THE GIAOUR.

No breath of air to break the wave
That rolls below the Athenian's grave,
That tomb which, gleaming o'er the cliff,
First greets the homeward-veering skiff
High o'er the land he saved in vain ;
When shall such Hero live again?

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1. A tomb above the rocks on the promontory, by some supposed the sepulchre of Themistocles.

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["There are," says Cumberland, in his Observer, 'a few lines by Plato upon the tomb of Themistocles, which have a turn of elegant and pathetic simplicity in them, that deserves a better translation than I can give—

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"By the sea's margin, on the watery strand,
Thy monument, Themistocles, shall stand:
By this directed to thy native shore,
The merchant shall convey his freighted store;
And when our fleets are summoned to the fight
Athens shall conquer with thy tomb in sight.'

Note to Edition 1832.

The traditional site of the tomb of Themistocles, "a rock-hewn grave on the very margin of the sea generally covered with water," adjoins the lighthouse, which stands on the westernmost promontory of the Piræus, some three quarters of a mile from the entrance to the harbour. Plutarch, in his Themistocles (cap. xxxii.), is at pains to describe the exact site of the "altar-like tomb," and quotes the passage from Plato (the comic poet, B.C. 428-389) which Cumberland paraphrases. Byron and Hobhouse "made the complete circuit of the peninsula of Munychia," January 18, 1810.-Travels in Albania, 1858, i. 317, 318.]

Fair clime! where every season smiles i
Benignant o'er those blessed isles,
Which, seen from far Colonna's height,
Make glad the heart that hails the sight,
And lend to loneliness delight.
There mildly dimpling, Ocean's cheek
Reflects the tints of many a peak
Caught by the laughing tides that lave
These Edens of the eastern wave:
And if at times a transient breeze
Break the blue crystal of the seas,
Or sweep one blossom from the trees,
How welcome is each gentle air

That wakes and wafts the odours there!
For there the Rose, o'er crag or vale,
Sultana of the Nightingale,1

i. Fair clime! where ceaseless summer smiles
Benignant o'er those blessed isles,

Which seen from far Colonna's height,
Make glad the heart that hails the sight,
And lend to loneliness delight.

There shine the bright abodes ye seek,
Like dimples upon Ocean's cheek,
So smiling round the waters lave
These Edens of the Eastern wave.
Or if, at times, the transient breeze
Break the smooth crystal of the seas,
Or brush one blossom from the trees,
How grateful is each gentle air

That wakes and wafts the fragrance there.-[MS.]

the fragrance there.-[Second Edition.]

1. The attachment of the nightingale to the rose is a well-known Persian fable. If I mistake not, the "Bulbul of a thousand tales" is one of his appellations.

[Thus Mesihi, as translated by Sir William Jones—

"Come, charming maid! and hear thy poet sing,
Thyself the rose and he the bird of spring:
Love bids him sing, and Love will be obey'd.
Be gay too soon the flowers of spring will fade."

"The full style and title of the Persian nightingale (Pycnonotus

The maid for whom his melody,

His thousand songs are heard on high,
Blooms blushing to her lover's tale:
His queen, the garden queen, his Rose,
Unbent by winds, unchilled by snows,
Far from the winters of the west,
By every breeze and season blest,
Returns the sweets by Nature given
In softest incense back to Heaven;
And grateful yields that smiling sky
Her fairest hue and fragrant sigh.
And many a summer flower is there,
And many a shade that Love might share,
And many a grotto, meant for rest,
That holds the pirate for a guest;
Whose bark in sheltering cove below
Lurks for the passing peaceful prow,
Till the gay mariner's guitar1

Is heard, and seen the Evening Star;

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hæmorrhous) is 'Bulbul-i-hazár-dástán,' usually shortened to 'Hazar' (bird of a thousand tales = the thousand), generally called 'Andalib.' (See Arabian Nights, by Richard F. Burton, 1887; Supplemental Nights, iii. 506.) For the nightingale's attachment to the rose, compare Moore's Lalla Rookh—

"Oh! sooner shall the rose of May

Mistake her own sweet nightingale," etc.

(Ed. "Chandos Classics," p. 423)

and Fitzgerald's translation of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (stanza vi.)—

"And David's lips are lockt; but in divine

High piping Pehlevi, with Wine! Wine! Wine !
Red Wine!'-the Nightingale cries to the Rose
That sallow cheek of hers to incarnadine."

Rubáiyát, etc., 1899, p. 29, and note, p. 62.

Byron was indebted for his information to a note on a passage in Vathek, by S. Henley (Vathek, 1893, p. 217).]

1. The guitar is the constant amusement of the Greek sailor by night; with a steady fair wind, and during a calm, it is accompanied always by the voice, and often by dancing.

Then stealing with the muffled oar,
Far shaded by the rocky shore,
Rush the night-prowlers on the prey,
And turn to groans his roundelay.

Strange that where Nature loved to trace,
As if for Gods, a dwelling place,

And every charm and grace hath mixed
Within the Paradise she fixed,

There man, enamoured of distress,
Should mar it into wilderness, i.

And trample, brute-like, o'er each flower
That tasks not one laborious hour;
Nor claims the culture of his hand
To bloom along the fairy land,
But springs as to preclude his care,
And sweetly woos him-but to spare!
Strange that where all is Peace beside,
There Passion riots in her pride,
And Lust and Rapine wildly reign
To darken o'er the fair domain.

It is as though the Fiends prevailed
Against the Seraphs they assailed,

And, fixed on heavenly thrones, should dwell
The freed inheritors of Hell;

So soft the scene, so formed for joy,

So curst the tyrants that destroy!

He who hath bent him o'er the dead ii. 1

Ere the first day of Death is fled,

i. Should wanton in a wilderness.—[MS.]

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ii. The first draft of this celebrated passage differs in many

1. [Compare "Beyond Milan the country wore the aspect of a wider devastation; and though everything seemed more quiet, the repose was like that of death spread over features which retain the