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 I wrote 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 base of Cybele's columns fair, I paced away the hours. In a 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—Crœsus, 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 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 he 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 "sandal-shoon," And still I am a pilgrim; I have roved From wild America to Bosphor's waters, And worshipp'd at innumerable shrines Of beauty; and the painter's art, to me, And sculpture, speak as with a living tongue, And of dead kingdoms I recall the soul, Sitting amid their ruins. I have stored My memory with thoughts that can allay Fever and sadness, and when life gets dim, And I am overladen in my years, Minister to me. But when wearily The mind gives over toiling, and with eyes Open but seeing not, and senses all Lying awake within their chambers dim, Thought settles like a fountain, still and clear— Far in its sleeping depths, as 'twere a gem, Tell me, O memory, what shines so fair? The fact of the sweet child I knew at Rome!