Marry then, in thy tender bloom,
Since youth passeth swiftly.

By the port of the Lido many a royal pageant had entered into Venice,
but never before had such a procession started from the shores of
Murano; it made one feel fête-like only to see the _bissoni_, those
great boats with twelve oars, each from a stabilimento of Murano,
wreathed for the fête, each merchant master at its head, robed in his
long, black, fur-trimmed gown and wearing his heavy golden chain, the
workmen tossing blossoms back over the water to greet the bride, the
rowers chanting in cadence to their motion:

"Belina sei, e'l ciel te benedissa,
Che in dove che ti passi l'erba nasse!"[5]

[5] Beautiful thou art, and may Heaven bless thee,
So that in thy footprints the grass shall spring.

A cry rang down the Canal Grande from the gondoliers of the Ca'
Giustiniani, who were waiting this sign to start their own train from
the palazzo; for the bridal gondolas were coming in sight, with _felzi_
of damask, rose, and blue, embroidered with emblems of the Giustiniani,
bearing the noble maidens who had been chosen for the household of the
Lady Marina, each flower-like and charming under her gauzy veil of
tenderest coloring. It was indeed a rare vision to the populace, these
young patrician beauties whose faces never, save in most exceptional
fêtes, had been seen unveiled beyond their mother's drawing-rooms,
floating toward them in a diaphanous mist which turned their living
loveliness into a dream.