And angry clouds are pouring fast
The vengeance of the skies.

2.

Our guides are gone, our hope is lost,
And lightnings, as they play,

But show where rocks our path have crost,
Or gild the torrent's spray.

3.

Is yon a cot I saw, though low?

When lightning broke the gloomHow welcome were its shade!—ah, no! 'Tis but a Turkish tomb.

4.

Through sounds of foaming waterfalls,

I hear a voice exclaim

My way-worn countryman, who calls
On distant England's name.

5.

A shot is fired-by foe or friend?
Another-'tis to tell

The mountain-peasants to descend,

And lead us where they dwell.

6.

Oh! who in such a night will dare

To tempt the wilderness?

and that after wandering up and down in total ignorance of their position, had, at last, stopped near some Turkish tombstones and a torrent, which they saw by the flashes of lightning. They had been thus exposed for nine hours. . . . It was long before we ceased to talk of the thunderstorm in the plain of Zitza."-Travels in Albania, 1858, i. 70, 72; Childe Harold, Canto II. stanza xlviii., Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 129, note 1.]

And who 'mid thunder-peals can hear
Our signal of distress?

7.

And who that heard our shouts would rise

To try the dubious road?

Nor rather deem from nightly cries

That outlaws were abroad.

8.

Clouds burst, skies flash, oh, dreadful hour!
More fiercely pours the storm!

Yet here one thought has still the power
To keep my bosom warm.

9.

While wandering through each broken path, O'er brake and craggy brow;

While elements exhaust their wrath,

Sweet Florence, where art thou?

IO.

Not on the sea, not on the sea-
Thy bark hath long been gone :
Oh, may the storm that pours on me,
Bow down my head alone!

II.

Full swiftly blew the swift Siroc,
When last I pressed thy lip;

And long ere now, with foaming shock,
Impelled thy gallant ship.

12.

Now thou art safe; nay, long ere now
Hast trod the shore of Spain;
'Twere hard if aught so fair as thou
Should linger on the main.

13.

And since I now remember thee

In darkness and in dread,

As in those hours of revelry

Which Mirth and Music sped;

14.

Do thou, amid the fair white walls,
If Cadiz yet be free,

At times from out her latticed halls
Look o'er the dark blue sea;

15.

Then think upon Calypso's isles,
Endeared by days gone by;
To others give a thousand smiles,
To me a single sigh.

16.

And when the admiring circle mark
The paleness of thy face,

A half-formed tear, a transient spark

Of melancholy grace,

17.

Again thou'lt smile, and blushing shun

Some coxcomb's raillery;

Nor own for once thou thought'st on one, Who ever thinks on thee.

STANZAS WRITTEN IN PASSING THE AMBRACIAN GULF. II

18.

Though smile and sigh alike are vain,
When severed hearts repine,

My spirit flies o'er Mount and Main,

And mourns in search of thine.

October 11, 1809.

[MS. M. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]

STANZAS WRITTEN IN PASSING THE
AMBRACIAN GULF.

I.

THROUGH cloudless skies, in silvery sheen,
Full beams the moon on Actium's coast:
And on these waves, for Egypt's queen,
The ancient world was won and lost.

2.

And now upon the scene I look,

The azure grave of many a Roman;
Where stern Ambition once forsook

His wavering crown to follow Woman.

3.

Florence! whom I will love as well

(As ever yet was said or sung,

Since Orpheus sang his spouse from Hell)
Whilst thou art fair and I am young ;

4.

Sweet Florence! those were pleasant times,
When worlds were staked for Ladies' eyes:

i. Stanzas.-[1812.]

Had bards as many realms as rhymes,i
Thy charms might raise new Antonies.".

5.

Though Fate forbids such things to be,.
Yet, by thine eyes and ringlets curled!
I cannot lose a world for thee,

But would not lose thee for a World.1

November 14, 1809.

[MS. M. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]

THE SPELL IS BROKE, THE CHARM IS FLOWN! iv.

WRITTEN AT ATHENS, JANUARY 16, 1810.

THE spell is broke, the charm is flown!
Thus is it with Life's fitful fever:
We madly smile when we should groan;
Delirium is our best deceiver.
Each lucid interval of thought

Recalls the woes of Nature's charter;
And He that acts as wise men ought,

But lives-as Saints have died—a martyr.

[MS. M. First published, Childe Harold, 1812 (4to).]

i. Had Bards but realms along with rhymes.—[MS. M.]

ii. Again we'd see some Antonies.—[MS. M.]

iii. Though Jove -.-[MS. M.]

iv. Written at Athens.-[1812.]

1. [Compare [A Woman's Hair] stanza 1, line 4, "I would not lose you for a world."-Poetical Works, 1898, i. 233.]