Our guides are gone, our hope is lost, And lightnings, as they play, But show where rocks our path have crost, Is yon a cot I saw, though low? Through sounds of foaming waterfalls, My way-worn countryman, who calls A shot is fired-by foe or friend? The mountain-peasants to descend, Oh! who in such a night will dare To tempt the wilderness ? And who 'mid thunder-peals can hear Our signal of distress? And who that heard our shouts would rise To try the dubious road? Nor rather deem from nightly cries That outlaws were abroad. 66 was called Pindus, in Albania. Mr. Hobhouse, who had rode on before the rest of the party, and arrived at Zitza just as the evening set in, describes the thunder as "rolling without intermission, the echoes of one peal not ceasing to roll in the mountains, before another tremendous crash burst over our heads, whilst the plains and the distant hills appeared in a perpetual blaze." "The tempest," he says, altogether terrific, and worthy of the Grecian Jove. My Friend, with the priest and the servants, did not enter our hut till three in the morning. I now learnt from him that they had lost their way, and that after wandering up and down in total ignorance of their position, they had stopped at last near some Turkish tombstones and a torrent, which they saw by the flashes of lightning. They had been thus exposed for nine hours. It was long before we ceased to talk of the thunderstorm in the plain of Zitza."] Clouds burst, skies flash, oh, dreadful hour! More fiercely pours the storm! Yet here one thought has still the power While wandering through each broken path, Sweet Florence, where art thou? Not on the sea, not on the sea, Full swiftly blew the swift Siroc, And long ere now, with foaming shock, Now thou art safe; nay, long ere now And since I now remember thee As in those hours of revelry Do thou, amid the fair white walls, At times from out her latticed halls Then think upon Calypso's isles, To others give a thousand smiles, 5 ["This, and the two following stanzas, have a music in them, which, independently of all meaning, is enchanting.”—MOORE.] And when the admiring circle mark A half-form'd tear, a transient spark Again thou❜lt smile, and blushing shun Nor own for once thou thought'st on one, Though smile and sigh alike are vain, My spirit flies o'er mount and main, STANZAS WRITTEN IN PASSING THE AMBRACIAN GULF. THROUGH cloudless skies, in silvery sheen, And now upon the scene I look, The azure grave of many a Roman; His wavering crown to follow woman. Florence! whom I will love as well Sweet Florence! those were pleasant times, Had bards as many realms as rhymes, Though Fate forbids such things to be, I cannot lose a world for thee, But would not lose thee for a world. November 14, 1809. THE SPELL IS BROKE, THE CHARM IS FLOWN! WRITTEN AT ATHENS, JANUARY 16, 1810. THE spell is broke, the charm is flown! Each lucid interval of thought Recalls the woes of Nature's charter; But lives, as saints have died, a martyr. RITTEN AFTER SWIMMING FROM SESTOS TO Ir, in the month of dark December, Leander, who was nightly wont (What maid will not the tale remember?) To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont! 6 On the 3rd of May, 1810, while the Salsette (Captain Bathurst) was lying in the Dardanelles, Lieutenant Ekenhead, of that frigate, and the writer of these rhymes, swam from the European shore to the Asiatic-by the by, from Abydos to Sestos would have been more correct. The whole distance, from the place whence we started to our landing on the other side, including the length we were carried by the current, was computed by those on board the frigate at upwards of four English miles, though the actual breadth is barely one. The rapidity of the current is such that no boat can row directly across, and it may, in some measure, be estimated from the circumstance of the whole distance being accomplished by one of the parties in an hour and five, and by the other in an hour and ten minutes. The water was extremely cold, from the melting of the mountain snows. About three weeks before, in April, we had made an attempt; but having ridden all the way from the Troad the same morning, and the water being of an icy chillness, we found it necessary to postpone the completion till the frigate anchored below the castles, when we swam the straits as just stated, If, when the wintry tempest roar'd, For me, degenerate modern wretch, But since he cross'd the rapid tide, "Twere hard to say who fared the best : Sad mortals! thus the Gods still plague you! He lost his labour, I my jest: For he was drown'd, and I've the ague.? May 9, 1810. LINES IN THE TRAVELLERS' BOOK AT ORCHOMENUS. IN THIS BOOK A TRAVELLER HAD WRITTEN : "FAIR Albion, smiling, sees her son depart He comes to Athens, and he writes his name.' entering a considerable way above the European, and landing below the Asiatic, fort. Chevalier says that a young Jew swam the same distance for his mistress; and Oliver mentions its having been done by a Neapolitan; but our consul, Tarragona, remembered neither of these circumstances, and tried to dissuade us from the attempt. A number of the Salsette's crew were known to have accomplished a greater distance; and the only thing that surprised me was that, as doubts had been entertained of the truth of Leander's story, no traveller had ever endeavoured to ascertain its practicability. 7 ["My companion," says Mr. Hobhouse, "had before made a more perilous, but less celebrated passage; for I recollect that, when we were in Portugal, he swam from Old Lisbon to Belem Castle, and having to contend with a tide and counter-current, the wind blowing freshly, was but little less than two hours in crossing."] |