Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
France: Vols. IX–X. 1876–79.

Touraine

A Night Journey

By Francis Turner Palgrave (1824–1897)

A FLASH of steam, a dash of light

Through the black centre of the night,

With shriek and whirlwind goes the train

Across the slopes of sweet Touraine.

And o’er fair Europe’s shadowy face

A hundred more their errand trace,

And night surveys them, calm and free,

To her as little as to me.

But from that one of all that roll,

A vision lightens on the soul,

Where love is on her way to bring

Love’s sweetness to the sorrowing.

Through year-long hours of hope and woe

She sits and waits, till dawning show

The stately terraces that crown

The level waves of broad Garonne.

Her heart is gone before her there,

And sees the room and empty chair,

And one who on the death-bed lies,

And prays to see her ere she dies.

O Love, that sits so white and still!

I think and think upon her, till

My heart is with her heart again,

Crossing the slopes of sweet Touraine.