LXX. Where lone Utraikey forms its circling cove, And weary waves retire to gleam at rest, How brown the foliage of the green hill's grove, Nodding at midnight o'er the calm bay's breast, As winds come lightly whispering from the west, Kissing, not ruffling, the blue deep's serene :Here Harold was received a welcome guest; Nor did he pass unmoved the gentle scene, For many a joy could he from Night's soft presence glean. LXXI. On the smooth shore the night-fires brightly blazed, The feast was done, the red wine circling fast, (1) And he that unawares had there ygazed With gaping wonderment had stared aghast; For ere night's midmost stillest hour was past, The native revels of the troop began; Each Palikar (2) his sabre from him cast, And bounding hand in hand, man link'd to man, Yelling their uncouth dirge, long daunced the kirtled clan. (3) LXXII. Childe Harold at a little distance stood And view'd, but not displeased, the revelrie, Nor hated harmless mirth, however rude: In sooth, it was no vulgar sight to see Their barbarous, yet their not indecent, glee; And, as the flames along their faces gleam'd, Their gestures nimble, dark eyes flashing free, The long wild locks that to their girdles stream'd, While thus in concert they this lay half sang, half scream'd:-(4) 1. TAMBOURGI! Tambourgi! (5) thy 'larum afar Gives hope to the valiant, and promise of war; All the sons of the mountains arise at the note, Chimariot, Illyrian, and dark Suliote! (6) 2. Oh! who is more brave than a dark Suliote, (I) The Albanian Mussulmans do not abstain from wine, and, indeed, very few of the others. (2) Palikar, shortened when addressed to a single person, from Пaktxapt, a general name for a soldier amongst the Greeks and Albanese who speak Romaic: it means, properly, "a lad." (3) The following is Mr. Hobhouse's animated description of this scene:-"In the evening the gates were secured, and preparations were made for feeding our Albanians. A goat was killed and roasted whole, and four fires were kindled in the yard, round which the soldiers seated themselves in parties. After eating and drinking, the greatest part of them assembled round the largest of the fires, and, whilst ourselves and the elders of the party were seated on the ground, danced round the blaze, to their own songs, with astonishing energy. All their songs were relations of some robbing exploits. One of them, which detained them more than an hour, began thus: When we set out from Parga, there were sixty of us:' then came the burthen of the verse, Robbers all at Parga! Robbers all at Parga!' *Κλέφτεις πότε Πάργα! Κλέφτεις πότε Πάργα ! and. as they roared out this stave, they whirled round the 3. Shall the sons of Chimari, who never forgive 4. Macedonia sends forth her invincible race; 5. Then the pirates of Parga that dwell by the waves, And teach the pale Franks what it is to be slaves, Shall leave on the beach the long galley and oar, And track to his covert the captive on shore. 6. I ask not the pleasures that riches supply, 7. I love the fair face of the maid in her youth, 8. Remember the moment when Previsa fell, (7) 9. I talk not of mercy, I talk not of fear; He neither must know who would serve the Vizier: Since the days of our prophet the Crescent ne'er saw A chief ever-glorious like Ali Pashaw. 10. Dark Muchtar his son to the Danube is sped, Let the yellow-hair'd (8) Giaours (9) view his horsetail (10) with dread; [banks, When his Delhis (11) come dashing in blood o'er the How few shall escape from the Muscovite ranks! The fire, dropped, and rebounded from their knees, and again whirled round, as the chorus was again repeated. rippling of the waves upon the pebbly margin where we were seated filled up the pauses of the song with a milder and not more monotonous music. The night was very dark; but, by the flashes of the fires, we caught a glimpse of the woods, the rocks, and the lake, which, together with the wild appearances of the dancers, presented us with a scene that would have made a fine picture in the hands of such an artist as the author of the Mysteries of Udolpho. As we were acquainted with the character of the Albanians, it did not at all diminish our pleasure to know, that every one of our guard had been robbers, and some of them a very short time before. It was eleven o'clock before we had retired to our room, at which time the Albanians, wrapping themselves up in their capotes, went to sleep round the fires."-L. E. (4) For a specimen of the Albanian or Arnaout dialect of the Illyric, see Appendix to this Canto, Note [C].-L. E. (5) Drummer. (6) These stanzas are partly taken from different Albanese songs, as far as I was able to make them out by the exposition of the Albanese in Romaic and Italian. It was taken by storm from the French. (8) Yellow is the epithet given to the Russians. (10) The insignia of a Pacha. (11) Horsemen, answering to our forlorn hope. Infidel. 