Those false opinions which the harsh rich use
To blind the world they famish for their pride;
Nor did he hold from any man his dues,

But like a steward in honest dealings tried,
With those who toiled and wept, the poor and wise
His riches and his cares he did divide.

Fearless he was, and scorning all disguise,
What he dared do or think, though men might start,
He spoke with mild, yet unaverted eyes;

Liberal he was of soul, and frank of heart,
And to his many friends-all loved him well-
Whate'er he knew or felt he would impart,

If words he found those in most thoughts to tell;
If not, he smiled or wept; and his weak foes
He neither spurned nor hated, though with fell

And mortal hate their thousand voices rose,
They passed like aimless arrows from his ear—
Nor did his heart or mind its portal close

To those, or them, or any in life's sphere
May comprehend within its wide array.
What sadness made that vernal spirit sere?

He knew not. Though his life, day after day,
Was failing like an unreplenished stream,
Though in his eyes a cloud and burthen lay,

Through which his soul, like Vesper's serene beam
Piercing the chasms of ever-rising clouds,
Shone, softly burning; though his lips did seem

Like reeds which quiver in impetuous floods;
And through his sleep, and o'er each waking hour,
Thoughts after thoughts, unresting multitudes,

Were driven within him, by some secret power,
Which bade them blaze, and live, and roll afar,
Like lights and sounds, from haunted tower to tower

O'er castled mountains borne, when tempest's war
Is levied by the night-contending winds,
And the pale dalesman watch with eager ear ;—

Though such were in his spirit, as the fiends
Which wake and feed on everliving woe,-
What was this grief, which ne'er in other minds

A mirror found, -he knew not-none could know;
But on whoe er might question him he turned
The light of his frank eyes, as if to show,

He knew not of the grief within that burned,
But asked forbearance with a mournful look;
Or spoke in words from which none ever learned

The cause of his disquietude; or shook
With spasms of silent passion; or turned pale:
So that his friends soon rarely undertook

To stir his secret pain without avail;

For all who knew and loved him then perceived
That there was drawn an adamantine veil

Between his heart and mind,-both unrelieved
Wrought in his brain and bosom separate strife.
Some said that he was mad, others believed

That memories of an antenatal life
Made this, where now he dwelt, a penal hell;
And others said that such mysterious grief
From God's displeasure, like a darkness, fell
On souls like his which owned no higher law
Than love; love calm, steadfast, invincible
By mortal fear or supernatural awe;
And others," "Tis the shadow of a dream
Which the veiled eye of memory never saw

"But through the soul's abyss, like some dark stream
Through shattered mines and caverns underground
Rolls, shaking its foundations; and no beam

"Of joy may rise, but it is quenched and drowned
In the dim whirlpools of this dream obscure,
Soon its exhausted waters will have found

"A lair of rest beneath thy spirit pure,
O Athanase!-in one so good and great,
Evil or tumult cannot long endure.'

So spake they idly of another's state
Babbling vain words and fond philosophy;
This was their consolation; such debate

Men held with one another; nor did he
Like one who labours with a human woe
Decline this talk; as if its theme might be

Another, not himself, he to and fro

Questioned and canvassed it with subtlest wit,

And none but those who loved him best could know

That which he knew not, how it galled and bit
His weary mind, this converse vain and cold;
For like an eyeless nightmare grief did sit

Upon his being; a snake which fold by fold

Pressed out the life of life, a clinging fiend

Which clenched him if he stirred with deadlier hold ;-
And so his grief remained-let it remain untold.*

December, 1817.

The Author was pursuing a fuller development of the ideal character of Athanase, when it struck him that in an attempt at extreme refinement and analysis, his conceptions might be betrayed into the assuming a morbid character. The reader will judge whether he is a loser or gainer by this difference.-Author's Note.

PART II.

FRAGMENT 1.

PRINCE Athanase had one beloved friend,
An old, old man, with hair of silver white,
And lips where heavenly smiles would hang and blend

With his wise words; and eyes whose arrowy light

Shone like the reflex of a thousand minds.

He was the last whom superstition's blight

Had spared in Greece-the blight that cramps and blinds,—

Had sate from earliest youth. Like one who finds

A fertile island in the barren sea,

One mariner who has survived his mates

Many a drear month in a great ship-so he

With soul-sustaining songs, and sweet debates
Of ancient lore, there fed his lonely being:-
The mind becomes that which it contemplates,"—

And thus Zonoras, by for ever seeing

Their bright creations, grew like wisest men;
And when he heard the crash of nations fleeing

A bloodier power than ruled thy ruins then,
O sacred Hellas! many weary years

He wandered, till the path of Laian's glen

Was grass-grown-and the unremembered tears
Were dry in Laian for their honoured chief,
Who fell in Byzant, pierced by Moslem spears:-

And as the lady looked with faithful grief
From her high lattice o'er the rugged path,
Where she once saw that horseman toil, with brief

And blighting hope, who with the news of death
Struck body and soul as with a mortal blight,
She saw beneath the chestnuts, far beneath,

An old man toiling up, a weary wight;
And soon within her hospitable hall

She saw his white hairs glittering in the light

Of the wood fire, and round his shoulders fall;
And his wan visage and his withered mien
Yet calm and [

] and majestical.

