STANZAS

WRITTEN ON PASSING THE AMBRACIAN GULF.*

THROUGH cloudless skies, in silvery sheen,
Full beams the moon on Actium's coast;
And on these waves, for Egypt's queen,
The ancient world was won and lost.

And now upon the scene I look,

The azure grave of many a Roman;
Where stern ambition once forsook
His wavering crown to follow woman.
Florence! whom I will love as well
As ever yet was said or sung,

(Since Orpheus sang his spouse from hell),
Whilst thou art fair and I am young;

Sweet Florence! those were pleasant times,
When worlds were staked for ladies' eyes:
Had bards as many realms as rhymes,
Thy charms might raise new Antonies.

Though Fate forbids such things to be,
Yet, by thine eyes and ringlets curl'd!
I cannot lose a world for thee,

But would not lose thee for a world.

November 14, 1809.

THE SPELL IS BROKE, THE CHARM IS FLOWN!

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.

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 memo. rials of their brief acquaintance.

LINES WRITTEN IN THE TRAVELLERS' BOOK AT
ORCHOMENUS.

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 hard unknown,
Rhymes on our names, but wisely hides his own;
But yet, whoe'er he be, to say no worse,

His name would bring more credit than his verse.

MAID OF ATHENS, ERE WE PART.

Ζώη μου, σας ἀγαπῶ.

MAID of Athens, ere we part,
Give, oh, give me back my heart!
Or, since that has left my breast,

Keep it now, and take the rest!
Hear my vow before I go,
Ζώη μου, σάς αγαπῶ.*

By those tresses unconfined,
Woo'd by each gean wind;

By those lids whose jetty fringe
Kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge;
By those wild like the roe,

eyes

Ζώη μου, σάς ἀγαπῶ.

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 woe,

Ζώη μου, σάς ἀγαπῶ.

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, 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 inu h 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 assignations) 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 else can.

Though I fly to Istambol,*
Athens holds my heart and soul:

Can I cease to love thee?
Ζώη μου, σάς ἀγαπῶ.

No!

Athens 1816.

WRITTEN AFTER SWIMMING FROM SESTOS TO ABYDOS. †
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 loath,
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;

'Twere 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.

May 9, 1810.

LINES WRITTEN BENEATH A PICTURE.

DEAR object of defeated care!

Though now of love and thee bereft,
To reconcile me with despair,

Constantinople.

Thine image and my tears are left.

On the 3rd 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 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 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.

Sons of Greeks! let us go
In arms against the foe,
Till the 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!

Hellénes 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'd city seeking,+
Fight, conquer, till we're free.

Sons of Greeks, &c.

Sparta, Sparta, why in slumbers

Lethargic dost thou lie?

Awake, and join thy numbers
With Athens, old ally!

Leonidas recalling,

That chief of ancient song,
Who saved ye once from falling,
The terrible! the strong!
Who made that bold diversion
In old Thermopylæ,

And warring with the Persian
To keep his country free;
With his three hundred waging
The battle, long he stood,
And like a lion raging,
Expired in seas of blood.

Sons of Greeks, &c.

The song was written by Riga, who perished in the attempt to revolutionize Creece. This translation is as literal as the author could make it in verse. It is of the same measure as that of the original.

† Constantinople.

TRANSLATION OF THE ROMAIC SONG,

* Μπενω μες τσ' περιβόλι
Ωραιότατη Χαηδή,” &c.*

I ENTER thy garden of roses,
Beloved and fair Haidée,

Each morning where 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.

* 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. The air is plaintive and pretty.