But on its surface the light of jewelled fancies plays--a thousand thousand sunny memories and hopes, flying thoughts and dancing feelings.

A poet would be certain to have often seen this happy crowd, and to desire to trick them out in song.

So Browning does in his poem, _In a Gondola_.

The two lovers, with the dark shadow of fate brooding over them, sing and muse and speak alternately, imaging in swift and rival pictures made by fancy their deep-set love; playing with its changes, creating new worlds in which to place it, but always returning to its isolated individuality; recalling how it began, the room where it reached its aim, the pictures, the furniture, the balcony, her dress, all the scenery, in a hundred happy and glancing pictures; while interlaced through their gaiety--and the gaiety made keener by the nearness of dark fate--is coming death, death well purchased by an hour of love.

Finally, the lover is stabbed and slain, and the pity of it throws back over the sunshine of love's fancies a cloud of tears.