Do thou, amid 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 on 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.

WRITTEN AFTER SWIMMING FROM SESTOS
TO ABYDOS *

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 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,

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 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 Apríl, 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.-B.

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,
-knows what beside,

To woo,-and

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.

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.

MAID OF ATHENS, ERE WE PART.
Ζώη μου, σάς 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 ἁγαπῶ.*

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 eyes like the roe,

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;

Zbe mou sas agapó; Romaic expression of tenderness: if I translate it, I shal! 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 expressions were all Hellenised.-B.

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.-B.

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 your 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'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,

Constantinople.-B.

The terrible! the strong!

Written by Riga, who perished in the attempt to revolutionize Greece. This translation is as literal as the author could make it in verse, which is of the same measure as that of the original.-B.

Constantinople. "Erráλopos."—B.

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.

TRANSLATION OF THE ROMAIC SONG,

“ Μπενω μες τσ ̓ περιβόλι

“Ωραιότατη Χάηδή,” &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 drank 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?

The song from which this is taken is a great favourite with the young girls at Athens of all classes. Their manner of singing it is by verses in rotation, the whole

66

number present joining in the chorus. I have heard it frequently at our χόροι,

the winter of 1810-11. The air is plaintive and pretty.-B

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.

LINES 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 Memory immortal grew.

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 streams
Can weep no change in me.

I 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.

March, 1811.

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?

Lord Byron never would tell, even to his intimate friends, who Thyrza was.