Is weak. The king of Athens pities them, But cruel oracles vex him with fear: "Lo, from thy blood, thrice-noble virgin, shall The conquerless new enemy be conquered."

None stirs, alas! Orphanhood is forsaken By all. Then, filled with pride of heroes, thou, Redeemer of a land and race, divine

Daughter thrice-worthy of the great Alcides, Plungest into thy breast the victim's sword And diest a thrice-free death, Makaria.

1896.



TO PALLIS[21] FOR HIS "ILIAD"

From cups that are both ours and strange, Enameled, and adorned with leaves Of laurel and of ivy green, We quaff the wine both pure and mixed.

The liquid that within us burns, Or poured in cups about us gleams And bird-like sings, brings us away To the far Isle of dreams. But thou

Enviest not the path of dreams, Nor sharest in our drunken revel; For with our fathers' spacious cup,

The strong and simple, thou hast brought Immortal water from the spring Of Homer, thou O traveller!

1903.



HAIL TO THE RIME

Cyprus's shores have not beheld thee born of foam; A foreign Vulcan forged thee on a diamond anvil With a gold hammer; and the bard who touches thee, Bound with thy magic beauty's charms, remains thy thrall.

The yearning prayers of a lover fondly loved Cannot accomplish what thou canst, strange nightingale! Thy song wafts me upon the tranquil fields of calm When jackals born of woeful cares within me howl.

Thy might gives even sin a garment beautiful; And thought divine before thee bows in reverence. Imagination's ship sails with thy help straight on

Where Solomon and Croesus have their treasuries. To thee I pray! Answer my greeting lovingly, Thou new tenth Muse among the nine of old, O Rime!

1896.



THE RETURN 1897

(1897 is the year of the Greco-Turkish war which ended disastrously for Greece. See Introduction, page 58.)



DEDICATION

_Mother thrice reverend, O widowed saint, Upon thy shattered throne I come to place The crowns of Art, dream-made and dream-engraved. With war storms desolate, my native land, Trod by the Turk and by strangers scorned thou wert; Even thy child beholding thee in ruins, As if the waters of Oblivion In dark Oblivion's Dale had touched his lips, Left thee; and thou didst writhe like a whole world Engulfed in sounds of woe: Hair-tearings and Breast-beatings, groans of sad despair, night-bats Wandering restlessly, unheeded prayers Of souls condemned, loud thunder peals, fierce glares Of lightnings, and the laughter of the fiends!

But lo, unknown and humble I, with calm Upon my countenance and storm in mind, Far from the panic-stricken market place, Beneath the plane trees' shade, and far away By the blood-tinctured settings of the suns, Unruffled, in another land I travelled, And deep I dug in distant treasure mines. And with my hand, that knows no rifle's touch, Slowly I hammered on the crowns of art; And if thou findest nowhere on their gleam Thine image painted, or thy blessed name Written, thou knowest still, O motherland, Though in thy woe's abyss they seem unlike, And though a strange and careless glimmer shines On them, they were created out of thee; For thee I made them; and for thee I raised them.

Perhaps, when in the midst of wilderness And ruins thou first openest thine eyes, O hapless One, my humble offerings Will not appear like thy wrath's threats, nor like The joyful trumpetings of thy reveille, Nor like an image of thy passion's cross, Nor like thy sorrow's dirge, nor like glad hymns; But like soft songs and trembling lights and fondlings Of lily hands, black birds, and stars unknown.

Thus when, smitten with Charon's knife and sunk In death's dark swoon, a hapless mother feels Life's tide return, she hears again, like first Life-summons, the anxious voice of her fond child, A voice that comforts her and tenderly Tells of a thousand tales of love his fancy Weaves or his memory recalls, and drowns His faintest sigh not to remind his mother Of the unerring blow of Charon's knife.

Mother thrice-reverend, O widowed saint, Upon thy shattered throne I come to place The crowns of Art dream-made and dream-engraved. Though they will echo not thy sorrow's groans, A child of thine has bound them on thine earth With gold; upon their circles thine own speech Is shown with master tongue; their light is drawn From thy sun's gleaming fountain; seek no more!

