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Literary Gazette, 7th December, 1822, Pages 775–776
FRAGMENTS IN RHYME.
VI.—The Painter's Love.
Your skies are blue, your sun is bright;
But sky nor sun has that sweet light
Which gleamed upon the summer sky
Of my own lovely Italy!
'Tis long since I have breathed the air,
Which, filled with odours, floated there,—
Sometimes in sleep a gale sweeps by,
Rich with the rose and myrtle's sigh;—
'Tis long since I have seen the vine
With Autumn's topaz clusters shine;
And watched the laden branches bending,
And heard the vintage songs ascending;
'Tis very long since I have seen
The ivy's death-wreath, cold and green,
Hung round the old and broken stone
Raised by the hands now dead and gone!
I do remember one lone spot,
By most unnoticed or forgot—
Would that I too recalled it not!
It was a little temple, gray,
With half its pillars worn away,
No roof left, but one cypress tree
Flinging its branches mournfully.
In ancient days this was a shrine
For Goddess or for Nymph divine;
And sometimes I have dreamed I heard
A step soft as a lover's word,
And caught a perfume on the air,
And saw a shadow gliding fair,
Dim, sad as if it came to sigh
