So, till life's silver chord is broken, Would I of thy fond love be told. My heart is full, mine eyes are wet Dear mother! dost thou love thy long-lost wanderer yet? Oh! when the hour to meet again Creeps on, and, speeding o'er the sea, Oh! if my heart break not with joy, The light of heaven will fairer seem; That we were parted thus for years- Thy "dearest," thy "first-born!”— And be no more, as now, in a strange land, forlorn! London, Jan. 20th, 1825. FLORENCE GRAY. I WAS in Greece. It was the hour of noon, Of Salamis and Egina lay hung Like clouds upon the bright and breathless sea. I had climb'd up th❜Acropolis at morn, And hours had fled as time will in a dream Amid 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. 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 "golden Pactolus," where bathe his waters I paced away the hours. In wakeful mood I mused upon the storied past awhile, And humbler ruin, where the undefiled * And 'twixt the moonlight and the rosy morn, The name of the sweet child I knew at Rome! The dust is old upon my 66 sandal-shoon," And still I am a pilgrim; I have roved From wild America to spicy Ind, * "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. |