On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic
by William Wordsworth

English Romantic poet and poet-laureate, whose Lyrical Ballads (1798), first published anonymously with contributions by his friend Coleridge, marked an important turning point in the history of English literature. Some of his many well-known poems include 'The Brothers', 'Michael' and the "Lucy" poems: 'She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways', 'Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known', 'A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal' and 'Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower'. His other great work, the philosophical-autobiographical poem The Prelude was published posthumously in 1850. He also published two poems dealing with the sublime and the picturesque; An Evening Walk and Descriptive Sketches (both in 1793), and his one and only play The Borders (1842). Wordsworth's name, perhaps even more so than that of his friend Coleridge, remains to this day almost synonymous, in England, with Romanticism itself.

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On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic
by William Wordsworth

Once did She hold the gorgeous East in fee,
And was the safeguard of the West: the worth
Of Venice did not fall below her birth,
Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty.

She was a maiden city, bright and free:
No guile seduced, no force could violate;
And when she took unto herself a mate
She must espouse the everlasting sea.

And what if she had seen those glories fade,
Those titles vanish, and that strength decay?
Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid

When her long life hath reached its final day:
Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade
Of that which once was great has passed away.

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On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic by William Wordsworth