On Fanny dancing.

When her delicate feet in the dance twinkle round, Her steps are of light, and her home is the air, And she only par complaisance touches the ground.

From-THE FUDGES IN ENGLAND.

Defrauding the toilet to fit out the Muse.

What is Eau de Cologne to the sweet breath of fame? Yards of ribbon soon end, but the measures of rhyme, Dipped in hues of the rainbow, stretch out through all time.

Gloves languish and fade away, pair after pair, While couplets shine out but the brighter for wear; The dancing-shoe's gloss in an evening is gone, While light-footed lyrics through ages trip on.

ΤΟ

After Martial.

When I loved you, I can't but allow
I had many an exquisite minute,
But the scorn that I feel for you now
Hath even more luxury in it!

Thus, whether we're on or we're off,
Some witchery seems to await you;
To love you is pleasant enough,

And, oh! 'tis delicious to hate you!

1788-1824]

LORD BYRON.

THE ISLES OF GREECE.

The isles of Greece! the isles of Greece !
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung;
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.

The Scian and the Teian muse,
The hero's harp, the lover's lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse;
Their place of birth alone is mute

To sounds which echo further west
Than your sires' "Islands of the Blest."

The mountains look on Marathon,
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,

I dreamed that Greece might still be free;
For, standing on the Persian's grave,

I could not deem myself a slave.

A king sat on the rocky brow

Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis ;
And ships by thousands lay below,

And men in nations -all were his !
He counted them at break of day-
And when the sun set, where were they?

And where are they? and where art thou,
My country? On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now—

The heroic bosom beats no more!
And must thy lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine?

'Tis something, in the dearth of fame,
Though linked among a fettered race,
To feel at least a patriot's shame,

Ev'n as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here?
For Greeks a blush,-for Greece a tear.

Must we but weep o'er days more blessed?
Must we but blush ?—Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopyla!

What! silent still? and silent all?
Ah! no;-the voices of the dead
Sound like a distant torrent's fall,

And answer, "Let one living head, But one, arise,-we come, we come!" 'Tis but the living who are dumb.

In vain—in vain; strike other chords ;
Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,

And shed the blood of Scio's vine!
Hark! rising to the ignoble call,
How answers each bold bacchanal!

You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget

The nobler and the manlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave—
Think ye he meant them for a slave?

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!

We will not think of themes like these!

It made Anacreon's song divine;

He served-but served Polycrates

A tyrant; but our masters then

Were still, at least, our countrymen.

The tyrant of the Chersonese

Was freedom's best and bravest friend; That tyrant was Miltiades!

Oh! that the present hour would lend Another despot of the kind!

Such chains as his were sure to bind.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
On Suli's rock, and Parga's shore,
Exists the remnant of a line

Such as the Doric mothers bore;
And there, perhaps, some seed is sown
The Heracleidan blood might own.

Trust not for freedom to the Franks-
They have a king who buys and sells ;—
In native swords, and native ranks,
The only hope of courage dwells;
But Turkish force, and Latin fraud,
Would break your shield, however broad.

Place me on Sunium's marbled steep,

Where nothing save the waves and I May hear our mutual murmurs weep; There, swan-like, let me sing and die ; A land of slaves shall ne'er be mineDash down yon cup of Samian wine!

From-THE GIAOUR.

He who hath bent him o'er the dead,
Ere the first day of death is fled,
The first dark day of nothingness,

The last of danger and distress:
Before decay's effacing fingers

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,And marked the mild angelic air,

The rapture of repose that's there,

The fixed, yet tender traits that streak
The languor of the placid cheek, . .

So fair, so calm, so softly sealed,
The first, last look, by death revealed.

THE PRISONER OF CHILLON.

My hair is grey, but not with years,
Nor grew it white in a single night,
As men's have grown from sudden fears;
My limbs are bowed, though not with toil,
But rusted with a vile repose,

For they have been a dungeon's spoil,
And mine has been the fate of those
To whom the goodly earth and air
Are banned and barred,-forbidden fare.
But this was for my father's faith
I suffered chains and courted death ;
That father perished at the stake
For tenets he would not forsake,
And for the same his lineal race
In darkness found a dwelling-place.