Childe Harold saw them in their chieftain's tower, The feast was done, the red wine circling fast,2 In aught that tries the heart how few withstand the Yelling their uncouth dirge, long danced the kirtled proof! LXVII. It chanced that adverse winds once drove his bark To land was perilous, to sojourn more; (1) Alluding to the wreckers of Cornwall. (2) The Albanian Mussulmans do not abstain from wine, and indeed very few of the others. clan. LXXII. Childe Harold at a little distance stood, (3) "Palikar," a general name for a soldier amongst the Greeks and Albanese who speak Romaic: it means, properly, "a lad." Their barbarous, yet their not indecent, glee : And as the flames along their faces gleam'd, Their gestures nimble, dark eyes flashing free, The long wild locks that to their girdles stream'd, While thus in concert they this lay half sang, half scream'd: TAMBOURGI! Tambourgi!1 thy larum afar Oh! who is more brave than a dark Suliote, And descends to the plain like the stream from the rock. Shall the sons of Chimari, who never forgive 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, I ask not the pleasures that riches supply, And many a maid from her mother shall tear. I love the fair face of the maid in her youth; lyre, And sing us a song on the fall of her sire. Remember the moment when Previsa fell,3 I talk not of mercy, I talk not of fear; He neither must know who would serve the LXXVII. The city won for Allah from the Giaour, The Giaour from Othman's race again may wrest; And the Serai's impenetrable tower Receive the fiery Frank, her former guest;1 Or Wahab's rebel brood, who dared divest The prophet's tomb of all its pious spoil,2 May wind their path of blood along the West; But ne'er will freedom seek this fated soil, But slave succeed to slave, through years of endless toil. LXXVIII. Yet mark their mirth-ere lenten days begin, That penance which their holy rites prepare To shrive from man his weight of mortal sin, By daily abstinence and nightly prayer; But ere his sackcloth garb Repentance wear, Some days of joyaunce are decreed to all, To take of pleasaunce each his secret share, In motley robe to dance at masking ball, And join the mimic train of merry Carnival. LXXIX. And whose more rife with merriment than thine, O Stamboul! once the empress of their reign? Though turbans now pollute Sophia's shrine, And Greece her very altars eyes in vain : (Alas! her woes will still pervade my strain!) Gay were her minstrels once, for free her throng, All felt the common joy they now must feign; Nor oft I've seen such sight, nor heard such song, As woo'd the eye, and thrill'd the Bosphorus along. LXXX. Loud was the lightsome tumult on the shore; Oft Music changed, but never ceased her tone, And timely echo'd back the measured oar, And rippling waters made a pleasant moan: The Queen of tides on high consenting shone; And when a transient breeze swept o'er the wave, 'Twas as if, darting from her heavenly throne, A brighter glance her form reflected gave, Till sparkling billows seem'd to light the banks they lave. LXXXI. Glanced many a light caique along the foam, These hours, and only these, redeem'd Life's years of ill! (1) When taken by the Latins, and retained for several years. (2) Mecca and Medina were taken some time ago by the Wahabees, a sect yearly increasing. (3) On many of the mountains, particularly Liakura, the snow never is entirely melted, notwithstanding the intense heat of the summer; but I never saw it lie on the plains, even in winter. (4) Of Mount Pentelicus, from whence the marble was dug that constructed the public edifices of Athens. The modern name is Mount Mendeli. An immense cave formed by the quarries still remains, and will till the end of time. (5) In all Attica, if we except Athens itself and Marathon, there is no scene more interesting than Cape Colonna. To the antiquuy and artist, sixteen columns are an inexhaustible source of observation and design; to the philosopher, the supposed scene of some of Plato's conversations will not be unwelcome; and the traveller will be struck with the beauty of the prospect over "isles that crown the Egean deep : but, for an Englishman, Colonna has yet an additional interest, as the actual spot of Falconer's shipwreck. Pallas and Plato are forgotten, in the recollection of Falconer and Campbell: "Here in the dead of night by Lonna's steep, This temple of Minerva may be seen at sea from a great distance. In two journeys which I made, and one voyage to Cape Colonna, the view from either side by land was more striking than the approach from the isles. In our second land excursion we had a narrow escape from a party of Mainotes concealed in the caverns beneath. We were told afterwards by one of their prisoners, subsequently ransomed, that they were deterred from attacking us by the appearance of my two Albanians: conjecturing very sagaciously, but falsely, that we had a complete guard of these Arnaouts at hand, they remained stationary, and thus saved our party, which was too small to have opposed any effectual resistance. Colonna is no less a resort of painters than of pirates: there "The hireling artist plants his paltry desk, And makes degraded nature picturesque."(See HODGSON's Lady Jane Grey, &c.) But there Nature, with the aid of Art, has done that for her self. I was fortunate enough to engage a very superior German artist, and hope to renew my acquaintance with this and many other Levantine scenes by the arrival of his performances. (1) Siste Viator-heroa calcas!' was the epitaph on the famous Count Merci ;-what, then, must be our feelings when standing on the tumulus of the two hundred (Greeks) who fell on Marathon? The principal barrow has recently been opened by Fauvel: few or no relics, as vases, &c., were found by the excavator. The plain of Marathon was offered to me for sale at the sum of sixteen thousand piastres, about nine hundred pounds! Alas! Expende-quot libras in duce summo-invenies!'- was the dust of Miltiades worth no more? It could scarcely have fetched less if sold by weight. |