3. In vain my lyre would lightly breathe! Though gay companions o'er the bowl Though pleasure fires the madd'ning soul, 4. On many a lone and lovely night 5. When stretched on fever's sleepless bed, And sickness shrunk my throbbing veins, 'Tis comfort still, » I faintly said, ་་ That Thyrza cannot know my pains : » Like freedom to the time-worn slave, A boon 'tis idle then to give, Relenting Nature vainly gave My life, when Thyrza ceased to live! 6. My Thyrza's pledge in better days, When love and life alike were new! How different now thou meet'st my gaze! How tinged by time with sorrow's hue! The heart that gave itself with thee Is silent—ah ! were mine as still! Though cold as e'en the dead can be, It feels, it sickens with the chill. 7. Thou bitter pledge! thou mournful token! WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM. As o'er the cold sepulchral stone Some name arrests the passer-by; And when by thee that name is read, And think my heart is buried here. September 14th, 1809 STANZAS Composed October 11th, 1809, during the night, a thunderstorm; when the guides had lost the road to Zitza, near the range of mountains formerly called Pindus, in Albania. CHILL and mirk is the nightly blast, Our guides are gone, our hope is lost, Is yon a cot I saw, though low? When lightning broke the gloomHow welcome were its shade!-ah! no! "Tis but a Turkish tomb. Through sounds of foaming waterfalls My way-worn countryman, who calls A shot is fired-by foe or friend? The mountain-peasants to descend, Oh! who in such a night will dare And who 'mid thunder peals can hear And who that heard our shouts would rise To try the dubious road? Nor rather deem from nightly cries That outlaws were abroad. Clouds burst, skies flash, oh! dreadful hour! More fiercely pours the storm? Yet here one thought has still the power While wand'ring through each broken path, While elements exhaust their wrath, Not on the sea, not on the sea, Oh! on me, Full swiftly blew the swift Siroc, And long ere now, with foaming shock, Now thou art safe; nay, long ere now Hast trod the shore of Spain; 'Twere hard if ought so fair as thou Should linger on the main. And since I now remember thee Do thou amidst the fair white walls, At times from out her latticed halls Then think upon Calypso's isles, And when the admiring circle mark A half formed tear, a transient spark Again thou'lt smile, and blushing shun Nor own for once thou thought'st of one Who ever thinks on thee. Though smile and sigh alike are vain, |