1 11. Selictar! (1) unsheathe then our chief's scimitar: Fair Greece! sad relic of departed worth! (2) Leap from Eurotas' banks, and call thee from the tomb? (5) Mecca and Medina were taken some time ago by the Wahabees, a sect yearly increasing. (6) Of Constantinople Lord Byron says, "I have seen the ruins of Athens, of Ephesus, and Delphi; I have traversed great part of Turkey, and many other parts of Europe, and some of Asia; but I never beheld a work of nature or art which yielded an impression like the prospect on each side, from the Seven Towers to the end of the Golden Horn.”—L. E. (7) "The view of Constantinople," says Mr. Rose, “which appeared intersected by groves of cypress (for such is the effect of its great burial-grounds planted with these trees), its gilded domes and minarets reflecting the first rays of the LXXVII. The city won for Allah from the Giaour, Receive the fiery Frank, her former guest; (4) LXXVIII. Yet mark their mirth-ere lenten days begin, That penance which their holy rites prepare To shrive from man his weight of mortal sin, By daily abstinence and nightly prayer; But ere his sackcloth garb Repentance wear, Some days of joyaunce are decreed to all, To take of pleasaunce each his secret share, In motley robe to dance at masking ball, And join the mimic train of merry Carnival. LXXIX. And whose more rife with merriment than thine, O Stamboul! (6) once the empress of their reign? Though turbans now pollute Sophia's shrine, And Greece her very altars eyes in vain : (Alas! her woes will still pervade my strain!) Gay were her minstrels once, for free her throng, All felt the common joy they now must feign, Nor oft I've seen such sight, nor heard such song, As woo'd the eye, and thrill'd the Bosphorus along. (7) LXXX. Loud was the lightsome tumult on the shore, Oft Music changed, but never ceased her tone, And timely echo'd back the measured oar, And rippling waters made a pleasant moan: The Queen of tides on high consenting shone, And when a transient breeze swept o'er the wave, "T was, as if darting from her heavenly throne, A brighter glance her form reflected gave, Till sparkling billows seem'd to light the banks they lave. LXXXI. Glanced many a light caïque along the foam, Danced on the shore the daughters of the land, Ne thought had man or maid of rest or home, While many a languid eye and thrilling hand sun; the deep blue sea in which it glassed itself,' and that sea covered with beautiful boats and barges darting in every direction in perfect silence, amid sea-fowl, who sat at rest upon the waters, altogether conveyed such an impression as I had never received, and probably never shall again receive, from the view of any other place." The following sonnet, by the same author, has been so often quoted, that, but for its exquisite beauty, we should not have ventured to reprint it here: "A glorious form thy shining city wore, "Mid cypress thickets of perennial green, Of sculptured barques and galleys many a score; Who, mute as Sinbad's man of copper, rows, Exchanged the look few bosoms may withstand, Or gently prest, return'd the pressure still : Oh Love! young Love! bound in thy rosy band, LXXXII. But 'midst the throng, in merry masquerade, LXXXIII. This must he feel, the true-born son of Greece, LXXXIV. When riseth Lacedemon's hardihood, LXXXV. And yet how lovely in thine age of woe, (1) On many of the mountains, particularly Liakura, the snow never is entirely melted, notwithstanding the intense heat of the summer; but I never saw it lie on the plains, even in winter. The (2) Of Mount Pentelicus, from whence the marble was dug that constructed the public edifices of Athens. modern name is Mount Mendeli. An immense cave, formed by the quarries, still remains, and will till the end of time. (3) In all Attica, if we except Athens itself and Marathon, there is no scene more interesting than Cape Colonna. To the antiquary and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible source of observation and design; to the philosopher, the supposed scene of some of Plato's conversations will not be unwelcome; and the traveller will be struck with the beauty of the prospect over "Isles that crown the Egean deep: " but, for an Englishman, Colonna has yet an additional interest, as the actual spot of Falconer's Shipwreck. Pallas and Plato are forgotten, in the recollection of Falconer and Campbell: "Here in the dead of night by Lonna's steep, The seaman's cry was heard along the deep." This temple of Minerva may be seen at sea from a great, distance. In two journeys which I made, and one voyage to Cape Colonna, the view from either side, by land, was less striking than the approach from the isles. In our sc Thy fanes, thy temples, to thy surface bow, Save where some solitary column mourns While strangers only not regardless pass, that. LXXXVII. cond land excursion, we had a narrow escape from a party of Mainotes, concealed in the caverns beneath. We were told afterwards, by one of their prisoners, subsequently ransomed, that they were deterred from attacking us by the appearance of my two Albanians: conjecturing very sagaciously, but falsely, that we had a complete guard of these Arnaouts at hand, they remained stationary, and thus saved our party, which was too small to have opposed any effectual resistance. Colonna is no less a resort of painters than of pirates; there "The hireling artist plants his paltry desk, And makes degraded Nature picturesque." (See Hodgson's Lady Jane Grey, etc) But there Nature, with the aid of Art, has done that for herself. I was fortunate enough to engage a very superior German artist; and hope to renew my acquaintance with this and many other Levantine scenes, by the arrival of his performances. (4) The thought in this stanza seems to have been suggested by the following passage of Harris:-"Notwithstanding the various fortune of Athens as a city, Attica is still famous for olives, and Mount Hymettus for honey. Human institutions perish, but nature is permanent."