Farewell to these, but not adieu
Triumphant sons of truest blue,
While either Adriatic shore,
And fallen chiefs, and fleets no more,
And nightly smiles, and daily dinners,
Proclaim you war and women's winners.
Pardon my muse, who apt to prate is,
And take my rhyme because 'tis gratis:
And now I've got to Mrs. Fraser,
Perhaps you think I mean to praise her;
And were I vain enough to think
My praise was worth tnis drop of ink,
A line or two were no hard matter,
As here, indeed, I need not flatter:
But she must be content to shine
In better praises than in mine:
With lively air and open heart,
And fashion's ease without its art,
Her hours can gaily glide along,
Nor ask the aid of idle song.
And now, Oh, Malta! since thou'st got us, Thou little military hot-house!
I'll not offend with words uncivil,
And wish thee rudely at the devil
But only stare from out my casement,
And ask-for what is such a place meant;
Then, in my solitary nook,
Return to scribbling, or a book;
Or take my physic, while I'm able,
Two spoonfuls, hourly by this label;
Prefer my nightcap to my beaver,
And bless my stars, I've got a fever.
There be none of beauty's daughters
With a magic like thee :.
And like music on the waters
Is thy sweet voice to me.
When, as if its sound were causin
The charmed ocean's pausing,
The waves lie still and gleaming,
And the lull'd winds seem dreaming:
And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep,
Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep ;-
So the spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee,
With a full but soft emotion,
Like the swell of Summer's ocean.
He reached his turret door-he paused--no sound
Broke from within; and all was night around,
He knocked, and loudly-footstep no reply
Announced that any heard or deemed him nigh;
He knocked-but faintly-for his trembling hand
Refused to aid his heavy heart's demand.
The portal opens-'tis a well-known face-
But not the form he panted to embrace.
Its lips are silent-twice his own essayed,
And failed, to frame the question they delayed;
He snatched the lamp-its light will answer all-
It quits his grasp, expiring in the fall.
He would not wait for that reviving ray-
As soon could he have lingered there for day;
But, glimmering through the dusky corridore,
Another chequers o'er the shadowed floor:
His steps the chamber gain-his eyes behold
All that his heart believed not-yet foretold!
He turned not-spoke not-sunk not-fixed his look,
And set the anxious frame that lately shook:
He gazed-how long we gaze, despite of pain,
And know, but dare not own, we gaze in vain!
In life itself she was so still and fair,
That death with gentler aspect withered there;
And the cold flowers her colder hand contained,
In that last grasp as tenderly were strained
As if she scarcely felt, but feigned a sleep,
And made it almost mockery yet to weep:
The long dark lashes fringed her lids of snow,
And veiled-thought shrinks from all that lurked be.
low-
Oh! o'er the eye Death most exerts his might,
And hurls the spirit from her throne of light!
Sinks those blue orbs in that long last eclipse,
But spares, as yet, the charm around her lips-
Yet, yet they seem as they forbore to smile,"
And wished repose-but only for a while;
But the white shroud, and each extended tress,
Long-fair-but spread in utter lifelessness,
Which, late the sport of every summer wind,
Escaped the baffled wreath that strove to bind ;
These, and the pale pure cheek, became the bier :
But she is nothing-wherefore is he here?
Tambourgi! Tambourgi!* 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!
Oh! who is more brave than a dark Suliote,
In his snowy camese and his shaggy capote?
To the wolf and the vulture he leaves his wild flock, And descends to the plain like the stream from the rock.
Shall the sons of Chimari, who never forgive
The fault of a friend, bid an enemy live?
Let those guns so unerring such vengeance forego?
What mark is so fair as the breast of a foe?
Macedonia sends forth her invincible race;
For a time they abandon the cave and the chase; But those scarfs of blood-red shall be redder, before The sabre is sheathed and the battle is o'er.
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.
I ask not the pleasures that riches supply,
My sabre shall win what the feeble must buy;
Shall win the young bride with her long flowing hair,
And many a maid from her mother shall tear.
I love the fair face of the maid in her youth-
Her caresses shall lull me, her music shall sooth;
Let her bring from the chamber her many-toned lyre,
And sing us a song on the fall of her sire.
Remember the moment when Previsa fell,
The shrieks of the conquered, the conquerors' yell';
The roofs that we fired, and the plunder we shared,
The wealthy we slaughtered, the lovely we spared.
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.
Dark Muchtar his son to the Danube is sped,
Let the yellow-haired Giaours+ view his horse-tail with dread:
When his Delhis? come dashing in blood o'er the banks,
How few shall escape from the Muscovite ranks!
*Yellow is the epithet given to the Russians. + Infidel.
Horse-tails are the insignia of a Pacha.
Horsemen, answering to our forlorn hope.
Selictar! unsheath then our chief's scimitar:
Tambourgi! thy 'larum gives promise of war.
Ye mountains, that see us descend to the shore,
Shall view us as victors, or view us no more!
Napoleon's Farewell to France.
Farewell to the land, where the gloom of my glory
Arose and o'ershadow'd the earth with her name ;-
She abandons me now,-but the page of her story,
The brightest or blackest, is fill'd with my fame.
I have warr'd with a world which vanquish'd me only
When the meteor of conquest allured me too far,-
I have coped with the nations which dread me thus
lonely.
Farewell to thee, France-when thy diadem crown'd
I made thee the gem and the wonder of earth,— But thy weakness decrees I should leave as I found thee,
Decay'd in thy glory, and sunk in thy worth.
Oh! for the veteran hearts that were wasted
In strife with the storm, when their battles were
Then the eagle, whose gaze in that moment was blasted
Had still soar'd with eyes fix'd on victory's sun!
Farewell to thee, France-but when liberty rallies
Once more in thy regions, remember me then-
The violet grows in the depth of thy valleys,
Though wither'd, thy tears will unfold it again-
Yet, yet I may baffle the hosts that surround us,
And yet may thy heart leap awake to my voice-
There are links which must break in the chain that
has bound us,
Then turn thee and call on the chief of thy choice!
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