For, through thy long dark lashes low depending, Gleams like a seraph from the sky descending, FROM THE PORTUGUESE. IN moments to delight devoted, ་་ My life!» with tend'rest tone you cry; Dear words! on which my heart had doted, If youth could neither fade nor die. To death even hours like these must roll, Ah! then repeat those accents never Or change my life!» into « my soul! ་ Which, like my love, exists for ever. he song from which this is taken is a great favourite with the young girls of Athens of all classes. Their manner of singing it is by verses in rotation, the whole number present joining in the chorus. I have heard it frequently at our χόροι, >> in the winter of 1810-11. The air is plaintive and pretty. I I. ENTER thy garden of roses, Each morning where Flora reposes, Oh! Lovely! thus low I implore thee, Which utters its song to adore thee, Yet trembles for what it has sung; 2. But the loveliest garden grows hateful The poison, when poured from the chalice, But when drunk to escape from thy malice, The draught shall be sweet to my 3. As the chief who to combat advances Thus thou, with those eyes for thy lances, By pangs which a smile would dispel ? For torture repay me too well? Now sad is the garden of roses, Beloved, but false Haidee! There Flora all withered reposes, And mourns o'er thine absence with me. SONG. ATHENS, 1810. Ζώη μου, σας ἀγαπῶ (1). I. MAID of Athens, ere we part, Ζώη μοῦ, σάς ἀγαπῶ. 2. go, By those tresses unconfined, Ζώη μοῦ, σάς ἀγαπῶ. (1) Zoë mou, sas agapo, or Zán poũ σás áɣáñâ, a Romaic expression of tenderness: if I translate it I shall affront the gentlemen, as it may seem that I supposed they could not; and if I do not I may affront the ladies. For fear of any misconstruction on the part of the latter I shall do so begging pardon of the learned. It means, « My life, I love you! » which sounds very prettily in all languages, and is as much in fashion in Greece at this day as, Juvenal tells us, the two first words were amongst the Roman ladies, whose erotie expressions were all Hellenized. 3. By that lip I long to taste; By all the token-flowers (1) that tell 4. Maid of Athens I am gone : Ζώη μοῦ, σάς ἀγαπῶ. (1) In the East (where ladies are not taught to write, lest they should scribble assignations), flowers, cinders, pebbles, etc., convey the sentiments of the parties by that universal deputy of Mercury-an old woman. A cinder says, « I burn for thee; » a bunch of flowers tied with hair, «< Take me and fly; but a pebble declares-«< what nothing else can. » (2) Constantinople. |