LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM, AT
MALTA.

As o'er the cold sepulchral stone

Some name arrests the passers-by;
Thus, when thou view'st this page alone,
May mine attract thy pensive eye!

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.

September 14. 1809.

TO FLORENCE. 1

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 :

[These lines were written at Malta. The lady to whom they were addressed, and whom he afterwards apostrophises in the stanzas on the thunderstorm of Zitza, and in Childe Harold, is thus mentioned in a letter to his mother: "This letter is committed to the charge of a very extraordinary lady, whom you have doubtless heard of, Mrs. Spencer Smith, of whose escape the Marquis de Salvo published a narrative a few years ago. She has since been shipwrecked; and her life has been from its commencement so fertile in remarkable incidents, that in a romance they would appear improbable. She was born at Constantinople, where her father, Baron Herbert, was Austrian Ambassador; married un

Yet here, amidst this barren isle,
Where panting Nature droops the head,
Where only thou art seen to smile,

I view my parting hour with dread.

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 :

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:

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.

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.

happily, yet has never been impeached in point of character; excited the vengeance of Bonaparte, by taking a part in some conspiracy; several times risked her life; and is not yet five and twenty. She is here on her way to England to join her husband, being obliged to leave Trieste, where she was paying a visit to her mother, by the approach of the French, and embarks soon in a ship of war. Since my arrival here I have had scarcely any other companion. I have found her very pretty, very accomplished, and extremely eccentric. Bonaparte is even now so incensed against her, that her life would be in danger if she were taken prisoner a second

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?

Ah! who would think that form had past
Through Danger's most destructive path,
Had braved the death-wing'd tempest's blast,
And 'scaped a tyrant's fiercer wrath?

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

The Turkish tyrants now enclose;

Though mightiest in the lists of fame,
That glorious city still shall be ;
On me 't will hold a dearer claim,
As spot of thy nativity:

And though I bid thee now farewell,
When I behold that wond'rous scene,
Since where thou art I may not dwell,
'T will soothe, to be where thou hast been.

September, 1809.

STANZAS

COMPOSED DURING A THUNDER-STORM. 1

CHILL and mirk is the nightly blast,
Where Pindus' mountains rise,
And angry clouds are pouring fast
The vengeance of the skies.

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.

Is yon a cot I saw, though low?

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

[This thunderstorm occurred during the night of the 11th October, 1809, when Lord Byron's guides had lost the road to Zitza, near the range of mountains formerly called Pindus, in Albania. Mr. Hobhouse, who had rode on before the rest of the party, and arrived at Zitza just as the evening set in, describes the thunder as "rolling without intermission, the echoes of one peal not ceasing to roll in the mountains, before another tremendous crash. burst over our heads; whilst the plains and the distant hills appeared in a perpetual blaze." "The tempest," he says, "was altogether terrific, and worthy of the Grecian Jove. My Friend, with the priest and the servants, did not enter our hut till three in the morning. I now learnt from him that they had lost their way, and that after wandering up and down in total ignorance of their position, they had stopped at last 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

Through sounds of foaming waterfalls,
I hear a voice exclaim

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

Oh! who in such a night will dare
To tempt the wilderness?

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

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
To keep my bosom warm.

While wandering through each broken path,
O'er brake and craggy brow;
While elements exhaust their wrath,

Sweet Florence, where art thou?

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!