PART II. FRAGMENT I. PRINCE Athanase had one beloved friend, 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 Enoe 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 And thus Zonoras, by for ever 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 shoulders fall; ] and majestical. And Athanase, her child, who must have been 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, The spirit of Prince Athanase, a child, And sweet and subtle talk they evermore, The youth, as shadows on a grassy hill Outrun the winds that chase them, soon outran 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 steadfast 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 "On thine own bird the sweet enthusiasm "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, Beheld his mystic friend's whole being shake, And with a soft and equal pressure, prest "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 Stands up before its mother bright and mild, To see it rise thus joyous from its dreams, The grass in the warm sun did start and move, How many a spirit then puts on the pinions Sweeps in his dream-drawn chariot, far and fast, More fleet than storms-the wide world shrinks below, 'Twas at this season that Prince Athanase Past the white Alps--those eagle-baffling mountains The waterfalls were voiceless-for their fountains Which clanged alone the mountain's marble brow, FRAGMENT IV. Thou art the wine whose drunkenness is all Catch thee, and feed from their o'erflowing bowls Invests it; and when heavens are blue Its deserts and its mountains, till they wear In spring, which moves the unawakened forest, That which from thee they should implore:-the weak The strong have broken-yet where shall any seek |