Oh! who in such a night will dare To tempt the wilderness? And who 'mid thunder-peals can hear Our signal of distress? And who that heard our shouts would rise Clouds burst, skies flash, oh, dreadful hour! Yet here one thought has still the power To keep my bosom warm. While wandering through each broken path, O'er brake and craggy brow: While elements exhaust their wrath, Sweet Florence! where art thou? Not on the sea, not on the sea, Oh Full swiftly blew the swift Siroc When last I press'd thy lip; And long ere now, with foaming shock, Impell'd thy gallant ship. Now thou art safe; nay, long ere now Hast trod the shore of Spain: 'T were hard if ought so fair as thou And since I now remember thee, Which mirth and music sped; Do thou amidst the fair white walls, At times from out her latticed halls Then think upon Calypso's isles, To me a single sigh. And when the admiring circle mark A half-form'd tear, a transient spark Again thou 'It smile, and blushing shun Nor own for once thou thought'st of My spirit flies o'er mount and main, TO ***. one, Ou Lady! when I left the shore, I hardly thought to grieve once more, Yet here, amidst this barren isle, I view my parting hour with dread. A few brief rolling seasons o'er, I ne'er shall bend mine eyes on thee. All charms which heedless hearts can move, Whom but to see is to admire, And oh! forgive the word-to love. Forgive the word in one who ne'er With such a word can more offend; And since thy heart I cannot share, Believe me, what I am, thy friend. And who so cold as look on thee, Thou lovely wanderer, and be less? The Turkish tyrants now enclose; As spot of thy nativity. And though I bid thee now farewell, When I behold that wondrous scene, Since where thou art I may not dwell, 'T will soothe to be where thou hast been. September, 1809. WRITTEN AT ATHENS, JANUARY 16, 1810. THE spell is broke, the charm is flown! Each lucid interval of thought Recals the woes of Nature's charter, And he that acts as wise men ought, But lives, as saints have died, a riartyr, WRITTEN BENEATH A PICTURE. Thine image and my tears are left. Cp. Tennyson, "The Lover's "Tale', I.s.f. They said thi Love w. die, ste. WRITTEN AFTER SWIMMING FROM SESTOS TO ABYDOS,' MAY 9, 1810. IF in the month of dark December, If, when the wintry tempest roar'd, According to the doubtful story, To woo,-and-Lord knows what beside, 'T were hard to say who fared the best : He lost his labour, I my jest, For he was drown'd, and I've the ague. Ζώη μου, σὰς ἀγαπῶ. ATHENS, 1810. MAID of Athens, ere we part, On the 3d of May, 1810, while the Salsette (Captain Bathurst) was lying in the Dardanelles, Lieutenant Ekenhead of that frigate and the writer of these rhymes swam from the European shore to the Asiatic -by-the-by, from Abydos to Sestos would have been more correct. The whole distance from the place whence we started to our landing on the other side, including the length we were carried by the current, was computed by those on board the frigate at upwards of four English miles; though the actual breadth is barely one. The rapidity of the current is such that no boat can row directly across, and it may in some measure be estimated from the circumstance of the whole distance being accomplished by one of the parties in an hour and five, and by the other in an hour and ten minutes. The water was extremely cold from the melting of the mountain-snows. About three weeks before, in April, we had made an attempt, but having ridden all the way from the Troad the same morning, and the water being of an icy chillness, we found it necessary to postpone the completion till the frigate anchored below the castles, when we swam the straits, as just stated, entering a considerable way above the European, and landing below the Asiatic fort. Chevalier says that a young Jew swam the same distance for his mistress; and Oliver mentions its having been done by a Neapolitan; but our consul, Tarragona, remembered nei her of these circumstances, and tried to dissuade us from the attempt. A number of the Salsette's crew were known to have accomplished a greater distance; and the only thing that surprised me was, that, as doubts had been entertained of the truth of Leander's story, no traveller had ever endeavoured to ascertain its practicability. 3 Zoë mou, sas agapo, or Ζώη μου, σας ἀγαπῶ, a Romaic expression of tenderness: if I translate it I shall affront the gentlemen, as it may seem that I supposed they could not; and if I do not, I may affront the ladies. For fear of any misconstruction on the part of the latter I shall do so, begging pardon of the learned. It means, My life, I love you! which sounds very prettily in all languages, and is as much in fashion in Greece at this day as, Juvenal tells us, the two first words were amongst the Roman ladies, whose erotic expressions were all Hellenized Leonidas recalling, That chief of ancient song, Who saved ye once from falling, The terrible, the strong! Who made that bold diversion In old Thermopyle, And warring with the Persian And, like a lion raging, Sons of Greeks, etc. TRANSLATION OF THE ROMAIC SONG, « Μπαίνω μὲς τὸ περιβόλι, The song from which this is taken is a great favourite with the young girls of Athens of all classes. Their manner of singing it is by verses in rotation, the whole number present joining in the chorus. I have beard it frequently at our Xópots in the winter of 1810-11. I ENTER thy garden of roses, Receive this fond truth from my tongue, Yet trembles for what it has sung. Adds fragrance and fruit to the tree, When love has abandon'd the bowers; But when drunk to escape from thy malice, My heart from these horrors to save : As the chief who to combat advances, Hast pierced through my heart to its core. Ah, tell me, my soul! must I perish By pangs which a smile would dispel? For torture repay me too well? And mourns o'er thine absence with me. ON