All the sunset had paled, and the campanili of Venice Rose like the masts of a mighty fleet moored there in the water. Lights flashed furtively to and fro through the deepening twilight. Massed in one thick shade lay the Gardens; the numberless islands Lay like shadows upon the lagoons. And on us as we loitered By their enchanted coasts, a spell of ineffable sweetness Fell and made us at one with them; and silent and blissful Shadows we seemed, that drifted on through a being of shadow, Vague, indistinct to ourselves, unbounded by hope or remembrance. Yet we knew the beautiful night, as it grew from the evening: Far beneath us and far above us the vault of the heavens Glittered and darkened; and now the moon, that had haunted the daylight Thin and pallid, dimmed the stars with her fulness of splendor, And over all the lagoons fell the silvery rain of the moonbeams, As in the song the young girls sang while their gondolas passed us,-- Sang in the joy of love, or youth's desire of loving. Balmy night of the South! O perfect night of the Summer! Night of the distant dark, of the near and tender effulgence!-- How from my despair are thy peace and loveliness frightened! For, while our boat lay there at the will of the light undulations, Idle as if our mood imbued and controlled it, yet ever Seeming to bear us on athwart those shining expanses Out to shining seas beyond pursuit or returning-- There, while we lingered, and lingered, and would not break from our rapture, Down the mirrored night another gondola drifted Nearer and slowly nearer our own, and moonlighted faces Stared. And that sweet trance grew a rigid and dreadful possession, Which, if no dream indeed, yet mocked with such semblance of dreaming, That, as it happens in dreams, when a dear face, stooping to kiss us, Takes, ere the lips have touched, some malign and horrible aspect, _His_ face faded away, and the face of the Dead--of that other-- Flashed on mine, and writhing, through every change of emotion,-- Wild amaze and scorn, accusation and pitiless mocking,-- Vanished into the swoon whose blackness encompassed and hid me. PHILIP--_To Bertha_. I am not sure, I own, that if first I had seen my delusion When I saw _you_, last night, I should be so ready to give you Now your promises back, and hold myself nothing above you, That it is mine to offer a freedom you never could ask for. Yet, believe me, indeed, from no bitter heart I release you: You are as free of me now as though I had died in the battle, Or as I never had lived. Nay, if it is mine to forgive you, Go without share of the blame that could hardly be all upon your side.