Only with harmony sublime and pure, Which, though it rises over time and space, Turns the world's ears to his native land, The poet is the greatest patriot._



THE TEMPLE

My knees, bent on thy marble pavement, bleed, O Temple built apart in wilderness For an unseen divinity, a goddess Who from her being's deep abyss reveals Only a statue wrought by human hand And even covered with a veil opaque.

Methinks I see among thy sculptured columns, Among thy secret treasures and thine altars, Ion, the Delphic priest, who lays aside The snow-white raiment of the sacrifice And takes up the wayfarer's knotty staff. I am no ministrant, nor have I held The dreadful mystic key, nor have I touched Boldly or timidly the sacred gate That leads to Life's deep-hidden mysteries. One sinner more, O Temple, in the midst Of sinful multitudes, I come to worship.

My knees, bent on thy marble pavement, bleed; I feel the chill of night or of the tomb Creeping upon me slowly, stealthily. But lo, I struggle to shake off the evil That creeps on me so cold; with longing heart, I drag my bleeding knees beyond thy walls, Out of thy columns—forests stifling me— Into the sunlight and the moon's soft glimmer.

Away with prayer's burning frankincense! Away with the gold knife of the sacrifice! Away with choirs loud-voiced and clad in white, Singing their hymns about the flaming altars! Abandoning thee, O Temple, I return To the small hut of the first bloom of time.



THE HUT

O humble hut of the first bloom of time, Neither the noisy city's mingled Babel, Nor the most tranquil soul of the great plain, Nor the gold cloud of dust on the wide road, Nor the brook's course that sings like nightingales, Nothing of these is either shown to thee Or speaks before thy bare and flowerless window, O humble hut of the first bloom of time.

Only the neighbor's step now echoes on From the rough pavement built in Turkish times; The black wall's shadow, on the narrow street; And on the lonely ruins lightning-struck Ere they became the glory of a house, The nettles revel lustful and unreaped. Beneath the bare and flowerless window's sill, A nest of greenish black, like a small heart, Hangs tenantless and waits and waits and waits In vain for the return of the first swallow That has gone forth, its first and last of dwellers.

O thirsty eyes that linger magnet-bound On the nest's orphanhood of greenish black! O ears filled with the terror of the tune That travels to the bare and flowerless window High from thy roof moss-covered with neglect, O humble hut of the first bloom of time! It is the tune the lone-owl always plays Blowing upon the cursed flute of night Its lingering shrill notes of mournful measure, Herald of woe and prophet of all ill.



THE RING

The ring is lost! The wedding ring is gone!

A folk song.

My mother planned a wedding feast for me And chose me for a wife a Nereid, A tender flower of beauty and of faith. My mother wished to wed me with thy charms, O Fairy Life, thou first of Nereids!

And hastily she goes to seek advice, Begging for gold from every sorceress And powerful witch, and gold from forty brides Whose wedding crowns are fresh upon their brows; And making with the gold a ring enchanted, She puts it on my finger and she binds With golden bond my youthful human flesh To the strange Fairy—how strange a wedding ring!—

I was the boy that always older grew With the transporting passion of a pair Bethrothed who, lured by longing, countenance Their wedding moment as an endless feast Upon a bridal bed of lily white.

The boy I was that always older grew Gold-bound with Life, the Fairy conqueress; The boy I was that always older grew With love and thirst unquenchable for Life; The boy I was that always older grew Destined to tread upon a path untrod Amidst the light, illumined. I was he Whose brow like an Olympian victor's shone And like the man's who tamed Bucephalus. I was the nimble dolphin with gold wings, Arion's watchful and quick deliverer.

But then, one day,—I know not whence and how— Upon a shore of sunburned sands, the hour Of early evening saddened with dark clouds, I wrestled with a strange black boy new-come, Risen to life from the great sea's abyss; And in the savage spite of that long struggle, The ring fell from my finger and was gone!

Did the great earth engulf it? Did the wave Swallow it? I know not. But this I know: For ever since, the binding spell is rent! And Fairy Life, the first of Nereids, My own bethrothed, that was my slave and queen, Vanished away like a fleet cloud of smoke!

And ever since, from my first-blooming youth To the first flakes of silver that now fall On the black forest of my hair, since then, Some power dumb and dreadful holds me bound With a mere shadow fleeting and unknown That seems not to exist, yet ever longs And vainly strives to enter into being.

