Legends of olden times in Greece,

When not a flower but had its tale ;
When spirits haunted each green oak ;

When voices spoke in every gale ;
When not a star shone in the sky

Without its own love history.
Amid its many songs was one

That suited well with my sick mind.
I sang it when the breath of flowers
Came sweet upon the midnight wind.

LEADES AND CYDIPPE.
She sat her in her twilight bower,
A temple formed of leaf and flower;
Rose and myrtle framed the roof,
To a shower of April proof;
And primroses, pale gems of spring,
Lay on the green turf glistening
Close by the violet, whose breath
Is so sweet in a dewy wreath.
And oh, that myrtle ! how green it grew !
With flowers as white as the pearls of dew
That shone beside ; and the glorious rose
Lay, like a beauty in warm repose,
Blushing in slumber. The air was bright
With the spirit and glow of its crimson light.

Cydippe had turned from her columned hall,
Where, the queen of the feast she was worshipped by all ;
Where the vases were burning with spices and flowers,
And the odorous waters were playing in showers ;
And lamps were blazing-those lamps of perfume
Which shed such a charm of light over the bloom
Of woman, when Pleasure a spell has thrown
Over one night-hour and made it her own.
And the ruby wine-cup shone with a ray,
As the gems of the East had there melted away ;
And the bards were singing those songs of fire,
That bright eyes and the goblet so well inspire;-
While she, the glory and pride of the hour,
Sat silent and sad in her secret bower!
There is a grief that wastes the heart,

Like mildew on a tulip's dyes,-
When hope, deferred but to depart,

Loses its smiles, but keeps its sighs:
When love's bark, with its anchor gone,
Clings to a straw, and still trusts on.
Oh, more than all !-methinks that Love

Should pray that it might ever be
Beside the burning shrine which had
Its

young heart's fond idolatry.
Oh, absence is the night of love!

Lovers are very children then;
Fancying ten thousand feverish shapes,

Until their light returns again.
ATHENEUM VOL. 2. 2d series.

54

A look, a word, is then recalled,

And thought upon until it wears,
What is, perhaps, a very shade,

The tone and aspect of our fears.
And this was what was withering now
The radiance of Cydippe's brow.
She watched until her cheek grew pale ;
The green wave bore no bounding sail :
Her sight grew dim ; ’mid the blue air
No
snowy

dove came floating there,
The dear scroll hid beneath his wing,
With plume and soft eye glistening,
To seek again, in leafy dome,
The nest of its accustomed home!
Still far away, o'er land and seas,
Lingered the faithless LEADES.

She thought on the spring-days when she had been,
Lonely and lovely, a maiden queen ;
When passion to her was a storm at sea,
Heard ʼmid the green land's tranquillity.
But a stately warrior came from afar;
He bore on his bosom the glorious scar
So worshipped by woman-the death-seal of war.
And the maiden's heart was an easy prize,
When valour and faith were her sacrifice.

Methinks, might that sweet season last,
In which our first love-dream is past;
Ere doubts, and cares, and jealous pain,
Are flaws in the heart's diamond-chain ;
Men might forget to think on Heaven,
And yet have the sweet sin forgiven.
But ere the marriage-feast was spread,

LEADES said that he must brook
To part awhile from that best light,

Those eyes which fixed his every look: Just press again his native shore,

And then he would that shore resign For her dear sake, who was to him

His household god !- his spirit's shrine !

He came not! Then the heart's decay
Wasted her silently away :
A sweet fount, which the mid-day sun
Has all too hotly looked upon!

It is most sad to watch the fall
Of autumn leaves !-but worst of all
It is to watch the flower of spring
Faded in its fresh blossoming !
To see the once so clear blue orb

Its summer light and warmth forget;
Darkening, beneath its tearful lid,

Like a rain-beaten violet !
To watch the banner-rose of health

Pass from the cheek !-to mark how plain,
Upon the wan and sunken brow,

Become the wanderings of each vein! The shadowy hand, so thin, so pale !

The languid step!--the drooping head! The long wreaths of neglected hair!

The lip whence red and smile are fled ! And having watched thus, day by day, Light, life, and colour, pass away! To see, at length, the glassy eye Fix dull in dread mortality ; Mark the last ray, catch the last breath, Till the grave sets its sign of death !

