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
To try the dubious road?

Nor rather deem from nightly cries

That outlaws were abroad.

Clouds burst, skies flash, oh, dreadful hour!
More fiercely pours the storm!

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,—

Thy bark hath long been gone: Oh, may the storm that pours on me Bow down my head alone! ́

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 aught so fair as thou
Should linger on the main.

And since I now remember thee
In darkness and in dread,
As in those hours of revelry
Which mirth and music sped;

Do thou amidst the fair white walls,
If Cadiz yet be free,

At times from out her latticed halls
Look o'er the dark-blue sea ;

Then think upon Calypso's isles,
Endear❜d by days gone by;
To others give a thousand smiles,
To me a single sigh.

And when the admiring circle mark
The paleness of thy face,

A half-form'd tear, a transient spark
Of melancholy grace,

Again thou 'lt smile, and blushing shun

Some coxcomb's raillery;

Nor own for once thou thought'st of one,
Who ever thinks on thee.

Though smile and sigh alike are vain,
When sever'd hearts repine;

My spirit flies o'er mount and main,
And mourns in search of thine.

TO ***

OH Lady! when I left the shore,
The distant shore which gave me birth,

I hardly thought to grieve once more,
To quit another spot on earth :

Yet here, amidst this barren isle,
Where panting nature droops the head,
Where only thou art seen to smile,

I view my parting hour with dread.
Though far from Albin's craggy shore,
Divided by the dark-blue main ;
A few, brief, rolling seasons o'er,
Perchance I view her cliffs again :
But wheresoe'er I now may roam,
Through scorching clime and varied sea,
Though time restore me to my home,

I ne'er shall bend mine eyes on thee: On thee, in whom at once conspire

All charms which heedless hearts can move, Whom but to see is to admirė,

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? Nor be, what man should ever be,

The friend of beauty in distress?
Ah! who would think that form had past
Through danger's most destructive path,
Had braved the death-wing'd tempest's blast,
And 'scaped a tyrant's fiercer wrath?
Lady! when I shall view the walls
Where free Byzantium once arose ;
And Stamboul's oriental halls

The Turkish tyrants now enclose;
Though mightiest in the lists of fame
That glorious city still shall be;
On me 't will hold a dearer claim

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!
Thus is it with life's fitful fever!
We madly smile when we should groan;
Delirium is our best deceiver.

Each lucid interval of thought

Recalls the woes of Nature's charter, And he that acts as wise men ought, But lives, as saints have died, a martyr.

WRITTEN BENEATH A PICTURE.
Dear object of defeated care!.
Though now of love and thee bereft,
To reconcile me with despair

Thine image and my tears are left. "Tis said with sorrow time can cope,

But this, I feel, can ne'er be true: For by the death-blow of my hope, My meniory immortal grew.

WRITTEN AFTER SWIMMING FROM SESTOS

TO ABYDOS,1 MAY 9, 1810.

IF, in the month of dark December,
Leander, who was nightly wont
(What maid will not the tale remember?)

To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont!
If, when the wintry tempest roar'd,
He sped to Hero, nothing loth,
And thus of old thy current pour'd,
Fair Venus! how I pity both!
For me, degenerate modern wretch,
Though in the genial month of May,
My dripping limbs I faintly stretch,

And think I've done a feat to-day.
But since he cross'd the rapid tide,

According to the doubtful story,
To woo,-and-Lord knows what beside,
And swam for love, as I for glory;

'T were hard to say who fared the best:
Sad mortals! thus the gods still plague you!
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,
Give, oh, give me back iny heart!
Or, since that has left my breast,
Keep it now,
and take the rest!
Hear my vow before I go,
Ζώη μου, σὰς ἀγαπῶ.

1 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 EngKish 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 neither 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.

2 Żỏe mou, sas agapo, or Zwŋ pov, σàs ayani, 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 hrst words were amongst the Roman ladies, whose erotic expressions were all Hellenized.

