Explore "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" by Lord Byron on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I / I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs; / A palace and a prison on each hand: / I saw from out the wave her structures rise / As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand: / A thousand years their cloudy wings expand / Around me, and a dying glory smiles / O'er the far times when many a subject land / Looked to the wingèd Lion's marble piles, / Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!
II / She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, / Rising with her tiara of proud towers / At airy distance, with majestic motion, / A ruler of the waters and their powers: / And such she was; her daughters had their dowers / From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East / Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers. / In purple was she robed, and of her feast / Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.