University of Virginia Library

TO FLORENCE.

Long years have passed with silent pace,
Florence! since thou and I have met;
Yet, when that meeting I retrace,
My cheek is pale, my eye is wet;
For I was doomed from thence to rove
O'er distant tracts of earth and sea,
Unaided, Florence!—save by love;
And unremembered—save by thee!
We met, and hope beguiled our fears—
Hope, ever bright, and ever vain;
We parted thence in silent tears,
Never to meet in life again.
The myrtle that I gaze upon,
Sad token by thy love devised,
Is all the record left of one
So long bewailed, so dearly prized.
You gave it in an hour of grief,
When gifts of love are doubly dear;
You gave it, and one tender leaf
Glistened the while with beauty's tear.
A tear-oh! lovelier far to me,
Shed for me in my saddest hour,
Than bright and flattering smiles could be,
In courtly hall or summer bower.
You strove my anguish to beguile
With distant hopes of future weal;
You strove—alas! you could not smile,
Nor speak the hope you did not feel.
I bore the gift affection gave
O'er desert sand and thorny brake,
O'er rugged rock and stormy wave,—
I loved it for the giver's sake;
And often in my happiest day,
In scenes of bliss and hours of pride,
When all around was glad and gay,
I looked upon the gift, and sighed:
And when on ocean or on clift
Forth strode the Spirit of the storm,
I gazed upon thy fading gift,
I thought upon thy fading form;
Forgot the lightning's vivid dart,
Forgot the rage of sky and sea,
Forgot the doom that bade us part,
And only lived to love and thee.
Florence!—thy myrtle blooms! but thou,
Beneath thy cold and lowly stone,
Forgetful of our mutual vow,
And of a heart—still all thine own,
Art laid in that unconscious sleep
Which he that wails thee soon must know,
Where none may smile, and none may weep,
None dream of bliss, nor wake to woe.
If e'er, as fancy oft will feign,
To that dear spot which gave thee birth
Thy fleeting shade returns again
To look on him thou lov'dst on earth,
It may a moment's joy impart,
To know that this, thy favourite tree,
Is to my desolated heart
Almost as dear as thou couldst be.
My Florence! soon—the thought is sweet!—
The turf that wraps thee I shall press;
Again, my Florence! we shall meet,
In bliss—or in forgetfulness.
With thee in death's oblivion laid,
I will not have the cypress gloom
To throw its sickly sullen shade
Over the stillness of my tomb;
And there the scutcheon shall not shine,
And there the banner shall not wave;
The treasures of the glittering mine
Would ill become a lover's grave;
But when from this abode of strife
My liberated shade shall roam,
Thy myrtle, that has cheered my life,
Shall decorate my narrow home;
And it shall bloom in beauty there,
Like Florence in her early day;
Or, nipped by cold December's air,
Wither—like hope and thee—away.