Bayard Taylor (1825–1878)

ONCE more without you!—sighing, dear, once more,

For all the sweet, accustomed ministries

Of wife and mother: not as when the seas

That parted us my tender message bore

From the gray olives of the Cretan shore

To those that hid the broken Phidian frieze

Of our Athenian home,—but far degrees,

Wide plains, great forests, part us now: my door

Looks on the rushing Neva, cold and clear:

The swelling domes in hovering splendor lie,

Like golden bubbles, eager to be gone,

But the chill crystal of the atmosphere

Withholds them; and along the northern sky

The amber midnight smiles in dreams of dawn!