Sons of Greeks, let us go

In arms against the foe,
Till their hated blood shall flow
In a river past our feet.

Then manfully despising

The Turkish tyrant's yoke, Let your country see you rising,

And all her chains are broke. Brave shades of chiefs and sages,

Behold the coming strife! Hellenes of past ages,

Oh, start again to life!

At the sound of my trumpet, breaking
Your sleep, oh, join with me!
And the seven-hill'd3 city seeking,
Fight, conquer, till we 're free.

Sons of Greeks, etc.

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 heard it frequently at our “Xópoi in the winter of 1810-11. The air is plaintive and pretty.

I ENTER thy garden of roses,
Beloved and fair Haidée,
Each morning when Flora reposes,
For surely I see her in thee.
Oh, lovely! thus low I implore thee,
Receive this fond truth from my tongue,
Which utters its song to adore thee,
Yet trembles for what it has
sung:
As the branch, at the bidding of nature,
Adds fragrance and fruit to the tree,
Through her eyes, through her every feature,
Shines the soul of the young Haidée.
But the loveliest garden grows hateful,

When love has abandon'd the bowers;
Bring me hemlock-since mine is ungrateful,
That herb is more fragrant than flowers.
The poison, when pour'd from the chalice,
Will deeply embitter the bowl;
But when drunk to escape from thy malice,
The draught shall be sweet to my soul.
Too cruel! in vain I implore thee

My heart from these horrors to save :
Will nought to my bosom restore thee?
Then
open the gates of the grave.

As the chief who to combat advances,
Secure of his conquest before,
Thus thou, with those eyes for thy lances,
Hast pierced through my heart to its core.

Ah, tell me, my soul! must I perish

By pangs which a smile would dispel?
Would the hope, which thou once bad'st me cherish,
For torture repay me too well?
Now sad is the garden of roses,
Beloved but false Haidée!
There Flora all wither'd reposes,

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 stream
Can weep no change in me.

1 ask no pledge to make me blest,
In gazing when alone ;
Nor one memorial for a breast,
Whose thoughts are all thine own.

Nor need I write-to tell the tale
My pen were doubly weak:
Oh! what can idle words avail,
Unless the heart could speak?

By day or night, in weal or woe,
That heart, no longer free,
Must bear the love it cannot show,
And silent ache for thee.

TO THYRZA.

WITHOUT a stone to mark the spot,
And say, what truth might well have said,
By all, save one, perchance forgot,
Ah, wherefore art thou lowly laid?
By many a shore and many a sea

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
Shall they not flow, when many a day
In these, to me, deserted towers,
Ere call'd but for a time away,

Affection's mingling tears were ours?
Ours too the glance none saw beside;

The smile none else might understand, The whisper'd thought of hearts allied, The pressure of the thrilling hand; The kiss so guiltless and refined,

That love each warmer wish forbore · Those eyes proclaim'd so pure a mind, Even passion blush'd to plead for more The tone, that taught me to rejoice, When prone, unlike thee, to repine, The song celestial from thy voice,

But sweet to me from none but thine;

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 stiil

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 lour, And pain been transient or unknown.

" Ay, but to die, and go,” alas! Where all have gone, 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,
Count o'er thy days from anguish free,
And know, whatever thou hast been,
'Tis something better not to be.

STANZAS.

de! 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,
Too soon return'd to earth!
Though Earth received them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd tread
may

In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

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 .ove,
Like common earth can rot;

To me there needs no stone to tell,
'Tis nothing that I loved so weil.

Yet did I love thee to the last

As fervently as thou,

Who didst not change through all the past,
And canst not alter now.

The love where death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,

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;
Nor need I to repine

That all those charms have pass'd away,
I might have watch'd through long decay.

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away:
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade
;
The night that follow'd such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath past,
And thou wert lovely to the last;

Extinguish'd, not decay'd;
As stars that shoot along the sky.
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep,

My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed ;
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,

Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread eternity,

Returns again to me,

And more thy buried love endears
Than aught, except its living years.