says: -"One day the news came to the village - the dire news which spread across the land, filling men's hearts with consternation- that Byron was dead. Alfred was then a boy about fifteen. 'Byron was dead! I thought the whole world was at an end,' he once said, speaking of those bygone days. 'I thought everything was over and finished for every one - that nothing else mattered. I remember I walked out alone and carved "Byron is dead" into the sandstone.»» TRANSLATION OF A ROMAIC SONG ENTER thy garden of roses, Beloved and fair Haidée, Each morning where Flora reposes, 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, But the loveliest garden grows hateful When love has abandoned the bowers; Bring me hemlock-since mine is ungrateful, That herb is more fragrant than flowers. The poison, when poured from the chalice, Will deeply embitter the bowl; But when drunk to escape from thy malice, Too cruel! in vain I implore thee My heart from these horrors to save: As the chief who to combat advances 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 withered reposes, And mourns o'er thine absence with me. 2945 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, And-but for that sad shrouded eye, That fires not, wins not, weeps not now, The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon - So fair, so calm, so softly sealed, 'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more! So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, We start, for soul is wanting there. Hers is the loveliness in death That parts not quite with parting breath; But beauty with that fearful bloom, That hue which haunts it to the tomb, Expression's last receding ray, A gilded halo hovering round decay, The farewell beam of Feeling passed away! Spark of that flame-perchance of heavenly birth Which gleams, but warms no more its cherished earth! Clime of the unforgotten brave! Whose land from plain to mountain-cave Was Freedom's home, or Glory's grave! Shrine of the mighty! can it be Approach, thou craven crouching slave: These waters blue that round you lave, These scenes, their story not unknown, Have left a nameless pyramid, Thy heroes, though the general doom 'Twere long to tell, and sad to trace, THE HELLESPONT AND TROY THE From The Bride of Abydos' HE winds are high on Helle's wave; The lonely hope of Sestos's daughter. With signs and sounds, forbade to go: May nerve young hearts to prove as true. The winds are high, and Helle's tide Rolls darkly heaving to the main; And Night's descending shadows hide That field with blood bedewed in vain, The tombs, sole relics of his reign, Oh! yet-for there my steps have been; These feet have pressed the sacred shore; These limbs that buoyant wave hath borneMinstrel with thee to muse, to mourn, To trace again those fields of yore, Believing every hillock green Contains no fabled hero's ashes, And that around the undoubted scene Thine own "broad Hellespont» still dashes, Be long my lot! and cold were he Who there could gaze denying thee! |