Through many a clime 'tis mine to

roam

Where many a soft and melting maid is,

But none abroad, and few at home, May match the dark-eyed Girl of Cadiz.

1809. [First published, 1832.]

LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM, AT MALTA.1

I.

As o'er the cold sepulchral stone
Some name arrests the passer-by;
Thus, when thou view'st this page alone,
May mine attract thy pensive eye!

2.

And when by thee that name is read, Perchance in some succeeding year, Reflect on me as on the dead,

And think my Heart is buried here. Malta, September 14, 1809. [First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]

TO FLORENCE.

I.

OH Lady! when I left the shore,

The distant shore which gave me birth,

I hardly thought to grieve once more, To quit another spot on earth:

2.

Yet here, amidst this barren isle, Where panting Nature droops the head,

1 [The possessor of the album was, doubtless, Mrs Spencer Smith (b. circ. 1785), daughter of Baron Herbert, Austrian Ambassador at Constantinople, and wife of John Spencer Smith, the brother of Admiral Sir Sidney Smith, the hero of the siege of Acre. She is the "Lady" of the lines To Florence, "the sweet Florence" of the Stanzas composed during a Thunderstorm, and of the Stanzas written in passing through the Ambracian Gulf, and, finally, the "fair Florence" of stanzas xxxii., xxxiii. of the Second Canto of Childe Harold.]

Where only thou art seen to smile,
I view my parting hour with dread.

3.

Though far from Albin's craggy shore,
Divided by the dark-blue main;

A few, brief, rolling seasons o'er,
Perchance I view her cliffs again:

4.

But wheresoe'er I now may roam, Through scorching clime, and varied

sea,

Though Time restore me to my

home,

I ne'er shall bend mine eyes on thee:

5.

On thee, in whom at once conspire All charms which heedless hearts can move,

Whom but to see is to admire,

And, oh! forgive the word to love.

6.

Forgive the word, in one who ne'er

With such a word can more offend; And since thy heart I cannot share, Believe me, what I am, thy friend.

7.

And who so cold as look on thee,

Thou lovely wand'rer, and be less? Nor be, what man should ever be, The friend of Beauty in distress?

8.

Ah! who would think that form had past

Through Danger's most destructive path,

Had braved the death-winged tempest's blast,

And 'scaped a Tyrant's fiercer wrath?

9.

Lady! when I shall view the walls Where free Byzantium once arose, And Stamboul's Oriental halls

The Turkish tyrants now enclose;

WRITTEN AFTER SWIMMING FROM SESTOS TO ABYDOS.1

I.

IF, in the month of dark December, Leander, who was nightly wont (What maid will not the tale remember?) To cross thy stream, broad Hellespont!

2.

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!

3.

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.

The

* On the 3rd of May, 1810, while the Salsette (Captain Bathurst) was lying in the Dardanelles, Lieutenant Ekenhead, of that frigate, and the writer of these rhymes swam from the European shore to the Asiatic-by the by, from Abydos to Sestos would have been more correct. whole distance, from the place whence we started to our landing on the other side, including the length we were carried by the current, was computed by those on board the frigate at upwards of four English miles, though the actual breadth is barely one. The rapidity of the current is such that no boat can row directly across, and it may, in some measure, be estimated from the circumstance of the *hole distance being accomplished by one of the parties in an hour and five, and by the other in an hour and ten minutes. The water was extremely cold, from the melting of the mountain SDOWS. About three weeks before, in April, we had made an attempt; but having ridden al. the way from the Troad the same morning, and the water being of an icy chillness, we found it necessary to postpone the completion til the frigate anchored below the castles, when we swam the straits as just stated, entering a considerable way above the European, and landing below the Asiatic, fort. [Le] Chevalier says that a young Jew swam the same distance for his mistress; and Olivier mentions its having been done by a Neapolitan; but our consul, Tarragona, remembered neither these circumstances, and tried to dissuade us from the attempt. A number of the Salsette's crew were known to have accomplished a greater distance; and the only thing that surprised me was that, as doubts had been entertained of the truth of Leander's story, no traveller had ever endeavoured to ascertain its practicability.

of