I stood in Venice, on the “Bridge of Sighs”;
A Palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the Enchanter’s wand:
A thousand Years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying Glory smiles
O’er the far times, when many a subject land
Looked to the wingéd Lion’s marble piles,
Where Venice sat in state, throned on her hundred isles!

George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788–1824) English poet

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Canto 4, st. 1 (1818)
    (Source)

This stanza was written by at least 1817-07-01. Much of the legend of the "Bridge of Sighs" (Ponte de' Sospiri) was made up or misunderstood by Byron, but created a myth that tour guides in Venice repeat to this day.