The Closet Professor

The Gondolier
by Ruby Archer

Hark to the gondolier singing,
Dreamily, dreamily singing,
Ever guiding our languid gondola
Out on the fair lagoon.

Lo, how the pigeons are winging,
Airily, airily winging,
Blending coos in our idle revery
Out on the fair lagoon.

Now is the gondolier calling,
Warningly, warningly calling;
Hark—the answer—from turning shadowy,
Where the dark waters wind.

Now we emerge in a glory,
Radiant, radiant glory;
Campanile and dome rise magical
Out of the Grand Canal.

Every wall has a story,
Passionate, passionate story,—
O’er the song of the gondolier hovering,
Out on the Grand Canal.

Gardens above us are leaning,
Drowsily, drowsily leaning;
Never water and sky so heavenly,
Sung by a gondolier.

Ever and aye in our dreaming,
Far-away, far-away dreaming,
We’ll remember this golden Italy,
Sung by a gondolier.

About 15 years ago, I was doing research in Italy for my dissertation. I was able to spend a month traveling Italy (Rome, Florence, and Venice), and it was a trip I will never forget for many reasons. It was the first time I had ever traveled on my own. I remember the beauty and food of Rome and the amazing Vatican City with St. Peter’s Basilica and the Vatican Museums. I wondered through the Cimitero Acattolico (Non-Catholic Cemetery) of Rome, often referred to as the Cimitero dei protestanti (Protestant Cemetery) looking at the famous graves of Americans who had traveled to Italy in the nineteenth century. 

In Florence, I remember the festive atmosphere of the Piazza della Repubblica, the gold merchants on the Ponte Vecchio, the splendor of the Duomo, and the wonders of the storied museums such as the Uffizi Gallery with Sandro Botticelli’s Primavera and The Birth of Venus and the Accademia with Michelangelo’s David. I walked the streets where American artists had walked more than a century before. I visited the English Cemetery and made friends with the strange but infinitely interesting custodian of the cemetery, the medieval scholar Julia Bolton Holloway, formerly a nun of the Anglican order Community of the Holy Family and scholar of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who is buried in the cemetery.

Then I went to Venice, which was cold and damp, and I caught a terrible cold. The city, however, is magical. The canals and the grand palazzos that line it are breathtaking. The gaudy but fascinating Basilica di San Marco and the pink and seemingly austere Doge’s Palace with the Scala d’Oro, the Golden Staircase, and the Ponte dei Sospiri, the Bridge of Sighs. I remember taking a vaporetto to the Lido with a group of nuns sitting in front of me laughing and seeming to have the greatest time as they were sprayed by the waters of the Lagoon while we bounced over the waves.

These were all great memories, but what will always warm my heart is the thought of seeing the gondolieri in their blue or red striped tops, red neckerchiefs, wide-brimmed straw hats, and dark pants. In movies you often see an older man guiding the gondolas down the canal as lovers cuddle in the traditional, flat-bottomed rowing boat holding their rowing oar to guide the gondola down the canals. I did not see many old men as gondolieri, but mostly beautiful young men like those in the picture above or the one below who I became enamored with and had to take his picture.

About the Poet

Ruby Archer (Ruby Archer Doud or Ruby Archer Gray) was born in Kansas City, Missouri on January 28, 1873, and died in Los Angeles on January 23, 1961. She was an American poet, educated at Kansas City High School and by private tutors. She was married to Dr. Frank Newland Doud on March 27, 1910, and later to Benjamin Franklin Gray. She contributed poems, translations from French and German dramas and lyrics, and prose articles on art, architecture, music, Biblical literature, philosophy, etc. to papers and magazines.