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Then his trumpeters in the van
On their silver bugles blew,
And in crowds about him ran
Albanian and Turkoman,

That the sound together drew.
And he feasted with his friends,
And when they were warm with wine,
He said: "O friends of mine,
Behold what fortune sends,
And what the Fates design!
King Amurath commands
That my father's wide domain,
This city and all its lands,
Shall be given to me again."

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The city and lands are thine;

Who shall contend with Fate ?"

Anon from the castle walls
The crescent banner falls,

And the crowd beholds instead,

Like a portent in the sky,

Iskander's banner fly,

The Black Eagle with double head;
And a shout ascends on high,

For men's souls are tired of the Turks,
And their wicked ways and works,

That have made of Ak-Hissar

A city of the plague;

And the loud, exultant cry

That echoes wide and far
Is: "Long live Scanderbeg!"

It was thus Iskander came
Once more unto his own;
And the tidings, like the flame
Of a conflagration blown

By the winds of summer, ran,
Till the land was in a blaze,
And the cities far and near,
Sayeth Ben Joshua Ben Meir,

In his Book of the Words of the Days,

"Were taken as a man

Would take the tip of his ear."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Bosphorus (Straits of Constantinople).

ON A YOUNG BRIDE DROWNED IN THE BOSPHORUS.

STRANGER! shouldst thou to Thessaly return,

Say to my heart's dear lord that here I lie, Here, where the Bosphor's waves are foaming high, And bid him near our bower my name inurn, So to preserve his young bride's memory.

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Agathias. Tr. W. Peter.

THE WAIL AND WARNING OF THE THREE KHALENDEERS.

LA' laha, il Allah!

Here we meet, we three, at length,

Amrah, Osman, Perizad:

Shorn of all our grace and strength,

Poor, and old, and very sad!
We have lived, but live no more;
Life has lost its gloss for us,
Since the days we spent of yore
Boating down the Bosphorus!
La' laha, il Allah!

The Bosphorus, the Bosphorus!

Old Time brought home no loss for us.

We felt full of health and heart

Upon the foamy Bosphorus !

La' laha, il Allah!

Days indeed! A shepherd's tent

Served us then for house and fold;
All to whom we gave or lent
Paid us back a thousand-fold.
Troublous years, by myriads wailed,
Rarely had a cross for us,
Never when we gayly sailed,
Singing down the Bosphorus.
La' laha, il Allah!

The Bosphorus, the Bosphorus!
There never came a cross for us,
While we daily, gayly sailed
Adown the meadowy Bosphorus.

La' laha, il Allah!
Blithe as birds we flew along,

Laughed and quaffed and stared about; Wine and roses, mirth and song,

Were what most we cared about.
Fame we left for quacks to seek,

Gold was dust and dross for us,
While we lived from week to week,
Boating down the Bosphorus.
La' laha, il Allah!

The Bosphorus, the Bosphorus !
And gold was dust and dross for us,
While we lived from week to week,
A-boating down the Bosphorus.

La' laha, il Allah!

Friends we were, and would have shared Purses, had we twenty full.

If we spent, or if we spared,

Still our funds were plentiful.
Save the hours we past apart
Time brought home no loss for us;
We felt full of hope and heart
While we clove the Bosphorus.
La' laha, il Allah!

The Bosphorus, the Bosphorus !
For life has lost its gloss for us,
Since the days we spent of yore
Upon the pleasant Bosphorus !

La' laha, il Allah!
Ah! for youth's delirious hours,
Man pays well in after days.
When quenched hopes and palsied powers
Mock his love-and-laughter days.

Thorns and thistles on our path
Took the place of moss for us,
Till false fortune's tempest wrath
Drove us from the Bosphorus.
La' laha, il Allah!

The Bosphorus, the Bosphorus!

When thorns took place of moss for us,

Gone was all! Our hearts were graves
Deep, deeper than the Bosphorus !

La' laha, il Allah!

Gone is all! In one abyss

Lie health, youth, and merriment! All we've learned amounts to this, Life's a sad experiment.

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