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.

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.

RITTEN AFTER SWIMMING FROM SESTOS TO
ABYDOS.

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,
He sped to Hero, nothing loth,
And thus of old thy current pour'd,
Fair Venus! how I pity both!

For me, degenerate modern wretch,
Though in the genial month of May,
My dripping limbs I faintly stretch,
And think I've done a feat to-day.

But since he cross'd the rapid tide,
According to the doubtful story,
To woo,-and-Lord knows what beside,
And swam for Love, as I for Glory;

"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
To trace the birth and nursery of art:
Noble his object, glorious is his aim;

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."]

BENEATH WHICH LORD BYRON INSERTED THE FOLLOWING:

THE modest bard, like many a bard unknown,
Rhymes on our names, but wisely hides his own;
But yet, whoe'er he be, to say no worse,
His name would bring more credit than his verse.

1810.

MAID OF ATHENS, ERE WE PART.
Ζώη μου, σὰς ἀγαπῶ.

MAID of Athens, ere we part,
Give, oh give me back my heart!
Or, since that has left my breast,
Keep it now, and take the rest!
Hear my vow before I go,
Ζώη μου, σὰς ἀγαπῶ.

By those tresses unconfined,
Woo'd by each Ægean wind;
By those lids whose jetty fringe
Kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge;
By those wild eyes like the roe,
Ζώη μου, σὰς ἀγαπῶ.

By that lip I long to taste;

By that zone-encircled waist;

8 [The lady supposed to be the Maid of Athens, was the eldest of three lovely sisters, who are thus described by Mr. Hugh Williams :--"Theresa, the Maid of Athens, Catinco, and Mariana, are of middle stature. The two eldest have black, or dark hair and eyes; their visage oval, and complexion somewhat pale, with teeth of dazzling whiteness. Their cheeks are rounded, and noses straight, rather inclined to aquiline. The youngest, Mariana, is very fair, her face not so finely rounded, but has a gayer expression than her sisters', whose countenances, except when the conversation has something of mirth in it, may be said to be rather pensive. Their persons are elegant, and their manners pleasing and lady-like, such as would be fascinating in any country. They possess very considerable powers of conversation, and their minds seem to be more instructed than those of the Greek women in general."]

9 Romaic expression of tenderness: If I translate it, I shall affront the gentlemen, as it may seem that I supposed they could not; and if I do not, I may affront the ladies. For fear of any misconstruction on the part of the latter, I shall do so, begging pardon of the learned. It means, "My life, I love you!" which sounds very prettily in all languages, and is as much in fashion in Greece at this day as, Juvenal tells us, the two first words were amongst the Roman ladies, whose erotic expressions were all Hellenised.

TRANSLATION OF THE NURSE'S DOLE IN THE MEDEA OF EURIPIDES.

Oн how I wish that an embargo

Had kept in port the good ship Argo!

Who, still unlaunch'd from Grecian docks,
Had never pass'd the Azure rocks;

But now I fear her trip will be a

Damn'd business for my Miss Medea, &c. &c.3

June, 1810.

In the East (where ladies are not taught to write, lest they should scribble assignations) flowers, cinders, pebbles, &c. convey the sentiments of the parties by that universal deputy of Mercury-an old woman. A cinder says, "I burn for thee; a bunch of flowers tied with hair, "Take me and fly;" but a pebble declares--what nothing else can.

2 Constantinople.

3 ["I am just come from an expedition through the Bosphorus to the Black Sea and the Cyanean Symplegades, up which last I scrambled with as great risk as ever the Argonauts escaped in their hoy. You remember the beginning of the nurse's dole in the Medea, of which I beg you to take the following translation, done on the summit. A 'damn'd business' it very nearly was to me; for, had not this sublime passage been in my head, I should never have dreamed of ascending the said rocks, and bruising my carcass in honour of the ancients."—Lord B. to Mr. Henry Drury, June 17, 1810.]

MY EPITAPH.

YOUTH, Nature, and relenting Jove,
To keep my lamp in strongly strove;
But Romanelli was so stout,

He beat all three-and blew it out.*

SUBSTITUTE FOR AN EPITAPH.

KIND Reader, take your choice to cry or laugh;
Here HAROLD lies-but where's his Epitaph?
If such you seek, try Westminster, and view
Ten thousand just as fit for him as you.

October, 1810.

Athens.

LINES WRITTEN BENEATH A PICTURE.

DEAR object of defeated care!

Though now of Love and thee bereft,

To reconcile me with despair,
Thine image and my tears are left.

"Tis said with Sorrow Time can cope ;
But this I feel can ne'er be true:
For by the death-blow of my Hope
My Memory immortal grew.

Athens, January, 1811.

4 ["I have ust escaped from a physician and a fever. In spite of my teeth and tongue, the English consul, my Tartar, Albanian, dragoman, forced a physician upon me, and in three days brought me to the last gasp. In this state I made my epitaph." -Lord B. to Mr. Hodgson, Oct. 3, 1810.]

5 [These lines are copied from a leaf of the original MS. of the second canto of "Childe Harold."]