Of some swart gondolier.

And down from marble terraces
 Veiled ladies slowly pass,
And, entering antique barges,
 Glide down the streets of glass;
And eyes filled with the dew and fire
 Of their own midnight sky,
Gleam full on me, as silently
 The gondolas float by.

The sunset burns, and turns the wave.
 To an enchanted stream,
And far up on the shadowy steeps
 The white walled convents gleam,