This was Cydippe's fate !- They laid The maiden underneath the shade Of a green cypress,—and that hour

The tree was withered, and stood bare ! The spring brought leaves to other trees,

But never other leaf grew there!
It stood, ʼmid others flourishing,
A blighted, solitary thing.

The summer sun shone on that tree,
When shot vessel o'er the sea
When sprang a warrior from the prow-
LEADES! by the stately brow.
Forgotten toil, forgotten care,
All his worn heart has had to bear.
That heart is full! He hears the sigh
That breathed • Farewell!' so tenderly.
If even then it was most sweet,
What will it be that now they meet ?
Alas! alas ! Hope's fair deceit !
He spuried o'er land, has cut the wave,
To look but on CyDiPPE's grave.
It has blossomed in beauty, that lone tree,

LEADES' kiss restored its bloom ; For wild he kissed the withered stem

It grew upon Cydippe's tomb ! And there he dwelt. The hottest ray, Still dew upon the branches lay Like constant tears. The winter came ; But still the green tree stood the same. And it was said, at evening's close A sound of whispered music rose; That 'twas the trace of viewless feet Made the flowers more than flowers sweet. At length LEADEs died. That day, Bark and green foliage past away From the lone tree,-again a thing or wonder and of perishing !

(Conclusion in our next.)

SIBERIA.
THE Russian Government had long seven other persons,

his dogs, and his had it in contemplation to make a equipage, till at length, after having survey of the north shores of Siberia, had several narrow escapes of being and M. Sarytchoff was despatched for swallowed up, the sheet became once this object; but his researches were again united to the mass. There es very confined in their range. He only ists amongst the Tchouktchis a tradidescribed a part of the coasts of Sibe- tion, which says, that the strait that ria, to a distance of nearly 100 versts* separates them from the opposite beyond the eastern part of the river shore, towards the north, was at one Kolyma, and declared that a descrip- period not covered with ice; and that tion of any thing beyond that was not ihe inhabitants crossed the strait in possible.

baydars (a kind of barks.) They reAbout the year 1820, it was deter- late, that at a period not far distast mined that another expedition to ex- (for all the inhabitants recollect it,) plore those regions should be sent. some Tchoukichis, to the number of Messrs. Wranguel, Anjou, and Mat- seven or eight, accompanied by a vouchkin, all three young officers, were man, crossed the ice to go into tbe appointed to take charge of it. They neighbourhood of these mountains, to remained four years upon the station, fish for ihe morse, or sea-horse ; and and fully justified the confidence of that, after a considerable time, the wothe government, fulfilling their mission man returned into the country by the with all the zeal, courage, and pru- islands called the Kouriles. She redence which it was possible to employ. ported, that her companions had all They succeeded in giving a description been massacred by a rein-deer people, of all the north coast of Siberia, not- who inhabit a country with the exis withstanding the numerous obstacles, tence of which they are acquainted. the extreme severity of the climate, This woman was sold into a strange and the dangers to which they were nation; and after having passed from exposed; for the Tchouktchis had al- hand to hand, she was conducted into ready exterminated two detachments the country of Prince Wallis, from that had been previously sent with the which she found means of returning same view.

home, Judging by this tradition, it M. Anjou has described the shore may be supposed that the lands which from the chain of mountains of Ourals, M. Wranguel wished to reach, are or from the river Oby as far as Koly- merely islands, a supposition which is ma; and M. Wranguel and M. Ma- the more probable, as it has some relatuchkin from the Kolyma to the Cape tion with the discoveries of Captain of Tchouketch. Not satisfied with Parry, who is of opinion that all the merely exploring the shore, these trav- countries north of America are formed ellers made excursions towards the of islands. The nations who inhabit north, upon an immense extent of the islands nearest to Siberia make use thick ice, as far as the place where the of rein-deer, which gives the idea that sea is open, which is nearly 500 versts they are composed of emigrated from the coast of Beehring's Straits. Tchouktchis,) particularly as their It was in this place, which faces the idioms have a great resemblance to eastern part of the north coast, inhabit- each other. TheTchouktchis are in gened by the Rein-deer Tchouktchis eral tall and well-formed, with regular (Olenny-Tchouktchi,) that they per- features; their nose is not flat, but their ceived mountains at a distance of near- cheek-bones are very prominent. The ly one hundred versts. M. Wranguel travellers also saw other islands, called conceived the idea of reaching them; New Siberia: the road which they and he had nearly succeeded, when the took to reach them is laid down in the piece of ice on which he was placed map of the famous foot-traveller, separated from the mass, he was tossed Cochrane, where it is traced with to! about for five successive days, with erable accuracy; but the land which * A verst is about 1100 yards in Engiisk.