-Philolog. Inquiries. "I recollect," says Moore, "having once pointed out this coincidence to Lord Byron, but he assured me that he had never seen this work of Harris."-P. E. (1) Siste, viator-heroa calcas!" was the epitaph on the famous Count Merci ;-what then must be our feelings when standing on the tumulus of the two hundred (Greeks) who fell on Marathon? The principal barrow has recently been opened by Fauvel: few or no relics, as vases, etc. were found by the excavator. The plain of Marathon was offered to me for sale at the sum of sixteen thousand piastres, about nine hundred pounds! Alas!-"Expende-quot libras in duce sammo-invenies!"-was the dust of Miltiades worth no more? It could scarcely have fetched less if sold by weight. (2) This stanza was written October 11, 1811; upon which day the poet, in a letter to a friend, says,-" It seeme as though I were to experience in my youth the greatest Soon shall thy voice be lost amid the throng Of louder minstrels in these later days: To such resign the strife for fading baysIll may such contest now the spirit move Which heeds nor keen reproach nor partial praise; Since cold each kinder heart that might approve, And none are left to please when none are left to love. XCV. Thou too art gone, thou loved and lovely one! Whom youth and youth's affections bound to me; Who did for me what none beside have done, Nor shrank from one albeit unworthy thee. What is my being? thou hast ceased to be! Nor staid to welcome here thy wanderer home, Who mourns o'er hours which we no more shall seeWould they had never been, or were to come! Would he had ne'er return'd to find fresh cause to roam! XCVI. Oh! ever loving, lovely, and beloved! How selfish Sorrow ponders on the past, And clings to thoughts now better far removed! But Time shall tear thy shadow from me last. All thou couldst have of mine, stern Death! thou hast; The parent, friend, and now the more than friend: Ne'er yet for one thine arrows flew so fast, And grief with grief continuing still to blend, Hath snatch'd the little joy that life had yet to lend. XCVIL Then must I plunge again into the crowd, Or raise the writhing lip with ill-dissembled sneer. XCVIII. What is the worst of woes that wait on age? What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow? To view each loved one blotted from life's page, And be alone on earth, as I am now. (2) Before the Chastener humbly let me bow, O'er hearts divided and o'er hopes destroy'd: Roll on, vain days! full reckless may ye flow, Since Time hath reft whate'er my soul enjoy'd, And with the ills of Eld mine earlier years alloy'd. misery of age. My friends fall around me, and I shall be left a lonely tree before I am withered. Other men can always take refuge in their families: I have no resource but my own reflections, and they present no prospect here or hereafter, except the selfish satisfaction of surviving my friends. I am indeed very wretched." In reference to this stanza, "Surely," said Professor Clarke to the author of the Pursuits of Literature, "Lord Byron cannot have experienced such keen anguish as these exquisite allusions to what older men may have felt seem to denote."-"I fear he has," answered Matthias; "he could not otherwise have written such a poem."-L. E. APPENDIX. CANTO II. NOTE [A.] See p. 85. "To rive what Goth, and Turk, and Time hath spared." Stanza xii. line 2. Ar this moment (January 3, 1810), besides what has been already deposited in London, an Hydriot vessel is in the Pyræus to receive every portable relic. Thus, as I heard a young Greek observe, in common with many of his countrymen-for, lost as they are, they yet feel on this occasion-thus may Lord Elgin boast of having ruined Athens. An Italian painter of the first eminence, named Lusieri, is the agent of devastation; and like the Greek finder of Verres in Sicily, who followed the same profession, he has proved the able instrument of plunder. Between this artist and the French Consul Fauvel, who wishes to rescue the remains for his own government, there is now a violent dispute concerning a car employed in their conveyance, the wheel of which-I wish they were both broken upon it!