Notes
2] After the tremendous expansion of her power in the thirteenth century, Venice did much to protect western Europe from the Turks.
4] the eldest Child of Liberty. The Venetians prided themselves in the belief that theirs was the oldest independent state in Europe.
7-8] After a great naval victory of the Venetians in 1177, the Pope gave the Doge of Venice a ring with which to wed the Adriatic, that the world might know that the sea is subject to Venice, "as a bride is to her husband." The ceremony of wedding the Adriatic was celebrated annually by the Doge throwing a ring into it.
12] Napoleon entered Venice on May 16, 1797, and proclaimed the end of the Republic. In October of the same year he handed Venice over to Austria.
Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.
Original text: William Wordsworth, Poems in Two Volumes (1807). See The Manuscript of William Wordsworth's Poems, in Two Volumes (1807): A Facsimile (London: British Library, 1984). bib MASS (Massey College Library, Toronto).
First publication date:
1807
RPO poem editor: J. R. MacGillivray
RP edition: 3RP 2.372.
Recent editing: 2:2002/3/20
Composition date:
1802
Form: sonnet
Rhyme: abbaaccadedede