If, when the wintry tempest roared,
He sped to Hero, nothing loth,
And thus of old thy current poured,
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 crossed the rapid tide,
According to the doubtful story,

To woo,- and - Lord knows what beside,
And swam for Love, as I for Glory;

'T were hard to say who fared the best:

Sad mortals! thus the Gods still plague you!

He lost his labor, I my jest:

For he was drowned, and I've the ague.*

May 9, 1810.

*["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."]

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 μοῦ, σὰς ἀγαπῶ.†

By those tresses unconfined,
Wooed by each gean wind;

"Theresa, the Maid of Athens, and her sisters 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 ladylike, 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." — Williams' Travels in Greece.

† 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.

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;

By all the token-flowers* that tell
What words can never speak so well;

By love's alternate joy and woe,
Ζώη μου, σὰς ἀγαπῶ.

Maid of Athens! I am gone:

Think of me, sweet! when alone.

Though I fly to Istambol,t

Athens holds my heart and soul:
Can I cease to love thee? No!
Ζώη μοῦ, σὰς ἀγαπῶ.

Athens, 1810.

In the East (where ladies are not taught to write, lest they should scribble assignations) flowers, cinders, pebbles, etc., 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. + Constantinople.

TRANSLATION OF THE NURSE'S DOLE IN

THE MEDEA OF EURIPIDES.

Oh how I wish that an embargo

Had kept in port the good ship Argo!

Who, still unlaunched from Grecian docks,
Had never passed the Azure rocks;

But now I fear her trip will be a

Damned business for my Miss Medea, etc. etc.*

June, 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.†

October, 1810.

* "[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." Byron to Henry Drury, June 17, 1810.]

† ["I have just 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."]- Byron to Mr. Hodgson, October 3, 1810.

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.

Athens.

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.

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.