TRANSLATION OF THE ROMAIC SONG

Μπενω μες το περιβολι Ωραιότατη Χαηδή.

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 "zooo" in the winter of 1810-11The air is plaintive and pretty.

1 ENTER thy garden of roses,
Beloved and fair Haidee,
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 Haidee.

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 badst me cherish,

For torture repay me too well? Now sad is the garden of roses, Beloved but false Haidee!

There Flora all wither'd reposes,

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

"Twas 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?

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.

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;

The pledge we wore-1 wear it still,
But where is thine?—ah, where art thou?
Oft have I borne the weight of ill,

But never bent beneath till now!
Well hast thou left in life's best bloom
The cup of woe for me to drain.
If rest alone be in the tomb,

I would not wish thee here again;
But if in worlds more blest than this
Thy virtues seek a fitter sphere,
Impart some portion of thy bliss,

To wean me from mine anguish here. Teach me too early taught by thee! To bear, forgiving and forgiven: On earth thy love was such to me, It fain would form my hope in heaven!

STANZAS.

AWAY, away, ye notes of woe!

Be silent, thou once soothing strain, Or I must flee from hence, for, oh!

I dare not trust those sounds again. To me they speak of brighter days

But lull the chords, for now, alas! = I must not think, I may not gaze On what I am, on what I was.

The voice that made those sounds more sweet Is hush'd, and all their charms are fled; And now their softest notes repeat

A dirge, an anthem o'er the dead! Yes, Thyrza! yes, they breathe of thee, Beloved dust! since dust thou art;

▼ And all that once was harmony

Is worse than discord to my heart!

'Tis silent all!—but on my ear

The well-remember'd echoes thrill; I hear a voice I would not hear, A voice that now might well be still; Yet oft my doubting soul 'twill shake: Even slumber owns its gentle tone, Till consciousness will vainly wake To listen, though the dream be flown.

Sweet Thyrza! waking as in sleep,

Thou art but now a lovely dream; A star that trembled o'er the deep,

Then turn'd from earth its tender beam. But he, who through life's dreary way Must pass, when heaven is veil'd in wrath, Will long lament the vanish'd ray

That scatter'd gladness o'er his path.

With things that never pleased before: Though every joy is fled below,

What future grief can touch me more?

Then bring me wine, the banquet bring;
Man was not form'd to live alone:
I'll be that light unmeaning thing
That smiles with all, and weeps with none.
It was not thus in days more dear,

It never would have been, but thou
Hast fled, and left me lonely here;

Thou'rt nothing, all are nothing now.

In vain my lyre would lightly breathe!
The smile that sorrow fain would wear
But mocks the woe that lurks beneath,
Like roses o'er a sepulchre.
Though gay companions o'er the bowl
Dispel awhile the sense of ill;
Though pleasure fires the maddening soul,
The heart--the heart is lonely still!

On many a lone and lovely night

It soothed to gaze upon the sky; For then I deem'd the heavenly light Shone sweetly on thy pensive eye; And oft I thought at Cynthia's noon, When sailing o'er the Egean wave, "Now Thyrza gazes on that moon -Alas, it gleam'd upon her grave!

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When stretch'd on fever's sleepless bed, And sickness shrunk my throbbing veins, ""Tis comfort still," I faintly said, "That Thyrza cannot know my pains:" Like freedom to the time-worn slave, A boon 'tis idle then to give, Relenting Nature vainly gave

My life, when Thyrza ceased to live!

My Thyrza's pledge in better days,

When love and life alike were new! How different now thou meetst my gaze! How tinged by time with sorrow's hue! The heart that gave itself with thee Is silent-ah, were mine as still! Though cold as e'en the dead can be, It feels, it sickens with the chill.

Thou bitter pledge! thou mournful token! Though painful, welcome to my breast! Still, still, preserve that love unbroken,

Or break the heart to which thou'rt prest! Time tempers love, but not removes,

More hallow'd when its hope is fled: Oh! what are thousand living loves

To that which cannot quit the dead?

TO THYRZA.

ONE struggle more, and I am free
From pangs that rend my heart in twain;
One last long sigh to love and thee,
Then back to busy life again.
It suits me well to mingle now

EUTHANASIA.

WHEN Time, or soon or late, shall bring The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead, Oblivion! may thy languid wing

Wave gently o'er my dying bed!

