Along the channel may be constantly seen clouds of aquatic birds of dusky plumage, speeding their rapid flight from the Euxine to the Propontis, or bending their restless course from thence back again to the Black Sea, never pausing for a moment to rest their weary wing on the fair green spots of earth that woo them on every side; and it is only when a storm takes place in the Sea of Marmora, or sweeps over the bosom of the Bosphorus, that they fly shrieking to the cypress forest of Scutari for shelter; and these the Turks believe to be the souls of the damned, who have found sepulchre beneath its boughs, and which are permitted, during a period of elementary commotion, to revisit the spot where their mortal bodies moulder; and there mourn together over the crimes and judgment of their misspent existence upon earth—while, during the gentler seasons, they are compelled to pass incessantly within sight of the localities they loved in life, without the privilege of pausing even for one instant in the charmed flight to which they are condemned for all eternity! My mind was full of this legend when I visited the cemetery—and I can offer no better apology for the wild verses that I strung together as I sat upon a fallen column in one of the gloomiest nooks of the forest, and amid the noon-day twilight of the thick branches, while my companions wandered away among the graves. THE DAMNÈD SOULS. Hark! ’tis a night when the storm-god rides In triumph o’er the deep; And the howling voice of the tempest chides The spirits that fain would sleep: When the clouds, like a sable-bannered host, Crowd the dense and lurid sky; And the ship and her crew are in darkness lost As the blast roars rushing by. Voices are heard which summon men To a dark and nameless doom; And spirits, beyond a mortal’s ken, Are wandering through the gloom; While the thunders leap from steep to steep, And the yellow lightnings flash, And the rocks reply to the riot on high, As the wild waves o’er them dash. And we are here, in this night of fear, Urged by a potent spell, Haunting the glade where our bones are laid, Our tale of crime to tell— We have hither come, through the midnight gloom, As the tempest about us rolls, To spread mid the graves, where the rank grass waves, The feast of the Damnèd Souls. Some have flown from the deep sea-caves Which the storm-won treasures hold; And these are they who through life were slaves To the sordid love of gold; No other light e’er meets their sight, Save the gleam of the yellow ore; And loathe they there, in their dark despair, What they idolized before.