And of those scented lilies* found
Still blooming on that fearful place —
As if call'd up by Love, to grace
The immortal spot, o'er which the last
Bright footsteps of his martyr pass'd!

While fresh to every listener's thought
These legends of Leucadia brought
All that of Sappho's hapless flame
Is kept alive, still watch'd by Fame
The maiden, tuning her soft lute,
While all the rest stood round her, mute,
Thus sketch'd the languishment of soul,
That o'er the tender Lesbian stole ;
And, in a voice, whose thrilling tone
Fancy might deem the Lesbian's own,
One of those fervid fragments gave,

Which still, like sparkles of Greek Fire, Undying, ev'n beneath the wave,

--

Burn on thro' Time, and ne'er expire.

SONG.

As o'er her loom the Lesbian Maid
In love-sick languor hung her head,
Unknowing where her fingers stray'd,

She weeping turn'd away, and said,
"Oh, my sweet Mother-'tis in vain

"I cannot weave, as once I wove

See Mr. Goodisson's very interesting des ription of all these

Bircumstances.

"So wilder'd is my heart and brain
"With thinking of that youth I love!”

Again the web she tried to trace,

But tears fell o'er each tangled thread;
While, looking in her mother's face,

Who watchful o'er her lean'd, she said,
"Oh, my sweet Mother-'tis in vain —
"I cannot weave, as once I wove —
"So wilder'd is my heart and brain
“With thinking of that youth I love!"

A silence follow'd this sweet air,
As each in tender musing stood,
Thinking, with lips that moved in pray'r,
Of Sappho and that fearful flood:
While some, who ne'er till now had known
How much their hearts resembled hers,
Felt as they made her griefs their own,
That they, too, were Love's worshippers.

At length a murmur, all but mute,
So faint it was, came from the lute
Of a young melancholy maid,
Whose fingers, all uncertain play'd

I have attempted, in these four lines, to give some idea of that beautiful fragment of Sappho, beginning гhvкɛła μātep, which represents so truly (as Warton remarks) "the languor and listlessness of a person deeply in love."

From chord to chord, as if in chase
Of some lost melody, some strain
Of other times, whose faded trace

She sought among those chords again.
Slowly the half-forgotten theme

(Though born in feelings ne'er forgot)

Came to her memory

as a beam

Falls broken o'er some shaded spot; And while her lute's sad symphony

Fill'd up each sighing pause between; And Love himself might weep to see

What ruin comes where he hath been

As wither'd still the grass is found
Where fays have danced their merry round
Thus simply to the listening throng
She breath'd her melancholy song:-

SONG.

Weeping for thee, my love, through the long day, Lonely and wearily life wears away.

Weeping for thee, my love, through the long night

No rest in darkness, no joy in light!

Nought left but Memory, whose dreary tread

Sounds through this ruin'd heart, where all lies Wakening the echoes of joy long fled!

Of many a stanza, this alone
Had scaped oblivion — like the one

[dead

Stray fragment of a wreck, which thrown, With the lost vessel's name, ashore,

Tells who they were that live no more.

When thus the heart is in a vein Of tender thought, the simplest strain Can touch it with peculiar power

As when the air is warm, the scent Of the most wild and rustic flower Can fill the whole rich elementAnd, in such moods, the homeliest tone That's link'd with feelings, once our own With friends or joys gone by- will be Worth choirs of loftiest harmony!

But some there were, among the group
Of damsels there, too light of heart
To let their spirits longer droop,
Ev'n under music's melting art;
And one upspringing, with a bound,
From a low bank of flowers, look'd round
With eyes that, though so full of light,
Had still a trembling tear within ;
And, while her fingers, in swift flight,
Flew o'er a fairy mandolin,

Thus sung the song her lover late
Had sung to her - the eve before
That joyous night, when, as of yore,
All Zea met, to celebrate

The Feast of May, on the sea-shore.

SONG.

When the Balaika *

Is heard o'er the sea,
I'll dance the Romaika

By moonlight with thee.
If waves then, advancing,
Should steal on our play,
Thy white feet, in dancing,
Shall chase them away.†
When the Balaika

Is heard o'er the sea,
Thou 'lt dance the Romaika,
My own love with me.

Then, at the closing

Of each merry lay,
How sweet is, reposing,
Beneath the night ray!

Or if, declining,

The moon leave the skies,
We'll talk by the shining

Of each other's eyes.

Oh then, how featly

The dance we'll renew,

This word is defrauded here, I suspect, of a syllable; Dr. Clarke, if I recollect right, makes it "Balalaika."

"I saw above thirty parties engaged in dancing the Romaika upon the sand; in some of those groups, the girl who led them chased the retreating wave."-Douglas on the Modern Greeks.