And now I am Life's widowed mate and hapless, Life's great and careless patient! Woe is me! And I am like the fair Alcithoe, Daughter of the ancient king, who changed her form And as a sign of the gods' vengeful wrath Is now instead of princess a night-bat!



THE CORD GRASS FESTIVAL

See far away, what a glad festival The golden grasses on the meadow weave! A festival thrice-fragrant with blond flowers! With the sweet sunrise sweetly wakening, I also wish to join the festival And, like a treasure reaper, to embrace Masses of flowers blond and fresh with dew, And then to squander all my flower treasure At my love's feet, for my heart's ruling queen.

But the gold-spangled meadow spreads too deep; And, just as mourning for some dead deprives A life rejoicing with its twenty years Of its light raiments of a lily-white, So is my swift and merry way cut short By a bad way that lies between, without An end, beset with brambles and with marshes!

The thorny plants tear like an enemy's claws; And like bird-lime the bad plain's mire ensnares My feet among the brambles and the marshes, Where, in the parching sun's enflaming shafts, The brine, like silver lightning, strikes my eyes!

Where is the coolness of a breath? Where is The covering shadow of a leafy tree? I faint! My frame is bent! My way is lost! I droop exhausted on the briny earth, And in my lethargy I feel the thorns Upon my brow; the bitter brine upon My lips; the sultriness of the south wind Upon my hands; the kisses of the marsh Upon my feet; the rushes' fondling on My breast; and the hard fate and impotence Of this bare world within me. Where art thou, My love? See far, in depths of purple sunsets Gorgeously painted, the glad festival That golden grasses on the meadow weave, The festival thrice-fragrant with blond flowers, Sees me, and calls me still, and waits for me!



THE FAIRY

When in the evening on my hut the moon Spreads her soft silver nets that dreams have wrought, The hut is caught, and, by the net bewitched, It changes and becomes a lofty tower.

And then, unseen by the Day's Sun, the father Of Health, the rosy-cheeked, who always sees All things with careless and short-sighted eyes, A monstrous vision lo, the Fairy Illness, Stripped in the silver glimmer of the moon, Herself of moonlight born, looms into sight Slowly in the enchanted tower's midst!

In whitening shimmers, she, like sea at night, Advances with the step of sleeping men; Death's pallor is her own, though not Death's chill; Her ivory skeleton is mantled by A fleshy cover made of fiery air; The uncouth flowers on her dragging veil Seem, like the poppies, crimson red and black; And still more uncouth look the countless things Wrought on its folds: dragons and ogresses, Fevers and lethargies and pains of heart, Nightmares and storms and earthquakes, breaking nerves.

Delirium flies from her burning lips, A language made of odd, discordant rhythms. To nothing, either hers or strange, her eyes Are like; deep, as abyss untrod, they yawn, And seem as if they gaze immovable On empty space. Yet shouldst thou stoop with thirst To mirror on her staring eyes thine own, Then wouldst thou see worlds buried in their caves, Like ruined cities of whole centuries, Sunk in the fairy-spangled oceans' depths!



OUT IN THE OPEN LIGHT

Out in the open light, the Sun is shining, Father of Health, Health rosy cheeked, whose breasts Are full, and yield their milk abundantly; She only sees those things of flesh about Which her divine sun-father shows to her; And her unconquerable iron hands Are matched with careless and short-sighted eyes.

Out in the open light, even the moon, The Sibyl, clothed in white, appears, with glance Lyncean, piercing deep and bringing forth From the world's ends great hosts of monstrous things, The monsters born of shadows and of dreams.



FIRST LOVE

When in my breast I felt my first-born love, Thrice-noble maiden of compliant heart, I was possessed with the strange fear that filled The youthful princess of the ancient tale At sight of the black man's enchanted rod.

O mate, who madest first my early years Blossom, too soon thou fleddest far from me Nor sawest me again! Wild Fairies took My speech, and evil demons seized my all; Yet soul and body, my whole being shivers From that awakening thou sangest me, Eternal Woman! Thou wert what far Mecca Is for the faithful's prayer to his prophet. O far off Mecca! O eternal Fear Of white Desire upon the shining wings Of a black sinner! O king Love, chased like Orestes, by a Fury serpent-haired!



