STANZAS.. Clouds burst, skies ilash, oh, dreadful hour! Yet here one thought has still the power While wand'ring through each broken path Not on the sea, not on the sea, Full swiftly blew the swift Siroc, And long ere now, with foaming shock, Now thou art safe; nay, long ere now And since I now remember thee As in those hours of revelry Do thou, amid the fair white walls, At times, from out her latticed halla, Then think upon Calypso's isles, And when the admiring circle mark A half-form'd tear, a transient spark Of melancholy grace, Again thou'lt smile, and blushing shun Nor own for once thou thought'st on one Though smile and sigh alike are vain, My spirit flies o'er mount and main, 119 STANZAS WRITTEN ON PASSING THE AMBRACIAN GUIF.* THROUGH cloudless skies, in silvery sheen, And now upon the scene I look, The azure grave of many a Roman; (Since Orpheus sang his spouse from hell), Sweet Florence! those were pleasant times, Though Fate forbids such things to be, But would not lose thee for a world. November 14. 1909. THE SPELL IS BROKE, THE CHARM IS FLOWN! WRITTEN AT ATHENS, JANUARY 16, 1810. THE spell is broke, the charm is flown! We madly smile when we should groan; Each lucid interval of thought Recalls the woes of Nature's charter, But lives, as saints have died, a martyr. The lady referred to in this and the two following pieces-the wife of Mr. Spencer Smith, and daughter of Baron Herbert, Austrian ambassador at Constantinople, where she was born-was a very remarkable person, and experienced a variety of striking Adventures. She was unhappy in her marriage, yet of unblemished reputation; had engaged in some plots against Bonaparte, which excited his vengeance; was made prisoner, but subsequently escaped; afterwards suffered shipwreck-and all before she was twenty-five years of age. The poet met her at Malta, on her way to England to join her husband; and these poems, and a reference to her in "Childe Harold," are memorials of their brief scquaintance. LINES WRITTEN IN THE TRAVELLERS' BOOK AT IN THIS BOOK A TRAVELLER HAD WRITTEN :- "FAIR Albion, smiling, sees her son depart, To trace the birth and nursery of art: Noble his object, glorious is his aim; He comes to Athens, and he writes his name!" BENEATH WHICH LORD BYRON INSERTED THE FOLLOWING:** THE modest bard, like many a bard unknown, His name would bring more credit than his verse. MAID OF ATHENS, ERE WE PART. Ζώη μου, σας αγαπώ. MAID of Athens, ere we part, By those tresses unconfined, By that up I long to taste; By all the token-flowers that tell + What words can never speak so well; By love's alternate joy and woe, Maid of Athens! I am gone: Think of me, sweet! when alone. • Romaic expression of tenderness: if I translate it, I shall affront the gentlemen, sa 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. In the East (where ladies are not taught to write, lest they should scribble assigna. tions) flowers, cinders, pebbles, &c., convey the sentiments of the parties, by that universal deputy of Mercury-an old woman. A cinder says, "I burn for thee;" a bunch of flowers tied with hair, "Take me and fly;" but a pebble declares-what nothing elso call. Though I fly to Istambol,* Ζώη μου, σάς ἀγαπῶ. No! Athens 1816. WRITTEN AFTER SWIMMING FROM SESTOS TO ABYDOS. + IF, in the month of dark December, (What maid will not the tale remember?) If, when the wintry tempest roar'd, And think I've done a feat to-day. But since he cross'd the rapid tide, "Twere hard to say who fared the best: Sad mortals! thus the gods still plague you! For he was drown'd, and I've the ague. May 9, 1810. LINES WRITTEN BENEATH A PICTURE. DEAR object of defeated care! Though now of love and thee bereft, • Constantinople. Thine image and my tears are left. On the 3rd of May, 1810, while the "Salsette" (Captain Bathurst) was lying in ths Dardanelles, Lieutenant Ekenhead of that frigate and the writer of these rhymes swam from the European shore to the Asiatic-by the bye, 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 nour 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. TRANSLATION OF THE FAMOUS GREEK WAR SONG. "Tis said with Sorrow Time can cope; 121 TRANSLATION OF THE FAMOUS GREEK WAR SONG, “ Δεῦτε παῖδες τῶν Ἑλλήνων.38 SONS of the Greeks, arise! The glorious hour 's gone forth, And, worthy of such ties, Display who gave us birth. CHORUS. Sons of Greeks! let us yo Then manfully despising Behold the coming strife! Hellénes of past ages, Oh, start again to life! At the sound of my trumpet, breaking And the seven-hill'd city seeking,+ Sons of Greeks, &c. Sparta, Sparta, why in slumbers Awake, and join thy numbers Leonidas recalling, That chief of ancient song, And warring with the Persian Sons of Greeks, &c. The song was written by Riga, who perished in the attempt to revolutionize Greece. This translation is as literal as the author could make it in verse. It is of the same measure as that of the original. t Constantinople |