-has been locked up by the Consul, and Lusieri has laid his complaint before the Waywode. Lord Elgin has been extremely happy in his choice of Signor Lusieri. During a residence of ten years in Athens, he never had the curiosity to proceed as far as Sunium (now Cape Colonna), till he accompanied us in our second excursion. However, his works, as far as they go, are most beautiful: but they are almost all unfinished. While he and his patrons confine themselves to tasting medals, appreciating cameos, sketching columns, and cheapening gems, their little absurdities are as harmless as insect or fox-hunting, maiden speechifying, barouche-driving, or any such pastime; but when they carry away three or four shiploads of the most valuable and massy relics that time and barbarism have left to the most injured and most celebrated of cities; when they destroy, in a vain attempt to tear down, those works which have been the admiration of ages, I know no motive which can excuse, no name which can designate, the perpetrators of this dastardly devastation. It was not the least of the crimes laid to the charge of Verres, that he had plundered Sicily, in the manner since imitated at Athens. The most unblushing impudence could hardly go farther than to affix the name of its plunderer to the walls of the Acropolis; while the wanton and useless defacement of the whole range of the basso-relievos, in one compartment of the temple, will never permit that name to be pronounced by an observer without execration. On this occasion I speak impartially: I am not a collector or admirer of collections, consequently no rival; but I have some early prepossession in favour of Greece, and do not think the honour of England advanced by plunder, whether of India or Attica. (1) This Sr. Gropius was employed by a noble Lord for the sole purpose of sketching, in which he excels; but I am sorry to say, that he has, through the abused sanction of that most respectable name, been treading at humble distance in the steps of Sr. Lusieri.-A shipful of his trophies was detained, and I believe confiscated, at Constantinople, in 1810. I am most happy to be now enabled to state, that "this was not in his bond;" that he was employed solely as a painter, and that his noble patron disavows all con Another noble Lord has done better, because he has done less; but some others, more or less noble, yet "all : honourable men," have done best, because, after a deal of excavation, and execration, bribery to the Waywode, mining and countermining, they have done nothing at all. We had such ink-shed, and wine-shed, which almost ended in bloodshed! Lord E.'s "prig"-see Jonathan Wild for the definition of "priggism". quarrelled with another, Gropius (1) by name (a very good name too for his business), and muttered something about satisfaction, in a verbal answer to a note of the poor Prussian: this was stated at table to Gropius, who laughed, but could eat no dinner afterwards. The rivals were not reconciled when I left Greece. I have reason to remember their squabble, for they wanted to make me their arbitrator. NOTE [B.] See p. 88. "Land of Albania! let me bend mine eyes Albania comprises part of Macedonia, Illyria, Chaonia, and Epirus. Iskander is the Turkish word for Alexander; and the celebrated Scanderbeg (Lord Alexander) is alluded to in the third and fourth lines of the thirty-eighth stanza. I do not know whether I am correct in making Scanderbeg the countryman of Alexander, who was born at Pella in Macedon, but Mr. Gibbon terms him so, and adds Pyrrhus to the list, in speaking of his exploits. me. Of Albania Gibbon remarks, that a country "within sight of Italy is less known than the interior of America.” Circumstances, of little consequence to mention, led Mr. Hobhouse and myself into that country before we visited any other part of the Ottoman dominions; and with the exception of Major Leake, then officially resident at Joannina, no other Englishmen have ever advanced beyond the capital into the interior, as that gentleman very lately assured Ali Pacha was at that time (October, 1809) carrying on war against Ibrahim Pacha, whom he had driven to Berat, a strong fortress which he was then besieging: on our arrival at Joannina we were invited to Tepaleni, his highness's birthplace, and favourite Serai, only one day's distance from Berat; at this juncture the Vizier had made it his head-quarters. After some stay in the capital, we accordingly followed; but though furnished with every accommodation, and escorted by one of the Vizier's secretaries, we were nine days (on account of the rains) in accomplishing a journey which, on our return, barely occupied four. On our route we passed two cities, Argyrocastro and Libochabo, apparently little inferior to Yanina in size; and no pencil or pen can ever do justice to the scenery in the vicinity of Zitza and Delvinachi, the frontier village of Epirus and Albania Proper. On Albania and its inhabitants I am unwilling to descant, because this will be done so much better by my fellow-traveller, in a work which may probably nection with him, except as an artist. If the error in the first and second edition of this poem has given the noble Lord a moment's pain, I am very sorry for it: Sr. Gropius has assumed for years the name of his agent; and though I cannot much condemn myself for sharing in the mistake of so many, I am happy in being one of the first to be unde- | ceived. Indeed, I have as much pleasure in contradicting this as I felt regret in stating it.-Note to third edition. i |