PRINCE ATHANASE.

PART II.

FRAGMENT 1.

PRINCE Athanase had one beloved friend,

An old, old man, with hair of silver white,

And lips where heavenly smiles would hang and blend

With his wise words; and eyes whose arrowy light

Shone like the reflex of a thousand minds.

He was the last whom superstition's blight

Had spared in Greece-the blight that cramps and blinds,— And in his olive bower at Enoe

Had sate from earliest youth. Like one who finds

A fertile island in the barren sea,

One mariner who has survived his mates
Many a drear month in a great ship-so he

With soul-sustaining songs, and sweet debates
Of ancient lore, there fed his lonely being :-
"The mind becomes that which it contemplates,"-

And thus Zonoras, by for ever seeing
Their bright creations, grew like wisest men;
And when he heard the crash of nations fleeing

A bloodier power than ruled thy ruins then,
O sacred Hellas! many weary years
He wandered, till the path of Laian's glen

Was grass grown-and the unremembered tears
Were dry in Laian for their honoured chief,
Who fell in Byzant, pierced by Moslem spears :-

And as the lady looked with faithful grief
From her high lattice o'er the rugged path,
Where she once saw that horseman toil, with brief

And blighting hope, who with the news of death
Struck body and soul as with a mortal blight,
She saw beneath the chesnuts, far beneath,

An old man toiling up, a weary wight;
And soon within her hospitable hall

She saw his white hairs glittering in the light

Of the wood fire, and round his shoulders fall;
And his wan visage and his withered mien
] and majestical.

Yet calm and [

And Athanase, her child, who must have been Then three years old, sate opposite and gazed.

FRAGMENT II.

Such was Zonoras; and as daylight inds
An amaranth glittering on the path of frost,
When autumn nights have nipt all weaker kinds,

Thus had his age, dark, cold, and tempest-tost,
Shone truth upon Zonoras; and he filled
From fountains pure, nigh overgrown and lost,

The spirit of Prince Athanase, a child,
With soul-sustaining songs of ancient lore
And philosophic wisdom, clear and mild.

And sweet and subtle talk they evermore,
The pupil and the master shared; until,
Sharing the undiminishable store,

The youth, as shadows on a grassy hill
Outrun the winds that chase them, soon outran
His teacher, and did teach with native skill

Strange truths and new to that experienced man; Still they were friends, as few have ever been Who mark th' extremes of life's discordant span.

And in the caverns of the forest green,
Or by the rocks of echoing ocean hoar,
Zonoras and Prince Athanase were seen

By summer woodmen; and when winter's roar
Sounded o'er earth and sea its blast of war,
The Balearic fisher, driven from shore,

Hanging upon the peaked wave afar,

Then saw their lamp from Laian's turret gleam,
Piercing the stormy darkness like a star

Which pours beyond the sea one steadfast beam,

Whilst all the constellations of the sky

Seemed wrecked.

They did but seem

For, lo! the wintry clouds are all gone by,

And bright Arcturus through yon pines is glowing,

And far o'er southern waves, immoveably

Belted Orion hangs-warm light is flowing
From the young moon into the sunset's chasm.-
"O summer night! with power divine, bestowing

"On thine own bird the sweet enthusiasm

Which overflows in notes of liquid gladness,
Filling the sky like light! How many a spasm

"Of fevered brains, oppressed with grief and madness, Were lulled by thee, delightful nightingale! And these soft waves, murmuring a gentle sadness,

"And the far sighings of yon piny dale

Made vocal by some wind, we feel not here.-
I bear alone what nothing may avail

"To lighten a strange load!"-No human ear
Heard this lament; but o'er the visage wan
Of Athanase, a ruffling atmosphere

Of dark emotion, a swift shadow ran,
Like wind upon some forest-bosomed lake,
Glassy and dark. And that divine old man

Beheld his mystic friend's whole being shake,
Even where its inmost depths were gloomiest-
And with a calm and measured voice he spake,

And, with a soft and equal pressure, prest
That cold lean hand:-"Dost thou remember yet
When the curved moon then lingering in the west

"Paused in yon waves her mighty horns to wet, How in those beams we walked, half resting on the sea? 'Tis just one year-sure thou dost not forget

"Then Plato's words of light in thee and me Lingered like moonlight in the moonless east, For we had just then read-thy memory

"Is faithful now-the story of the feast; And Agathon and Diotima seemed

'Twas at the season when the Earth upsprings From slumber, as a sphered angel's child, Shadowing its eyes with green and golden wings,

Stands up before its mother bright and mild,
Of whose soft voice the air expectant seems-
So stood before the sun, which shone and smiled

To see it rise thus joyous from its dreams,

The fresh and radiant Earth. The hoary grove
Waxed green-and flowers burst forth like starry beams ;-

The
grass in the warm sun did start and move,
And sea-buds burst under the waves serene :-
How many a one, though none be near to love,

Loves then the shade of his own soul, half seen

In

any mirror-or the spring's young minions, The winged leaves amid the copses green;

How many a spirit then puts on the pinions
Of fancy, and outstrips the lagging blast,
And his own steps-and over wide dominions