Page:Landon in Literary Gazette 1822.pdf/91

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Literary Gazette, 7th December, 1822, Pages 775–776 FRAGMENTS IN RHYME.

VI.—The Painter's Love.

Your skies are blue, your sun is bright;

But sky nor sun has that sweet light

Which gleamed upon the summer sky

Of my own lovely Italy!

'Tis long since I have breathed the air,

Which, filled with odours, floated there,—

Sometimes in sleep a gale sweeps by,

Rich with the rose and myrtle's sigh;—

'Tis long since I have seen the vine

With Autumn's topaz clusters shine;

And watched the laden branches bending,

And heard the vintage songs ascending;

'Tis very long since I have seen

The ivy's death-wreath, cold and green,

Hung round the old and broken stone

Raised by the hands now dead and gone!

I do remember one lone spot,

By most unnoticed or forgot—

Would that I too recalled it not!

It was a little temple, gray,

With half its pillars worn away,

No roof left, but one cypress tree

Flinging its branches mournfully.

In ancient days this was a shrine

For Goddess or for Nymph divine;

And sometimes I have dreamed I heard

A step soft as a lover's word,

And caught a perfume on the air,

And saw a shadow gliding fair,

Dim, sad as if it came to sigh

O'er thoughts, and things, and time pass'd by!