is there marked out, and which Ser

is ac

itb de hand beaten about by the waves. Ter. Tirish ing frequently with the greatest precau. The latter tended to strengthen them,

jeant Andréef pretends he saw, snow and the ice, and continued their cording to the testimony of these gen- way, only taking as much as was petlemen, a fancied and chimerical re- cessary for immediate consumption, region. They made wide excursions in turning to procure fresh supplies from all directions, but did not perceive any those which were buried, as soon as

such shore. In their land journies, their stock was exhausted. Whenever man they rode horses or rein-deer ; but they had the power of doing so, they

they preferred the former as the latter made astronomical observations; but
are very inconvenient, owing to the the fogs often hindered them from do-
practice of placing the saddle on the ing this. These fogs are so thick that
fore part of the os humeri, without fix- the travellers were sometimes unable
ing it by a girth. Travelling on to see the dogs in their sledges. Oc-
sledges, drawn by the rein-deer, is a casionally heavy avalanches of snow
very convenient mode. To cross the overthrew the tents which served as
sea, in other words the ice, they made their abodes; and they had great dif-
use of a sort of carriage, called narta, ficulty, when the weather calmed, in
drawn by 12 or 13 dogs. These ani- clearing away the snow and getting
mals were always extremely servicea- their tents free again.
ble to them, as well in defending them The months of November, Decem-
from the black and white bears and ber, and January, when the rigour of
the wolves, as by their astonishing in- the cold became intolerable, our travel-
telligence; their instinct always guided lers passed in cabins or in furred tents,
them in the best track; and when the in which the water froze upon the floor,
travellers thought they had gone and the ice arose to the height of an
astray, the dogs led them again into archine; a mass of ice, of about three
the right course. The sagacity of the verchoks in thickness, served instead
dogs was so great, that when they hap- of glass to their windows, and sufficed
pened to trace a road in the form of an for the whole winter. The maximum
angle, they made a diagonal line in re- of heat in the middle of the summer is

turning. The travellers passed seve- 10 to 15 degrees by the thermometer to belief ral weeks on the ice, between the sea of Reaumur; it freezes during the oceny hem and the land, sometimes upon enor- night, or when the sun is on the de

mous masses of ice, covered with cline. The continual whiteness of the

thick beds of grey snow, sometimes snow produces diseases in the eyes. es point upon small sheets, which often sank The inhabitants wear a vizor, formed

dowo and detached themselves from of the bark of trees, in which are piercthe material of congelation, so that ed, opposite the eyes, very narrow they were carried away by the current openings. The Russian officers wore

a crape folded four times; at first they On all these occasions, the dogs neglected to double it at all, which

rendered them innumerable services. rendered them almost blind, but they * Tes In the places where the ice was thick cured the disease by dropping oil of

and without danger, they ran rapidly tobacco into their eyes. This remedy, upon the snow, barked, bit each other, although efficacious, possesses the disand appeared indocile; but the mo- advantage of causing the most acute ment the track became dangerous, they pain. Their usual food consisted of were gentle, cautious, and docile, walk- fish, and the flesh of deer and bears. tion upon pieces of ice not more than but at the same time it produced vio half an inch thick, and seeming to ad- lent agitations in the blood, and prevance by the order of the individual vented them from sleeping. The inseated in the sledge. M. Wranguel habitants are extremely poor, and are and M. Matuchkin remained, at one not acquainted with any trade; all period, 70 days upon the ice, at a dis- their industry is employed in hunting iance of some hundred versts from the and fishing, yet Russian merchants shore; they were accompanied by are met with who visit these countries several nartas, laden with provisions. for the purposes of trade.- CommuniThey buried these provisions under the cated by M. de Tolstoy.

tebe