And Athanase, her child, who must have been
Then three years old, sate opposite and gazed.

FRAGMENT II.

Such was Zonoras; and as daylight finds

An amaranth glittering on the path of frost,

When autumn nights have nipt all weaker kinds,

Thus had his age, dark, cold, and tempest-tost,
Shone truth upon Zonoras; and he filled
From fountains pure, nigh overgrown and lost,

The spirit of Prince Athanase, a child,
With soul-sustaining songs of ancient lore
And philosophic wisdom, clear and mild.

And sweet and subtle talk they evermore,
The pupil and master shared; until,
Sharing the undiminishable store,

The youth, as shadows on a grassy hill

Outrun the winds that chase them, soon outran
His teacher, and did teach with native skill

Strange truths and new to that experienced man;
Still they were friends, as few have ever been
Who mark the extremes of life's discordant span.

And in the caverns of the forest green,
Or by the rocks of echoing ocean hoar,
Zonoras and Prince Athanase were seen

By summer woodmen; and when winter's roar
Sounded o'er earth and sea its blast of war,
The Balearic fisher, driven from shore,

Hanging upon the peaked wave afar,

Then saw their lamp from Laian's turret gleam,
Piercing the stormy darkness like a star,

Which pours beyond the sea one steadfast beam,
Whilst all the constellations of the sky

Seemed wrecked.

They did but seem―.

For, lo! the wintry clouds are all gone by,

And bright Arcturus through yon pines is glowing,
And far o'er southern waves, immovably

Belted Orion hangs-warm light is flowing
From the young moon into the sunset's chasm.-
"O, summer night! with power divine, bestowing

"On thine own bird the sweet enthusiasm
Which overflows in notes of liquid gladness,
Filling the sky like light! How many a spasm

"Of fevered brains, oppressed with grief and madness, Were lulled by thee, delightful nightingale ! And these soft waves, murmuring a gentle sadness,

"And the far sighings of yon piny dale

Made vocal by some wind, we feel not here,

I bear alone what nothing may avail

"To lighten-a strange load!"-No human ear
Heard this lament; but o'er the visage wan
Of Athanase, a ruffling atmosphere

Of dark emotion, a swift shadow ran,
Like wind upon some forest-bosomed lake,
Glassy and dark.—And that divine old man

Beheld his mystic friend's whole being shake,
Even where its inmost depths were gloomiest-
And with a calm and measured voice he spake,

And with a soft and equal pressure, prest
That cold lean hand:-"Dost thou remember yet
When the curved moon then lingering in the west

"Paused in yon waves her mighty horns to wet,

How in those beams we walked, half resting on the sea? 'Tis just one year-sure thou dost not forget

"Then Plato's words of light in thee and me Lingered like moonlight in the moonless east, For we had just then read-thy memory

"Is faithful now-the story of the feast; And Agathon and Diotima seemed From death and [

] released.

FRAGMENT III.

'Twas at the season when the Earth upsprings
From slumber, as a sphered angel's child,
Shadowing its eyes with green and golden wings,

Stands up before its mother bright and mild,
Of whose soft voice the air expectant seems---
So stood before the sun, which shone and smiled

To see it rise thus joyous from its dreams,
The fresh and radiant Earth. The hoary grove
Waxed green-and flowers burst forth like starry beams;—

The grass in the warm sun did start and move,
And sea-buds burst under the waves serene:-
How many a one, though none be near to love,
Loves then the shade of his own soul, half seen
In any mirror or the spring's young minions,
The winged leaves amid the copses green;-

How many a spirit then puts on the pinions
Of fancy, and outstrips the lagging blast,
And his own steps-and over wide dominions

Sweeps in his dream-drawn chariot, far and fast.

More fleet than storms-the wide world shrinks below,
When winter and despondency are past.

'Twas at this season that Prince Athanase

Past the white Alps-those eagle-baffling mountains
Slept in their shrouds of snow;-beside the ways

The waterfalls were voiceless-for their fountains
Were changed to mines of sunless crystal now,
Or by the curdling winds-like brazen wings