While fancy wandered, may my steps no less Have followed, dreaming, farther than I knew?

And yet, not so. This is no foreign air,

That once I breathed, then left, again to roam! Thy fragrant breezes whisper, "This is home, My namesake city, Florence, called the Fair!"

Sometimes in music comes a sudden strain,
Mid unfamiliar melodies most sweet;

The heart leaps forth the welcome tones to greet, But its past echo memory seeks in vain.

New, and yet old, it lingers on the mind
As with remembered sweetness, and it fills
The soul with longing for the heavenly hills,
And angel harmonies it left behind.

Perchance 't was wafted o'er the ocean dim
That lies beyond the mystery of birth;
And the young spirit, mid the songs of earth,
Could not forget the seraph's cradle hymn!

Whate'er the heart is tuned to is its own,

And, loving, we claim kinship. So I love,
O land! whose distant glories thus could move
My heart until, unseen, I deemed thee known!

In other climes thy skies have on me smiled,
The beautiful to me has borne thy name;
O city of my heart, thy love I claim,
I am not worthy, but I am thy child!

Florence Smith.

FLORENCE.

F all the fairest cities of the earth
None is so fair as Florence.

OF

'Tis a gem

Of purest ray; and what a light broke forth When it emerged from darkness! Search within, Without; all is enchantment! 'Tis the past Contending with the present; and in turn

Each has the mastery.

In this chapel wrought

One of the few, Nature's interpreters,

The few whom genius gives as lights to shine,
Masaccio; and he slumbers underneath.

Wouldst thou behold his monument? Look round!
And know that where we stand stood oft and long,
Oft till the day was gone, Raphael himself;
Nor he alone, so great the ardor there,
Such, while it reigned, the generous rivalry;
He and how many as at once called forth,
Anxious to learn of those who came before,
To steal a spark from their authentic fire,
Theirs who first broke the universal gloom,
Sons of the Morning.

On that ancient seat,
The seat of stone that runs along the wall,
South of the church, east of the belfry-tower,
(Thou canst not miss it,) in the sultry time
Would Dante sit conversing, and with those
Who little thought that in his hand he held
The balance, and assigned at his good pleasure

To each his place in the invisible world,
To some an upper region, some a lower;
Many a transgressor sent to his account,
Long ere in Florence numbered with the dead;
The body still as full of life and stir

At home, abroad; still and as oft inclined
To eat, drink, sleep; still clad as others were,
And at noonday, where men were wont to meet,
Met as continually; when the soul went,
Relinquished to a demon, and by him

(So says the bard, and who can read and doubt?) Dwelt in and governed.

Sit thee down awhile;

Then, by the gates so marvellously wrought,
That they might serve to be the gates of Heaven,
Enter the Baptistery. That place he loved,

Loved as his own; and in his visits there

Well might he take delight! For when a child,
Playing, as many are wont, with venturous feet
Near and yet nearer to the sacred font,
Slipped and fell in, he flew and rescued him,
Flew with an energy, a violence,

That broke the marble, - a mishap ascribed
To evil motives; his, alas, to lead

A life of trouble, and erelong to leave
All things most dear to him, erelong to know
How salt another's bread is, and the toil
Of going up and down another's stairs.

Nor then forget that chamber of the dead,
Where the gigantic shapes of night and day,
Turned into stone, rest everlastingly ;

Yet still are breathing, and shed round at noon A twofold influence, only to be felt,

A light, a darkness, mingling each with each;
Both and yet neither. There, from age to age,
Two ghosts are sitting on their sepulchres.
That is the Duke Lorenzo. Mark him well.
He meditates, his head upon his hand.
What from beneath his helm-like bonnet scowls?
Is it a face, or but an eyeless skull?
'Tis lost in shade; yet, like the basilisk,

It fascinates, and is intolerable.

His mien is noble, most majestical!

Then most so, when the distant choir is heard At morn or eve,

nor fail thou to attend On that thrice-hallowed day, when all are there; When all, propitiating with solemn songs,

Visit the dead. Then wilt thou feel his power! But let not sculpture, painting, poesy,

Or they, the masters of these mighty spells, Detain us. Our first homage is to virtue. Where, in what dungeon of the citadel, (It must be known, the writing on the wall Cannot be gone, -'t was with the blade cut in, Ere, on his knees to God, he slew himself,)

Did he, the last, the noblest citizen,1

Breathe out his soul, lest in the torturing hour

He might accuse the guiltless?

That debt paid,

But with a sigh, a tear for human frailty,
We may return, and once more give a loose

1 Filippo Strozzi.

To the delighted spirit, worshipping,

-

In her small temple of rich workmanship,
Venus herself, who, when she left the skies,
Came hither.

FLORENCE.

Samuel Rogers.

THE

THE brightness of the world, O thou once free,
And always fair, rare land of courtesy !

O Florence! with the Tuscan fields and hills,
And famous Arno, fed with all their rills;
Thou brightest star of star-bright Italy!
Rich, ornate, populous, all treasures thine,
The golden corn, the olive, and the vine.
Fair cities, gallant mansions, castles old,
And forests, where beside his leafy hold
The sullen boar hath heard the distant horn,
And whets his tusks against the gnarled thorn;
Palladian palace with its storied halls;
Fountains, where Love lies listening to their falls ;
Gardens, where flings the bridge its airy span,
Aud Nature makes her happy home with man;
Where many a gorgeous flower is duly fed
With its own rill, on its own spangled bed,
Aud wreathes the marble urn, or leans its head,
A mimic mourner, that with veil withdrawn
Weeps liquid gems, the presents of the dawn;
Thine all delights, and every muse is thine;
And more than all, the embrace and intertwine
Of all with all in gay and twinkling dance!
Mid gods of Greece and warriors of romance,