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THE CONFESSIONAL.

When thou hast met with careless hearts and cold,
Hearts that young love may touch, but never hold,-
Not changeless, as the loved and left of old-

Remember me-remember me

1 passionately pray of thee!

LADY E. S. WORTLEY.

I THOUGHT of thee - I thought of thee,

On ocean many a weary night –
When heaved the long and sullen sea,
With only waves and stars in sight.
We stole along by isles of balm,
We furl'd before the coming gale,
We slept amid the breathless calm,
We flew beneath the straining sail-
But thou wert lost for years to me,
And, day and night, I thought of thee!

I thought of thee-I thought of thee,
In France-amid the gay saloon,
Where eyes, as dark as eyes may be

Are many as the leaves in June-
Where life is love, and even the air

Is pregnant with impassion'd thought, And song and dance and music are

With one warm meaning fraught My half-snared heart broke lightly free, And, with a blush, I thought of thee.

I thought of thee I thought of thee,
In Florence-where the fiery hearts
Of Italy are breathed away

In wonders of the deathless arts;
Where strays the Contadina down
Val d'Arno with a song of old;
Where clime and woman seldom frown,
And life runs over sands of gold;
I stray'd to lone Fiesolé

On many an eve, and thought of thee.

I thought of thee-I thought of thee, when on the Palatine

In Rome,

--

Night left the Cæsars' palace free

To Time's forgetful foot and mine; Or, on the Coliseum's wall,

When moonlight touch'd the ivied stone, Reclining, with a thought of all

That o'er this scene has come and gone The shades of Rome would start and flee Unconsciously I thought of thee.

I thought of thee - I thought of thee,
In Vallombrosia's holy shade,

Where nobles born the friars be

By life's rude changes humbler made.
Here Milton framed his Paradise;
I slept within his very cell;

And, as I closed my weary eyes,

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I thought the cowl would fit me wellThe cloisters breathed, it seem'd to me, Of heart's-ease but I thought of thee.

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I thought of thee-I thought of thee,
In Venice, on a night in June;
When, through the city of the sea,
Like dust of silver slept the moon.
Slow turn'd his oar the gondolier,

And, as the black barks glided by,
The water to my leaning ear

Bore back the lover's passing sigh It was no place alone to be

-

I thought of thee-I thought of thee.

I thought of thee - I thought of thee,
In the Ionian isles-when straying
With wise Ulysses by the sea —

Old Homer's songs around me playing;
Or, watching the bewitch'd caique,
That o'er the star-lit waters flew,
I listen'd to the helmsman Greek,

Who sung the song that Sappho knewThe poet's spell, the bark, the sea, All vanish'd as I thought of thee.

I thought of thee-I thought of thee,
In Greece - when rose the Parthenon
Majestic o'er the Egean sea,

And heroes with it, one by one;
When, in the grove of Academe,
Where Lais and Leontium stray'd
Discussing Plato's mystic theme,
I lay at noontide in the shade-
The Egean wind, the whispering tree,
Had voices - and I thought of thee.

I thought of thee-I thought of thee,

In Asia

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on the Dardanelles ;

Where swiftly as the waters flee,

Each wave some sweet old story tells; And, seated by the marble tank

Which sleeps by Ilium's ruins old, (The fount where peerless Helen drank, And Venus laved her locks of gold,) (b) I thrill'd such classic haunts to see, Yet even here I thought of thee

I thought of thee I thought of thee, Where glide the Bosphor's lovely waters, All palace-lined from sea to sea;

And ever on its shores the daughters Of the delicious East are seen,

Printing the brink with slipper'd feet;

And oh, the snowy folds between,

What eyes of heaven your glances meet!

Peris of light no fairer be—

Yes in Stamboul - I thought of thee.

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Through change that teaches to forget;

Thy face looks up from every sca,

In every star thine eyes are set,

Though roving beneath Orient skies,

Whose golden beauty breathes of rest;

I envy every bird that flies

Into the far and clouded West:

I think of thee--I think of thee!

Oh, dearest! hast thou thought of me?

THOUGHTS

WHILE MAKING A GRAVE FOR A NEW-BORN CHILD.

ROOм, gentle flowers! my child would pass to heaven!

Ye look'd not for her yet with your soft eyes,

O watchful ushers at Death's narrow door!

But lo! while you delay to let her forth,

Angels, beyond, stay for her!

From lips all pale with agony,

One long kiss

and tears,

Wrung after anguish had dried up with fire
The eyes that wept, were the cup of life
Held as a welcome to her. Weep! oh, mother!
But not that from this cup of bitterness
A cherub of the sky has turn'd away.

One look upon thy face e re thou depart!
My daughter! It is soon to let thee go!
My daughter! With thy birth has gush'd a spring
filling my heart with tears,

I knew not of

And turning with strange tenderness to thee

A love -oh, God! it seems so which must flow

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Far as thou fleest, and 'twixt heaven and me,
Henceforward, be a bright and yearning chain
Drawing me after thee! And so, farewell!
'Tis a harsh world, in which affection knows
No place to treasure up its loved and lost
But the lone grave.

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