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Di due vaghe donzelle, oneste, accorte
Lieti e miseri padri il ciel ne feo;
Il ciel, che degne di più nobil sorte,
L'una e l'altra veggendo, ambo chiedeo.
La mia fu tolta da veloce morte

A le fumanti tede d' Imeneo :
La tua, Francesco, in sugellate porte
Eterna prigioniera or si rendeo,
Ma tu almeno potrai de la gelosa
Irremeabil soglia, ove s' asconde
La sua tenera udir voce pietosa.
Io verso un fiume d' amarissim' onda,

Corro a quel marmo in cui la figlia or posa,
Batto e ribatto, ma nessun risponde.

TRANSLATION FROM VITTORELLI.

ON A NUN.

Sonnet composed in the name of a father, whose daughter had recently died shortly after her marriage; and addressed to the father of ber who had lately taken the veil.

Or two fair virgins, modest though admired,

Heaven made us happy, and now, wretched sires;
Heaven for a nobler doom their worth desires,

And gazing upon either, both required.
Mine, while the torch of Hymen newly fired

Becomes extinguish'd, soon-too soon expires:
But thine, within the closing grate retired,
Eternal captive, to her God aspires:

But thou at least from out the jealous door,

Which shuts between your never-meeting eyes,
Mayst hear her sweet and pious voice once more
I to the marble, where my daughter lies,

Rush, the swoln flood of bitterness I pour,
And knock, and knock, and knock-but none replies

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Not on the sea, not on the sea,

Thy bark hath long been gone:
Oh may the storm that pours on me
Bow down my head alone!

Full swiftly blew the swift Siroc

When last I press'd thy lip;
And long ere now, with foaming shock,
Impell'd thy gallant ship.

Now thou art safe; nay, long ere now
Hast trod the shore of Spain:
'T were hard if ought so fair as thou
Should linger on the main.

And since I now remember thee,
In darkness and in dread,
As in those hours of revelry

Which mirth and music sped;

Do thou amidst 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 'It smile, and blushing shun

Some coxcomb's raillery;

Nor own for once thou thought'st of 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.

TO ***.

On Lady! when I left the shore,
The distant shore which gave me birth,

I hardly thought to grieve once more,
To quit another spot on earth.

Yet here, amidst this barren isle,
Where panting nature droops the head,
Where only thou art scen to smile,

I view my parting hour with dread.
Though far from Albin's craggy shore,

Divided by the dark-blue main, A few brief rolling seasons o'er, Perchance I view her cliffs again. But wheresoe'er I now may roam, Through scorching clime and varied sea, Though time restore me to my home,

I ne'er shall bend mine eyes on thee. On thee, in whom at once conspire

All charms which heedless hearts can move, Whom but to see is to admire,

And oh! forgive the word-to love. Forgive the word in one who ne'er

With such a word can more offend; And since thy heart I cannot share, Believe me, what I am, thy friend. And who so cold as look on thee,

Thou lovely wanderer, and be less?
Nor be, what man should ever be,

The friend of Beauty in distress!
Ah! who would think that form had past
Through Danger's most destructive path,
Had braved the death-wing'd tempest's blast,
And 'scaped a tyrant's fiercer wrath?
Lady! when I shall view the walls
Where free Byzantium once arose;
And Stamboul's Oriental halls

The Turkish tyrants now enclose;
Though mightiest in the lists of fame
That glorious city still shall be,
On me 't will hold a dearer claim,

As spot of thy nativity.

And though I bid thee now farewell,

When I behold that wondrous scene,
Since where thou art I may not dwell,
T will soothe to be where thou hast been.
September, 1809.

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

Recals the woes of Nature's charter, And he that acts as wise men ought,

But lives, as saints have died, a martyr.

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.

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,
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;

T were 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.

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On the 3d of May, 1810, while the Salsette (Captain Bathurst) was lying in the Dardanelles, Licut nant Ekenhead of that frigate and the writer of these rhymes swam from the European shore to th 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 cu 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 measur· be estimated from the circumstance of the whole distance bein,; accomplished by one of the parties in an hour and five, and by th 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 ridd n 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, anl landing below the Asiatic fort, Chevalier says that a young Jew swam the same distane for his mistress, and Oliver mentions its having len don by a Napolitan; but our consul, Tarragona, reme ubered ni her of these circumstances, and tried to dissuade us from the attempt. A number of the Salsette's crew were known to have accomplish-Ta 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,

1 Zʊe máu, sas agapo, or Zain poù, avg5 ¿yzπó, a Romale 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 affrout th: ladies. For fear of any misconstruction on th part of th latter I shall do so, begging pardon of th learned. It means, 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,

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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. I have heard it frequently at our xpats in the winter of 1810-11. The air is plaintive and pretty..

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.

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.

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?
By many a shore and many a sea

Divided, yet beloved in vain; The past, the future fled to thee

To bid us meet-no-ne'er again! Could this have been-a word, a look,

That softly said, « We part in peace,» Had taught my bosom how to brook,

With fainter sighs, thy soul's release.
And didst thou not, since death for thee
Prepared a light and pangless dart,
Once long for him thou ne'er shalt see,

Who held, and holds thee in his heart?
Oh! who like him had watch'd thee here?
Or sadly mark'd thy glazing eye,
In that dread hour ere death appear,
When silent sorrow fears to sigh,
Till all was past? But when no more

'T was thine to reck of human woe, Affection's heart-drops, gushing o'er,

Had flow'd as fast-as now they flow.
Shall they not flow, when many a day
In these, to me, deserted towers,
Ere call'd but for a time away,

Affection's mingling tears were ours?
Ours too the glance none saw beside;

The smile none else might understand;
The whisper'd thought of hearts allied,
The pressure of the thrilling hand;
The kiss so guiltless and refined,

That love each warmer wish forbore;
Those eyes proclaim'd so pure a mind,
Even passion blush'd to plead for more.
The tone, that taught me to rejoice,
When prone, unlike thee, to repine;
The song celestial from thy voice,

But sweet to me from none but thine;

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