PARTING. THE kiss, dear maid! thy lip has left, Shall never part from mine, Till happier hours restore the gift Untainted back to thine. Thy parting glance, which fondly beams, An equal love may see: The tear that from thine eyelid streams Can weep no change in me. I ask no pledge to make me blest, Nor one memorial for a breast, Nor need I write-to tell the tale By day or night, in weal or woe, TO THYRZA. WITHOUT a stone to mark the spot, Ah, wherefore art thou lowly laid? Divided, yet beloved in vain; The past, the future fled to thee To bid us meet-no-ne'er again! Could this have been-a word, a look, That softly said, « We part in peace,» Had taught my bosom how to brook, With fainter sighs, thy soul's release. And didst thou not, since death for thee Prepared a light and pangless dart, Once long for him thou ne'er shalt see, Who held, and holds thee in his heart? Oh! who like him had watch'd thee here? Or sadly mark'd thy glazing eye, In that dread hour ere death appear, When silent sorrow fears to sigh, Till all was past? But when no more 'T was thine to reck of human woe, Affection's heart-drops, gushing o'er, Had flow'd as fast-as now they flow. Affection's mingling tears were ours? The smile none else might understand; That love each warmer wish forbore; But sweet to me from none but thine; The pledge we wore-I wear it still, But where is thine?-ah, where art thou? Oft have I borne the weight of ill, But never bent beneath till now! Well hast thou left in life's best bloom The cup of woe for me to drain. If rest alone be in the tomb, I would not wish thee here again; But if in worlds more blest than this Thy virtues seek a fitter sphere, Impart some portion of thy bliss, To wean me from mine anguish here. Teach me too early taught by thee! To bear, forgiving and forgiven: On earth thy love was such to me, It fain would form my hope in heaven! STANZAS. AWAY, away, ye notes of woe! Be silent, thou once soothing strain, Or I must flee from hence, for, oh! I dare not trust those sounds again. To me they speak of brighter days— But lull the chords, for now, alas! I must not think, I may not gaze On what I am, on what I was. The voice that made those sounds more sweet Is hush'd, and all their charms are fled; And now their softest notes repeat A dirge, an anthem o'er the dead? Yes, Thyrza! yes, they breathe of thec, Beloved dust! since dust thou art; And all that once was harmony Is worse than discord to my heart! T is silent all!--but on my ear The well-remember'd echoes thrill; I hear a voice I would not hear, A voice that now might well be still : Yet oft my doubting soul 't will shake, Even slumber owns its gentle tone, Till consciousness will vainly wake To listen, though the dream be flown. Sweet Thyrza! waking as in sleep, Thou art but now a lovely dreamA star that trembled o'er the deep, Then turn'd from earth its tender beam. But he who through life's dreary way Must pass, when heaven is veil'd in wrath, Will long lament the vanish'd ray That scatter'd gladness o'er his path. TO THYRZA. ONE struggle more, and I am free From pangs that rend my heart in twain; One last long sigh to love and thee, Then back to busy life again. It suits me well to mingle now With things that never pleased before: Though every joy is fled below, What future grief can touch me more" EUTHANASIA. WHEN Time, or soon or late, shall bring The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead, Oblivion! may thy languid wing Wave gently o'er my dying bed! No band of friends or heirs be there, To feel, or feign, decorous woc. But silent let me sink to earth, With no officious mourners near: I would not mar one hour of mirth, Nor startle friendship with a fear. Yet Love, if Love in such an hour Could nobly check its useless sighs, Might then exert its latest power In her who lives and him who dies. 'T were sweet, my Psyche, to the last Thy features still serene to see: Forgetful of its struggles past, Even Pain itself should smile on thee. But vain the wish-for Beauty still Will shrink, as shrinks the ebbing breath; And woman's tears, produced at will, Deceive in life, unman in death. Then lonely be my latest hour, Without regret, without a groan! For thousands death hath ceased to lower, And pain been transient or unknown. Ay, but to die, and go,» alas! Where all have goue, and all must go! To be the nothing that I was Ere born to life and living woe! Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, T is something better-not to be. STANZAS. - Heu! quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse! AND thou art dead, as young and fair As aught of mortal birth; And form so soft, and charms so rare, Though Earth received them in her bed, There is an eye which could not brook I will not ask where thou liest low, Nor gaze upon the spot; There flowers or weeds at will may grow, So I behold them not: It is enough for me to prove That what I loved, and long must love, Like common earth can rot; Yet did I love thee to the last As fervently as thou, Who didst not change through all the past, The love where death has set his seal, Nor falsehood disavow: And what were worse, thou canst not see, Or wrong, or change, or fault in me. The better days of life were ours; The worst can be but mine; The sun that cheers, the storm that lours, Shall never more be thine. The silence of that dreamless sleep I envy now too much to weep; That all those charms have pass'd away The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd Than see it pluck'd to-day; I know not if I could have borne Had worn a deeper shade: Thy day without a cloud hath past, Extinguish'd, not decay'd; As stars that shoot along the sky As once I wept, if I could weep, Uphold thy drooping head; Yet how much less it were to gain, And more thy buried love endears STANZAS. If sometimes in the haunts of men Oh! pardon that in crowds awhile, |