Little Florence Gray

I was in Greece. It was the hour of noon,     And the gean wind had dropped asleep     Upon Hymettus, and the thymy isles     Of Salamis and gina lay hung     Like clouds upon the bright and breathless sea.     I had climbed 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 scrawled 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-stirred tent,     Had witched me from my slumber. I arose,     And silently stole forth, and by the brink     Of golden Pactolus, where bathe his waters     The bases of Cybeles 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 Lybian kings     Sleeping around me, Crsus, who had heaped     Within the mouldering portico his gold,     And Gyges, buried with his viewless ring     Beneath you 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 spirits eye     It seemed as if, amid the moonlight, stood     The angel of the church of Sardis still!     And I again passed onward, and as dawn     Paled the bright morning star, I lay me down     Weary and sad beside the rivers brink,     And twixt the moonlight and the rosy morn,     Wrote with my fingers 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 spicy Ind,     And worshipped at innumerable shrines     Of beauty; and the painters 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 fine,     Thought settles like a fountain, clear and calm,     Far in its sleeping depths, as twere a gem,     Tell me, O memory what shines so fair?     The face of the sweet child I knew at Rome!