OR, THE ANGEL OF VENICE 
11 
 
Aches for thy sound and sight, for breast and body yearns 
What purple wraps me round in its imperial fold 
But thy bright body, wound about this breast of gold ? 
The night is hot.  Night’s dome is widowed of the wind. 
I choke.  I dare not come.  I am broken up and blind 
With passion.  Bring the gondola !  Off Lido’s strand 
Let me adore you on the water. 
ORLANDO. 
Ah !  the land 
Is an unworthy soul to excite our ecstasy, 
Whose billows rise and roll and tumble like the sea. 
Lo !  heaven is scarred across by the first moonray ! 
 
 
 
[The moon rises 
MAGDALENA. 
 
Go ! 
I pant.  I heave.  What loss one moment is !  How slow 
The pulse of the world beats when you are not with me ! 
ORLANDO.  Look !  how the moon defeats the silence of the sea ! 
I go. 
[MAGDALENA withdraws, closing the shutter.  He turns 
toward the bridge for a few steps, then stops. 
She said no less, she looked no less, she swore. 
No less, with equal stress, to him an hour before. 
O had she said one word “ I tricked the Count,” may be 
My dotage might have heard, love leaned to loyalty. 
I know myself a fool, a thing of dross and dust, 
A cunning harlot’s tool, slave of a vixen’s lust. 
And yet—her slave.  Begone !  this midnight’s sea of flame 
Shall stretch my soul upon its crucifix of shame. 
 
[Reaching the bridge, he is met by MONICA, who, 
followed by two Sisters of Mercy moves toward 
the palace, her hands folded, and her lips moving 
in prayer.