My half-snared heart broke lightly free,
And, with a blush, I thought of thee!

I thought of thee-I thought of thee,
In Florence, where the fiery hearts
Of Italy are breathed away

In wonders of the deathless arts;
Where strays the Contadina down
Val d'Arno with a song of old;
Where clime and woman seldom frown,
And life runs over sands of gold;
I stray'd to lone Fiesolé

On many an eve, and thought of thee.

I thought of thee-I thought of thee,
In Rome, when on the Palatine

Night left the Cæsars' palace free

To Time's forgetful foot and mine; Or, on the Coliseum's wall,

When moonlight touch'd the ivied stone, Reclining, with a thought of all

That o'er this scene has come and goneThe shades of Rome would start and flee Unconsciously-I thought of thee.

I thought of thee-I thought of thee,
In Vallombrosa's holy shade,

Where nobles born the friars be,

By life's rude changes humbler made. Here Milton framed his Paradise ;

I slept within his very cell; And, as I closed my weary eyes,

I thought the cowl would fit me wellThe cloisters breathed, it seem'd to me, Of heart's-ease-but I thought of thee.

I thought of thee-I thought of thee,
In Venice, on a night in June;
When, through the city of the sea,

Like dust of silver slept the moon.
Slow turn'd his oar the gondolier,

And, as the black barks glided by,
The water to my leaning ear

Bore back the lover's passing sigh-
It was no place alone to be-
I thought of thee-I thought of thee.

I thought of thee-I thought of thee,
In the Ionian isles-when straying
With wise Ulysses by the sea-

Old Homer's songs around me playing;
Or, watching the bewitch'd caique,
That o'er the star-lit waters flew,

I listen'd to the helmsman Greek,

Who sung the song that Sappho knewThe poet's spell, the bark, the sea, All vanish'd-as I thought of thee.

I thought of thee-I thought of thee,
In Greece-when rose the Parthenon

Majestic o'er the Egean sea,

And heroes with it, one by one;
When, in the grove of Academe,
Where Lais and Leontium stray'd
Discussing Plato's mystic theme,

I lay at noontide in the shade-
The Egean wind, the whispering tree,
Had voices and I thought of thee.

I thought of thee-I thought of thee,
In Asia on the Dardanelles ;
Where swiftly as the waters flee,

Each wave some sweet old story tells ;

And, seated by the marble tank

Which sleeps by Ilium's ruins old,
(The fount where peerless Helen drank,
And Venus laved her locks of gold,)*
I thrill'd such classic haunts to see,
Yet even here I thought of thee.

I thought of thee-I thought of thee,

Where glide the Bosphor's lovely waters,

All palace-lined from sea to sea;

And ever on its shores the daughters

Of the delicious East are seen,

Printing the brink with slipper'd feet.
And oh, the snowy folds between,

* In the Scamander,-before contending for the prize of beauty on Mount Ida. Its head waters fill a beautiful tank near the walls of Troy.

What eyes of heaven your glances meet ! Peris of light no fairer be

Yet-in Stamboul-I thought of thee.

I've thought of thee-I've thought of thee,

Through change that teaches to forget;
Thy face looks up from every sea,

In every star thine eyes are set,
Though roving beneath Orient skies,
Whose golden beauty breathes of rest,
I envy every bird that flies

Into the far and clouded West:

I think of thee-I think of thee !

Oh, dearest! hast thou thought of me?

FLORENCE GRAY

I WAS in Greece. It was the hour of noon,
And the Egean wind had dropp'd asleep
Upon Hymettus, and the thymy isles

Of Salamis and Egina lay hung

Like clouds upon the bright and breathless sea.

I had climb'd up the Acropolis at morn,

And hours had fled, as time will in a dream,

Amidst its deathless ruins-for the air

Is full of spirits in these mighty fanes,

And they walk with you! As it sultrier grew,
I laid me down within a shadow deep

Of a tall column of the Parthenon,
And, in an absent idleness of thought,

I scrawl'd upon the smooth and marble base.
Tell me, O memory, what wrote I there?
The name of a sweet child I knew at Rome!

I was in Asia. 'Twas a peerless night
Upon the plains of Sardis, and the moon,
Touching my eyelids through the wind-stirr'd tent,
Had witch'd me from my slumber. I arose
And silently stole forth, and by the brink
Of "gold Pactolus," where his waters bathe
The bases of Cybele's columns fair,

I paced away the hours. In wakeful mood

I mused upon the storied past awhile,
Watching the moon, that, with the same mild eye,
Had look'd upon the mighty Lydian kings
Sleeping around me-Croesus, who had heap'd
Within that mouldering portico his gold,
And Gyges, buried with his viewless ring
Beneath yon swelling tumulus-and then
I loiter'd up the valley to a small

And humbler ruin, where the undefiled*

"Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments: and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy."— Revelation iii. 4.