POETRY.
FOREIGN THOUGHTS FROM HOME IN THE SPRING.
OH will you ever look the same again, Dear, lovely places that like lavender In meniory's.folds have lain, Fragrant when longings stir For old-time joys eclipsed (how far! how strange!) In this dark night of pain?
Or will you, like ourselves, have suffered change And look less dear, less lovely, to our eyes?
We that no more may range, Little we count the forfeit of such hours In the vast sum of the world's sacrifice
Drenched thro' with blood and tears,—
Honour's unstinted price
And Freedom's,—add such trifles as are ours, Garnered in gladder years—
A web of dreams, dust of a little spice, Faint melodies, a handful of dim flowers, Ah no, not dim! How rosily the spears Of asphodel guard holy Marathon Where the immortals sleep, Or, golden in the sun, Girgenti's temples, almond-bowered deep; Down many a rocky steep In crimson riot how the poppies run The sapphire-dark Aegean wave to greet!
Come, walk with April on the Appian Way Where jonquil-cups she scatters, piercing-sweet,
Come, where Valdarno calls—
(My Florence, how thought follows, fain and fleet!) Her peach-trees are afire, Her iris wakens; Umbria's white with may; Yon cloudy cypress spire Cleaves the fair mist of olives silver-grey That veil the mountain walls; See, the young vine-leaves sway Vivid as emeralds strung in coronals. 0 lands of our desire, To-day what scars, what gaping wounds ye show ! Thou first, heroic State, Thou martyr queen of woe, Whose house is left unto thee desolate !
Thou, gallant France, that see'st thy life blood drain, While vengeful blow on blow Shatters thy storied shrines—such Vandal hate As Venice' self must glut ;—dear lands, we know Ye cannot ever look the same again !
EMMA GURNEY SALTER.
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