The song from which this is taken is a great favourite with the young girls of Athens of all classes. Their manner of singing it is by verses in rotation, the whole number present joining in the chorus. I have heard it frequently at our «Xopot in the winter of 1810-11. The air is plaintive and pretty. I ENTER thy garden of roses, Each morning where Flora reposes, Receive this fond truth from my tongue, Yet trembles for what it has sung; As the branch, at the bidding of nature, Adds fragrance and fruit to the tree, Through her eyes, through her every feature, Shines the soul of the young Haideé. But the loveliest garden grows hateful When love has abandon'd the bowers; But when drunk to escape from thy malice, My heart from these horrors to save: As the chief who to combat advances Hast pierced through my heart to its core. Ah, tell me, my soul! must I perish By pangs which a smile would dispel? Would the hope, which thou once bad'st me cherish, For torture repay me too well? Now sad is the garden of roses, Beloved but false Haideé! There Flora all wither'd reposes, And mourns o'er thine absence with me. ON PARTING. THE kiss, dear maid! thy lip has left, Shall never part from mine. Till happier hours restore the gift Untainted back to thine. Thy parting glance, which fondly beams, An equal love may see: The tear that from thine eyelid streams Can weep no change in me. I ask no pledge to make me blest Nor one memorial for a breast, Nor need I write-to tell the tale Unless the heart could speak? By day or night, in weal or woe, That heart, no longer free, Must bear the love it cannot show, And silent ache for thee. TO THYRZA. WITHOUT a stone to mark the spot, And say, what truth might well have said, By all, save one, perchance forgot, Ah, wherefore art thou lowly laid? By many a shore and many a sea Divided, yet beloved in vain; The past, the future fled to thee To bid us meet-no-ne'er again! Could this have been--a word, a look That softly said, « We part in peace,»> Had taught my bosom how to brook, With fainter sighs, thy soul's release. And didst thou not, since death for thee Prepared a light and pangless dart, Once long for him thou ne'er shalt see, Who held, and holds thee in his heart? Oh! who like him had watch'd thee here? Or sadly mark'd thy glazing eye, In that dread hour ere death appear, When silent sorrow fears to sigh, Till all was past? But when no more 'T was thine to reck of human woe, Affection's heart-drops, gushing o'er, Had flow'd as fast-as now they flow. Affection's mingling tears were ours? That love each warmer wish forbore; Those eyes proclaim'd so pure a mind, Even passion blush'd to plead for more. The tone, that taught me to rejoice, When prone, unlike thee, to repine; The song celestial from thy voice, But sweet to me from none but thine; The pledge we wore I wear it still, But where is thine?-ah, where art thou? Oft have I borne the weight of ill, But never bent beneath till now! I would not wish thee here again; To wean me from mine anguish here. Teach me-too early taught by thee ! To bear, forgiving and forgiven: On earth thy love was such to me, It fain would form my hope in heaven! STANZAS. Awar, away, ye notes of woe ! The voice that made those sounds more sweet Is hush'd, and all their charms are fled; And now their softest notes repeat A dirge, an anthem o'er the dead! Yes, Thyrza! yes, they breathe of thee, Beloved dust! since dust thou art; And all that once was harmony Is worse than discord to my heart! T is silent all!--but on my ear The well-remember'd echoes thrill; I hear a voice I would not hear, A voice that now might well be still; Yet oft my doubting soul 't will shake: Even slumber owns its gentle tone, Till consciousness will vainly wake To listen, though the dream be flown. Sweet Thyrza! waking as in sleep, Thou art but now a lovely dream; A star that trembled o'er the deep, Then turn'd from earth its tender beam. But he, who through life's dreary way Must pass, when heaven is veil'd in wrath, Will long lament the vanish'd ray! That scatter'd gladness o'er his path. TO THYRZA. ONE struggle more, and I am free It suits me well to mingle now With things that never pleased before: Though every joy is fled below, What future grief can touch me more? But silent let me sink to earth, With no officious mourners near: I would not mar one hour of mirth, Nor startle friendship with a fear. Yet Love, if Love in such an hour Could nobly check its useless sighs, Might then exert its latest power In her who lives and him who dies. T were sweet, my Psyche! to the last Thy features still serene to see: Forgetful of its struggles past, E'en Pain itself should smile on thee. But vain the wish-for Beauty still Will shrink, as shrinks the ebbing breath; And woman's tears, produced at will, Deceive in life, unman in death. Then lonely be my latest hour, Without regret, without a groan! For thousands death hath ceased to lower, And pain been transient or unknown. « Ay, but to die, and go,» alas! Where all have gone, and all must go! To be the nothing that I was Ere born to life and living woe! Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, STANZAS. Hea quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse. AND thou art dead, as young and fair As aught of mortal birth; And form so soft, and charms so rare, I will not ask where thou liest low, There flowers or weeds at will may grow, So I behold them not: It is enough for me to prove That what I loved, and long must love, Yet did I love thee to the last As fervently as thou, Who didst not change through all the past, The love where Death has set his seal, Nor falsehood disavow: And, what were worse, thou canst not see Or wrong, or change, or fault in me. The better days of life were ours; The worst can be but mine: The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers, Shall never more be thine. The silence of that dreamless sleep I envy now too much to weep; That all those charms have pass'd away, The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd I know not if I could have borne Extinguish'd, not decay'd; As stars that shoot along the sky Shine brightest as they fall from high. As once I wept, if I could weep, Το Uphold thy drooping head; And show that love, however vain, Nor thou nor I can feel again. Yet how much less it were to gain, Returns again to me, And more thy buried love endears Than aught, except its living years. STANZAS. If sometimes in the haunts of men Oh, pardon that in crowds awhile, I waste one thought I owe to thee, And, self-condemn'd, appear to smile, Unfaithful to thy memory! And look like heralds of eternity: They pass like spirits of the past,—they speak They make us what we were not-what they will, II. years, I saw two beings in the hues of youth Of woods and corn-fields, and the abodes of men A touch of her's, his blood would ebb and flow, But she in these fond feelings had no share : Of a time-honour'd race.-It was a name Which pleased him, and yet pleased him not--and why? Kept pace with her expectancy, and flew. III. A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. The boy of whom I spake;-he was alone, He sate him down, and seized a pen, and traced And with his teeth and quivering hands did tear Was traced, and then it faded, as it came; He dropp'd the hand he held, and with slow steps IV. A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. V. A change came o'er the spirit of my dream. As if its lid were charged with unshed tears. |