'Far known to sea and shore...'

Time for a poem, and as I'm not long back from Venice, here's one on a Venetian theme – one of A.E. Housman's less well known works, published after his death (in the collection More Poems), probably because it is a little too revealing of Housman's sexual predilections. In Venice he had had a romantic liaison (inevitably abortive) with a gondolier called Andrea, who is named in the poem, but the dominant presence, and absence, is the campanile in St Mark's square. On the morning of Monday, 14 July, 1902, the massive bell tower had collapsed vertically onto itself, leaving nothing but a huge pile of rubble and one dead cat, the custodian's. Fortunately the square had been evacuated just in time, so there were no human casualties. It was rebuilt – dov' era e com' era (where it was and as it was), as is the Venetian way – by 1912. Anyway, here is the poem...

Far known to sea and shore,

        Four square and founded well,

A thousand years it bore,

        And then the belfry fell.

The steersman of Triest

        Looked where his mark should be,

But empty was the west

        And Venice under sea.

From dusty wreck dispersed

        Its stature mounts amain;

On surer foot than first

        The belfry stands again.

At to-fall of the day

        Again its curfew tolls

And burdens far away

        The green and sanguine shoals.

It looks to north and south,

        It looks to east and west;

It guides to Lido mouth

        The steersman of Triest.

Andrea, fare you well;

        Venice, farewell to thee.

The tower that stood and fell

        Is not rebuilt in me.