TO INEZ.—AT FLORENCE.
Reading edition
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BY S. D. ANDERSON.
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I wonder how thou look’st,
In thy home far, far away,
Where thy voice, like Summer’s streamlet,
Is singing all the day.
Is thine eye as bright as ever?
Have thy footsteps lost their bound,
That they had when last we listened
To the moonlit ocean’s sound?
Has thy young heart quit its dreaming,
’Neath thy own pure sunny skies,
In those nights when stars are vieing
With the lustre of thine eyes?
When the dreams of youth were flinging
Their roses round thy way,
’Mid the perfumed airs of spring-time—
That herald in life’s May.
Say, does the Arno run as clear,
Beside thy palace walls,
As when upon its waves we looked
From out thy father’s halls?
Music was there when last I pressed
My lips upon thy brow.
And left thee—eye, and voice, and form,
Are all but memory now.
But memory, such as o’er the heart
Its rainbow arch still throws,
As bright as when on ocean’s breast
Its sunlit beauty glows—
Is with me now; the forest shade,
The brook, the flower, the tree,
The tones of music ’mid the night,
Are peopled all with thee.
Then, Inez, in that distant clime,
If still thou think’st of me,
At evening when thou goest out
Upon the tranquil sea,
Our souls shall meet—for kindred ones,
That bow at memory’s shrine,
Oft meet in dreams, and thus my heart
Shall often join with thine.