"Ofjoy may rise, but it is quenched and drowned "A lair of rest beneath thy spirit pure, So spake they idly of another's state Men held with one another; nor did he 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 Upon his being; a snake which fold by fold Which clenched him if he stirred with deadlier hold;And so his grief remained-let it remain-untold.* The Author was pursuingja fuller developement 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 Joser or a gainer by this difference.-Author's Note. December, 1817. PRINCE ATHANASE. PART II. FRAGMENT I. PRINCE Athanase had one beloved friend, And lips where heavenly smiles would hang and blend With his wise words; and eyes whose arrowy light He was the last whom superstition's blight Had spared in Greece-the blight that cramps and blinds, And in his olive bower at noe Had sate from earliest youth. Like one who finds A fertile island in the barren sea, One mariner who has survived his mates With soul-sustaining songs, and sweet debates And thus Zonoras, by forever seeing : Their bright creations, grew like wisest men; A bloodier power than ruled thy ruins then, Was grass-grown-and the unremembered tears And as the lady looked with faithful grief And blighting hope, who with the news of death An old man toiling up, a weary wight; She saw his white hairs glittering in the light Of the wood fire, and round his shoul lers fall; Yet calm and [ And Athanase, her child, who must have been FRAGMENT II. Such was Zonoras; and as daylight finds Thus had his age, dark, cold, and tempest-tost, The spirit of Prince Athanase, a child, And sweet and subtle talk they evermore, The youth, as shadows on a grassy hill Strange truths and new to that experienced man; And in the caverns of the forest green, By summer woodmen; and when winter's roar Hanging upon the peaked wave afar, Then saw their lamp from Laian's turret gleam, Which pours beyond the sea one stedfast beam, Seemed wrecked. They did but seem― For, lo! the wintry clouds are all gone by, And bright Arcturus through yon pines is glowing, 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 Of dark emotion, a swift shadow ran, |