Another, not himself, he to and fro

Questioned and canvassed it with subtlest wit, And none but those who loved him best could know

That which he knew not, how it galled and bit His weary mind, this converse vain and cold; For like an eyeless nightmare grief did sit 120

Upon his being; a snake which fold by fold Pressed out the life of life, a clinging fiend Which clenched him if he stirred with deadlier hold ;

So that his grief remained-let it remain-untold.'

PART II.

FRAGMENT I.

Prince Athanase had one belovèd friend,2
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

The Author was pursuing a fuller developement of the ideal character of Athanase, when it struck him that, in an attempt at extreme refinement and analysis, his conceptions might be betrayed into the assuming a morbid character. The reader will judge whether he is a loser or gainer by this difference.

2 Mrs. Shelley records that this character was meant to represent Shelley's Eton friend, Dr. Lind, the original of the hermit in Laon and Cythna.-Ed.

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 forever 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

20

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

30

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
Yet calm and gentle and majestical.

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

FRAGMENT II.

Such was Zonoras; and as daylight finds
One amaranth glittering on the path of frost,
When autumn nights have nipped all weaker
kinds,

Thus through his age, dark, cold, and tempesttossed,

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 that 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 the extremes of life's discordant

span.

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

20

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 reeling through the storm. They did
but seem-

30

For, lo! the wintry clouds are all gone by, And bright Arcturus through yon pines is glowing,

And far o'er southern waves, immovably

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

66

"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,

40

"Were lulled by thee, delightful nightingale! And these soft waves, murmuring a gentle

66

sadness,

"And the far sighings of yon piny dale

66

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

50

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

And with a soft and equal pressure, pressed
That cold lean hand:-

66

yet,

Dost thou remember

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?

59

"'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

66

From death and dark forgetfulness released."