THE GIAOUR,

A FRAGMENT OF A TURKISH TALE.

NO breath of air to break the wave

That rolls below the Athenian's grave,

That tomb (1) which, gleaming o'er the cliff,

First greets the homeward-veering skiff,

High o'er the land he saved in vain:

When shall such hero live again?

Fair clime! where every season smiles Benignant o'er those blessed isles,

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And if at times a transient breeze
Break the blue crystal of the seas,

Or sweep one blossom from the trees,
How welcome is each gentle air

That wakes and wafts the odours there!

For there-the Rose o'er crag or vale,
Sultana of the Nightingale, (2)

The maid for whom his melody,
His thousand songs are heard on high,
Blooms blushing to her lover's tale:
His queen, the garden queen, his Rose,
Unbent by winds, unchill'd by snows,
Far from the winters of the west,
By every breeze and season blest,
Returns the sweets by nature given
In softest incense back to heaven;

And grateful yields that smiling sky
Her fairest hue and fragrant sigh.

And

many a summer flower is there, And many a shade that love might share, And many a grotto, meant for rest,

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That holds the pirate for a guest;

Whose bark in sheltering cove below

Lurks for the passing peaceful prow,

And trample, brute-like, o'er each flower

That tasks not one laborious hour;

Nor claims the culture of his hand

To bloom along the fairy land,

But springs as to preclude his care,
And sweetly woos him-but to spare!

Strange-that where all is peace beside

There passion riots in her pride,
And lust and rapine wildly reign
To darken o'er the fair domain.
It is as though the fiends prevail'd
Against the seraphs they assail'd,

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And, fix'd on heavenly thrones, should dwell
The freed inheritors of hell;

So soft the scene, so form'd for joy,

So curst the tyrants that destroy!

He who hath bent him o'er the dead

Ere the first day of death is fled,

The first dark day of nothingness,

The last of danger and distress,

(Before Decay's effacing fingers

Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,)

And mark'd the mild angelic air,

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The rapture of repose that's there,

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The fix'd 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,