No band of friends or heirs be there, To weep, or wish, the coming blow; No maiden, with dishevell'd hair,

To feel, or feign, decorous woe.

But silent let me sink to Earth,

With no officious mourners near: I would not mar one hour of mirth, Nor startle friendship with a fear.

Yet Love, if Love in such an hour Could nobly check its useless sighs, Might then exert its latest power

In her who lives and him who dies.

Twere sweet, my Psyche! to the last Thy features still serene to see; Forgetful of its struggles past,

E'en Pain itself should smile on thee.

But vain the wish-for Beauty still

Will shrink, as shrinks the ebbing breath; And woman's tears, produced at will, Deceive in life, unman in death.

Then lonely be my latest hour,

Without regret, without a groan! For thousands Death hath ceased to lower, And pain been transient or unknown.

"Ay, but to die, and go,” alas!

That what I loved, and long must love,

Like common earth can rot;
To me there needs no stone to tell,
Tis nothing that I loved so well.

Yet did I love thee to the last
As fervently as thou,
Who didst not change through all the past,
And canst not alter now.

The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,

Nor falsehood disavow:

And, what were worse, thou canst not see
Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours;
The worst can be but mine:

The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
Shall never more be thine.

The silence of that dreamless sleep

I

envy now too much to weep;

Nor need I to repine

That all those charms have pass'd away, I might have watch'd through long decay.

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey;

Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away:
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear

To be the nothing that I was

Ere born to life and living woe!

Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen,
Count o'er thy days from anguish free,
And know, whatever thou hast been,
'Tis something better not to be

STANZAS.

I know not if I could have borue
To see thy beauties fade;
The night that follow'd such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath past,
And thou wert lovely to the last;
Extinguish'd, not decay'd;
As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep
My tears might well be shed,

quam tui meminisse!

AND thou art dead, as young and fair

As aught of mortal birth;

And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon return'd to Earth!
Though Earth received them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;

There flowers or weeds at will may grow,
So I behold them not:
It is enough for me to prove

One vigil o'er thy bed;
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,

Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity,

Returns again to me,

And more thy buried love endears
Than aught, except its living years.

STANZAS.

P sometimes in the haunts of men

Thine image from my breast may fade, The lonely hour presents again

The semblance of thy gentle shade:
And now that sad and silent hour

Thus much of thee can still restore,
And sorrow unobserved may pour
The plaint she dare not speak before.

Oh, pardon that in crowds awhile,

I waste one thought I owe to thee, And, self-condemn'd, appear to smile, Unfaithful to thy memory! Nor deem that memory less dear, That then I seem not to repine; I would not fools should overhear One sigh that should be wholly thine.

4

1

If not the goblet pass unquaff'd,

It is not drain'd to banish care, The cup must hold a deadlier draught, That brings a Lethe for despair. And could Oblivion set my soul

From all her troubled visions free,
I'd dash to earth the sweetest bowl
That drown'd a single thought of thee.

For wert thou vanish'd from my mind,
Where could my vacant bosom turn?
And who would then remain behind
To honour thine abandon'd urn?
No, no-it is my sorrow's pride
That last dear duty to fuifil;
Though all the world forget beside,
'Tis meet that I remember still.

For well I know, that such had been
Thy gentle care for him, who now
Unmourn'd shall quit this mortal scene,
Where none regarded him, but thou:
And, Oh! I feel in that was given
A blessing never meant for me;
Thou wert too like a dream of Heaven,
For earthly love to merit thee.

TO A YOUTHFUL FRIEND. Few years have pass'd since thou and I Were firmest friends, at least in name, And childhood's gay sincerity

Preserved our feelings long the same.

But now, like me, too well thou knowst
What trifles oft the heart recal;
And those who once have loved the most
Too soon forget they loved at all.

And such the change the heart displays,
So frail is early friendship's reign,
A month's brief lapse, perhaps a day's,
Will view thy mind estranged again.

If so, it never shall be mine

To mourn the loss of such a heart; The fault was Nature's fault, not thine, Which made thee fickle as thou art.

As rolls the ocean's changing tide,

So human feelings ebb and flow; And who would in a breast confide Where stormy passions ever glow?

It boots not, that together bred,

Our childish days were days of joy ;
My spring of life has quickly fled;
Thou, too, hast ceased to be a boy.