THE MADMAN

A madman chased my early childhood years Thrice-sweet and blossoming, and seizing them— Alas!—he crushed them in his reckless fury Like twigs of purple-colored pomegranate!

He scattered them in pieces everywhere: Into the joyless house and in the yard, On narrow streets, and paths, and pathless haunts, Where persecution raves, and menace dumb Chills all away from the pure light and air. The madman's cursed hands hold everything With snares and claws and stones and knives; they fall On loneliness and on embracings, night Or day, on sleep or wake, and everywhere!

And yonder on the streets and in the houses, Children like me in age, whose years were filled With bloom and sweetness, freely ran and laughed And played. Behind me, close, the madman's snares I heard; and then, the deadened sound of feet! I breathed his flaming breath! And if his steps Were slow, still wilder did his laughter hunt me!

Oh, for my life's cold quiverings of pain! Oh, for the goading—not like the divine Goading that drove the maid of Inachus, Io, to wander on and on in frenzy;— But like the sudden goading that smites down The little bird when first it tries its wings! And lo, blood of my blood the madman was! A past, ancestral, long forgotten sin, That, bursting forth upon me vampire-like, Snatched from my head the dewy crown of joy!



OUR HOME

Our home has not the ugly clamoring Nor the dumb stillness of the other homes About and opposite. For in our home Rare birds sing forth uncommon melodies; And in our home-yard a young offshoot grows, Sprung from Dodona's tree oracular! And in the garden of our home, full thick, The ironworts and snakeroots blossom on; And in our home the magic mirror shines Reflecting always in its gleaming glass The visage of the world thrice-wonderful!

The silence of our home is full of moans, Moans vague and muffled from a distant world Of bygone ages and of times unborn; And in our home souls come to life and die. Blossom from blossom blossoms forth and fades! Old men have the white, rich, Levitic beard, The foreheads wide of solemn contemplation, The wrath of prophets, and the fleeting calm And chilling threatfulness of the gray shadows.

Glowing with love-heat like resistless Satyrs, The young men in the mind's most shady glades Hunt ardently the bride that is pure thought. The children drop their playthings carelessly, And, standing in a corner motionless, Open their eyes in thought like men full-grown. And all, ancestors and descendants, young Or old, have ways that challenge ridicule And have the word that bursting forth makes slaves!

But still more beautiful and pure than these, An harmony fit for the chosen few Fills with its ringing sounds our dwelling place, A lightning sent from Sinai and a gleam From great Olympus, like the mingling sounds Of David's harp and Pindar's lyre conversing In the star-spangled darkness of the night.



THE DEAD

Within this place, I breathe a dead man's soul; And the dead man, a blond and beardless youth! A youthful light and blond stirs in our home; And moments fly, and days and years and ages. The dead man's soul is in this lonely house Like bitter quiet about a calm-bound ship That longs for the sea-paths, and dreams of storms.

All faces, smoked with the faint smoke that glides From candles lighting death! All eyes, still fixed On a sad coffin! And the mute lips, tinged With the last kiss's bitterness, still tremble. As for a prayer, hands are raised, and feet Move quietly as behind a funeral. The snow-white nakedness of the cold walls And black luxuriance of the mourning robes Are like discordant music of two tunes.

The children's step is light in thoughtful care Lest they disturb the slumber of the dead. The old men, bent as at a pit's dark end, Lean on the virgins' shoulders, virgins fair Like fates benevolent and comforting. The young men seek on endless paths to find In Wisdom's hands the weed Oblivion. And on the window shutters that are closed, The clay pots with their flowers seem to be A dead man's wreath; and the lone ray that glides Through the small fissure is transformed within Into a taper's light on All Souls' Day.

The candle burning at the sacred image Is flickering and snaps as if it wrestled With death. At moments, led astray, comes here A butterfly of varied wings and brings In airy flesh the Ave of the soul That did enchant the house, the house that seems Glad for its dead yet loves and longs for him, The dead blond youth, and claims him as its own! And luring him, that it might hold for ever Its chosen love relentlessly, it has Now changed its form and turned from house to grave!



