Now at length we 're off for Turkey, Lord knows when we shall come back! Breezes foul and tempests murky

May unship us in a crack.
But, since life at most a jest is,
As philosophers allow,

Still to laugh by far the best is,
Then laugh on
as I do now.
Laugh at all things,
Great and small things,

Sick or well, at sea or shore;
While we 're quaffing,
Let's have laughing -

Who the devil cares for more?

Some good wine! and who would lack it, Ev'n on board the Lisbon Packet?

70

8

FALMOUTH ROADS, June 30, 1809. [First published, 1830.]

LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM, AT MALTA

As o'er the cold sepulchral stone
Some name arrests the passer-by;
Thus, when thou view'st this page alone,
May mine attract thy pensive eye!

And when by thee that name is read,
Perchance in some succeeding year,
Reflect on me as on the dead,

And think my heart is buried here. September 14, 1809. [First published, 1812.]

TO FLORENCE

[Written at Malta. The same lady, Mrs. Spencer Smith, is addressed in the two follow. ing poems and in Childe Harold.]

OH 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:

STANZAS

COMPOSED DURING A THUNDER-STORM

[This storm occurred on the night of October 11, 1809, when Byron's guides had lost the road to Zitza in Albania.]

CHILL and mirk is the nightly blast,
Where Pindus' mountains rise,
And angry clouds are pouring fast
The vengeance of the skies.

Our guides are gone, our hope is lost,
And lightnings, as they play,
But show where rocks our paths have crost,
Or gild the torrent's spray.

Is yon a cot I saw, though low?
When lightning broke the gloom
How welcome were its shade ! — ah, no!
'Tis but a Turkish tomb.

And now upon the scene I look,

The azure grave of many a Roman; Where stern Ambition once forsook His wavering crown to follow woman.

Florence! whom I will love as well
As ever yet was said or sung
(Since Orpheus sang his spouse from hell),
Whilst thou art fair and I am young;

Sweet Florence! those were pleasant times,
When worlds were staked for ladies' eyes:
Had bards as many realms as rhymes,
Thy charms might raise new Antonies.

Though Fate forbids such things to be,
Yet, by thine eyes and ringlets curl'd!
I cannot lose a world for thee,

But would not lose thee for a world. November 14, 1809. [First published, 1812.]

THE SPELL IS BROKE, THE CHARM IS FLOWN'

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. [First published, 1812.]

THE GIRL OF CADIZ

[This poem stood in the original manuscript of Childe Harold in the place of the stanzas of Canto I. inscribed To Inez.]

Он never talk again to me

Of northern climes and British ladies; It has not been your lot to see,

Like me, the lovely girl of Cadiz. Although her eye be not of blue,

Nor fair her locks, like English lasses, How far its own expressive hue

The languid azure eye surpasses!

Prometheus-like, from heaven she stole The fire, that through those silken lashes