Intermezzo: Venetian Nights

Only to live, only to be In Venice, is enough for me. To be a beggar, and to lie At home beneath the equal sky, To feel the sun, to drink the night, Had been enough for my delight; Happy because the sun allowed The luxury of being proud Not to some only, but to all The right to lie along the wall. Here my ambition dies; I ask No more than some half-idle task, To be done idly, and to fill Some gaps of leisure when I will. I care not if the world forget That it was ever in my debt; I care not where its prizes fall; I long for nothing, having all. The sun each morning, on his way, Calls for me at the Zattere; I wake and greet him, I go out, Meet him, and follow him about; We spend the day together, he Goes to bed early; as for me, I make the moon my mistress, prove Constant to my inconstant love. For she is coy with me, will hie To my arms amorously, and fly Ere I have kissed her; ah! but she, She it is, to eternity, I adore only; but her smile Bewilders the enchanted isle To more celestial magic glows At once the crystal and the rose. The crazy lover of the moon, I hold her, on the still lagoon, Sometimes I hold her in my arms; ’Tis her cold silver kiss that warms My blood to singing, and puts fire Into the heart of my desire. And all desire in Venice dies To such diviner lunacies; Life dreams itself: the world goes on, Oblivious, in oblivion; Life dreams itself, content to keep Happy immortally, in sleep.