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,
My heart takes up its lengthen'd chain,
And, link by link, draws nearer thee-
When land is hailed, and, from the shore,
Comes off the blessed breath of home,
With fragrance from my mother's door
Of flowers forgotten when I come-
When port is gain'd, and, slowly now,
The old, familiar paths are past,
And, entering, unconscious how,
I gaze upon thy face at last,
And run to thee, all faint and weak,
And feel thy tears upon my cheek—

Oh! if my heart break not with joy,

The light of heaven will fairer seem;
And I shall grow once more a boy:
And, mother!-'twill be like a dream

That we were parted thus for years-
And, once that we have dried our tears,
How will the days seem long and bright-
To meet thee always with the morn,
And hear thy blessing every night-

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,
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 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.
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 "golden Pactolus," where bathe his waters
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 looked 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 loitered up the valley to a small

And humbler ruin, where the undefiled *
Of the Apocalypse their garments kept
Spotless; and crossing with a conscious awe
The broken threshold, to my spirit's eye
It seem'd as if, amid the moonlight, stood
"The angel of the church of Sardis " still!
And I again pass'd onward, and as dawn
Paled the bright morning star, I laid me down
Weary and sad beside the river's brink,

And 'twixt the moonlight and the rosy morn,
Wrote with my finger in the "golden sands."
Tell me, O memory, what wrote I there?

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.