And when we bid adieu to youth,
Slaves to the specious world's control,
We sigh a long farewell to truth;
That world corrupts the noblest soul.
Ah, joyous season! when the mind

Dares all things boldly but to lie;
When thought ere spoke is unconfined,
And sparkles in the placid eye.

Not so in Man's maturer years,
When Man himself is but a tool;
When interest sways our hopes and fears,
And all must love and hate by rule.

WAS BROKEN.

ILL-FATED Heart! and can it be
That thou shouldst thus be rent in twain?
Have years of care for thine and thee
Alike been all employ'd in vain ?

Yet precious seems each shatter'd part,
And every fragment dearer grown,
Since he who wears thee, feels thou art
A fitter emblem of his own.

Can we then 'scape from folly free? Can we reverse the general plan,

Nor be what all in turn must be?

No, for myself, so dark my fate

Through every turn of life hath been; Man and the world I so much hate, I care not when I quit the scene.

But thou, with spirit frail and light,
Wilt shine awhile and pass away;
As glow-worms sparkle through the night,
But dare not stand the test of day.

Alas! whenever folly calls

Where parasites and princes meet, (For cherish'd first in royal halls, The welcome vices kindly greet)

Even now thou'rt nightly seen to add
One insect to the fluttering crowd;
And still thy trifling heart is glad,
To join the vain, and court the proud.

There dost thou glide from fair to fair,
Still simpering on with eager haste,
As flies along the gay parterre,

That taint the flowers they scarcely taste.

But say, what nymph will prize the flame Which seems, as marshy vapours move, To flit along from dame to dame,

An ignis-fatuus-gleam of love?

What friend for thee, howe'er inclined, Will deign to own a kindred care? Who will debase his manly mind,

For Friendship every fool may share?

In time forbear; amidst the throng
No more so base a thing be seen;
No more so idly pass along:

Be something, any thing, but—mean.

Yet was I calm: I knew the time

My breast would thrill before thy look; But now to tremble were a crimeWe met, and not a nerve was shook.

I saw thee gaze upon my face,

Yet meet with no confusion there: One only feeling couldst thou trace; The sullen calmness of despair.

Away! away! my early dream

Remembrance never must awake: Oh! where is Lethe's fabled stream? My foolish heart be still, or break!

FROM THE PORTUGUESE.

IN moments to delight devoted,

"My life!" with tenderest tone, you cry: Dear words! on which my heart had doted, If youth could neither fade nor die. To death even hours like these must roll, Ah! then repeat those accents never; Or change "my life! into "my soul!" Which, like my love, exists for ever.

ΤΟ

WELL! thou art happy, and I feel
That I should thus be happy too;
For still my heart regards thy weal
Warmly, as it was wont to do.

Thy husband's blest-and 'twill impart
Some pangs to view his happier lot:
But let them pass-Oh! how my heart
Would hate him, if he loved thee not!

When late I saw thy favourite child,

I thought my jealous heart would break; But when the unconscious infant smiled, I kiss'd it, for its mother's sake.

I kiss'd it, and repress'd my sighs
Its father in its face to see;
But then it had its mother's eyes,
And they were all to love and me.

Mary, adieu! I must away:

While thou art blest I'll not repine; But near thee I can never stay;

My heart would soon again be thine.

I deem'd that time, I deem'd that pride Had quench'd at length my boyish flame; Nor knew, till seated by thy side,

My heart in all, save hope, the same.

IMPROMPTU, IN REPLY TO A FRIEND WHEN from the heart where Sorrow sits, Her dusky shadow mounts too high, And o'er the changing aspect flits,

And clouds the brow, or fills the eye; Heed not that gloom, which soon shall sink: My thoughts their dungeon know to well: Back to my breast the wanderers shrink, And droop within their silent cell.

TO TIME.

TIME! on whose arbitrary wing
The varying hours must flag or fly,
Whose tardy winter, fleeting spring,

But drag or drive us on to die—
Hail thou! who on my birth bestow'd
Those boons to all that know thee known;
Yet better I sustain thy load,

For now I bear the weight alone.

I would not one fond heart should share
The bitter moments thou hast given;
And pardon thee, since thou couldst spare
All that I loved, to peace or heaven.
To them be joy or rest, on me

Thy future ills shall press in vain ;
I nothing owe but years to thee,
A debt already paid in pain.
Yet c'en that pain was some relief;
It felt, but still forgot thy power:
The active agony of grief