“And was the safeguard of the west.”

This may refer to the prominent part which Venice took in the Crusades, or to the development of her naval power, which made her mistress of the Mediterranean for many years, and an effective bulwark against invasions from the East.

  “The eldest Child of Liberty.”

The origin of the Venetian State was the flight of many of the inhabitants of the mainland—­on the invasion of Italy by Attila—­to the chain of islands that lie at the head of the Adriatic.

“In the midst of the waters, free, indigent, laborious, and inaccessible, they gradually coalesced into a republic:  the first foundations of Venice were laid in the island of Rialto....  On the verge of the two empires the Venetians exult in the belief of primitive and perpetual independence.”

Gibbon’s ‘Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’, chap. lx.

  “And, when she took unto herself a Mate,
  She must espouse the everlasting Sea.”

In 1177, Pope Alexander III. appealed to the Venetian Republic for protection against the German Emperor.  The Venetians were successful in a naval battle at Saboro, against Otho, the son of Frederick Barbarossa.  In return, the Pope presented the Doge Liani with a ring, with which he told him to wed the Adriatic, that posterity might know that the sea was subject to Venice, “as a bride is to her husband.”

In September 1796, nearly six years before this sonnet was written, the fate of the old Venetian Republic was sealed by the treaty of Campo Formio.  The French army under Napoleon had subdued Italy, and, having crossed the Alps, threatened Vienna.  To avert impending disaster, the Emperor Francis arranged a treaty which extinguished the Venetian Republic.  He divided its territory between himself and Napoleon, Austria retaining Istria, Dalmatia, and the left bank of the Adige in the Venetian State, with the “maiden city” itself; France receiving the rest of the territory and the Ionian Islands.  Since the date of that treaty the city has twice been annexed to Italy.—­Ed.

* * * * *

THE KING OF SWEDEN

Composed August, 1802.—­Published 1807

  The Voice of song from distant lands shall call
  To that great [1] King; shall hail the crowned Youth
  Who, taking counsel of unbending Truth,
  By one example hath set forth to all
  How they with dignity may stand; or fall, 5
  If fall they must.  Now, whither doth it tend? 
  And what to him and his shall be the end? 
  That thought is one which neither can appal
  Nor cheer him; for the illustrious Swede hath done
  The thing which ought to be; is raised above [2] 10
  All consequences:  work he hath begun
  Of fortitude, and piety, and love,
  Which all his glorious ancestors approve: 
  The heroes bless him, him their rightful son.