6. Oh! who in such a night will dare And who 'mid thunder peals can hear And who that heard our shouts would rise To try the dubious road? Nor rather deem from nightly cries That outlaws were abroad. 8. Clouds burst, skies flash, oh, dreadful hour! Yet here one thought has still the power 9. While wand'ring through each broken path, O'er brake and craggy brow; While elements exhaust their wrath, Sweet Florence, where art thou? 10. Not on the sea, not on the sea, Thy bark hath long been gone: 11. Full swiftly blew the swift Siroc, And long ere now, with foaming shock, 12. Now thou art safe; nay, long ere now 13. And since I now remember thee In darkness and in dread, 14. Do thou amidst the fair white walls, At times from out her latticed halls 15. Then think upon Calypso's isles, To others give a thousand smiles, 16. And when the admiring circle mark A half-form'd tear, a transient spark Of melancholy grace, 17. Again thou'lt smile, and blushing shun Nor own for once thou thought'st of one, 18. Though smile and sigh alike are vain, My spirit flies o'er mount and main, WRITTEN AT ATHENS. JANUARY 16, 1810. THE spell is broke, the charm is flown! Recalls the woes of Nature's charter, WRITTEN AFTER SWIMMING FROM SESTOS TO ABYDOS.* MAY 9, 1810. Ir, in the month of dark December, To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont! 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 2. If, when the wintry tempest roar'd, 3. For me, degenerate modern wretch, 4. But since he cross'd the rapid tide, To woo,-and-Lord knows what beside, 5. 'Twere hard to say who fared the best: For he was drown'd, and I've the ague. 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 neither of these cir cumstances, 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 ascer tain its practicability. SONG. Ζωή με, σας αγαπω. ATHENS, 1810. 1. MAID of Athens, ere we part, Ζωή με, σας αγαπω. 2. By those tresses unconfined, Ζωη με, σας αγαπω. 3. By that lip I long to taste; By that zone-encircled waist; By all the token-flowers† that tell What words can never speak so well; By Love's alternate joy and wo, Ζωη με, σας αγαπω. * Zoe mou sas agapo, or Zon us, was ayar, 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 expressious were all Hellenized. A In the East (where the ladies are not taught to write, lest they should scribble assignations) flowers, cinders, pebbles, &c. convey the sentiments of the parties by that universal deputy of Mercury-an old woman. einder says, "I burn for thee;" a bunch of flowers tied with hair, “T me and fly," but a pebble declares-what nothing else can. |