THE COMRADE

O boy of the glad school of seven years, With thy tall form, a shadow of all thou wert. Thy voice had sweetness never heard before, A font of holy water of which all Partook with fear and longing! We forgot With thee the book and laughed thy merry laughter; Thou didst tear lifeless readings from our minds Together with the pedant's torpid mullen, And didst sow deep into our hearts the seed Of the gold tree that dazzles with its light, And charms, and is a tale most wonderful!

The princesses, with valiant heroes mated, Shone in the hauntless palace of our thought, First-born; and on imagination's meadow, Another April bloomed. We saw Saint George, The rider, slay the dragon and redeem The maiden. They were not letters that thy hand's White clay did write, but like the mystic seal Of Solomon, it scratched a magic knot; And thy forefinger moved within thy hand Like fair Dionysus' thyrsus blossoming!

Amidst the restless swarm of humming children, We had the clamor; and thou hadst the honey, Turning attention to a prayer, thou, O comrade of the early years that bloomed, O chosen being, unforgettable, Worthy of everlasting memory! Wherever thou still art or wanderest; Whomever thou hast followed of the two Women, who, in the past, did stir Alcmena's Great son, after thou camest upon them On some crosspath; whether thou blossomest Like the pure lily, or tower-like thou risest; Whether thou art neglected like a crumb, Shinest as thy country's pride, or art alone, A stranger among strangers wandering; Whether life's riddle or the grave's holds thee; Whatever and wherever thou now art, O brother mine and mate, from my lips here Accept my distant kiss with godlike grace!



RHAPSODY

Homer divine! Joy of all time and glory! When in the coldness of a frigid school, Upon the barrenness of a hard bench, My teacher's graceless hands placed thee before me, O peerless book, what I had thought would be A lesson, proved a mighty miracle!

The heavens opened wide and clear in me; The sea, a sapphire sown with emerald; The bench became a throne palatial; The school, a world; the teacher, a great bard!

It was not reading nor the fruit of thought: A vision it was that shone most wonderful, A melody my ears had never heard.

In the great cavern that a forest deep Of poplars and of cypresses encircles, In the great fragrant cavern that the glow Of burning cedar beats with pleasant warmth, Calypso of the shining hair spins not Her web with golden shuttle; nor sings she With limpid voice. But lifting up her hands, She pours her curses from her flaming heart Against the jealous gods: "O mortal men Adored by the immortal goddesses, Who on Olympus shared with you their love's Ambrosia, and mortals crushed to dust By jealous gods!..." The goddess's awful curse Makes the fresh celeries and violets fade, And, like the hail sent by the heaven's wrath, It burns the clusters on the fruitful vines!

The hero far renowned of Ithaca Alone heeds not the flaming curse, that he, A wanderer, in the Nymph's heart did light Unwittingly. But sea-wrecked and sea-beaten, He sits without, immovable, with eyes Fixed far away; and thus remembering His native island's shores, for ever weeps Upon the coast and near the sea thrice-deep. The white sea-gull that often in its flight Plunges its wings into the brine to catch The fish, and the lone falcon perched afar In the deep forest, lonely and remote, Listen and answer to the hero's wail.

Oh, for my phantasy's revealed first vision! Oh, for the baring of the beautiful Before me! Lo, the dusty, dark-brown land Changes into a Nymph's isle lily-white! The humble fisher lass upon the rock, Into Calypso of the shining hair, love-born! My heart, a traveller into a thousand Lands, thirsting for one country, which is love!

And lo, my soul is, ever since, a lyre Of double strings that echoes with its sound The harmony thrice ancient, curse or wail! Joy of all time and glory, godlike Homer!



IDYL

Now when the tide has covered all the land, Making the pier a sea, the street a strand, And the boat casts anchor at my threshold; Now when I see, wherever I may glance, The water's victory, the billow's glory, And see the rising tide a ruling empress; Now when a playful and good-minded flood Closes about the houses, plants, and men Fondly, in a soft-flowing, sweet embrace; Now when the air, the planter of the tree Of Health, raised by the great sea's breath, digs deep Into the open breasts of living things;

Now, I remember her, the little lass Who had the sea's pure dew, and, like a wave Resistless, surpassed the tide in vehemence. Now I recall the little nimble lass, Life's victory, blossoming youth's proud glory, And joy's own throne. Now I remember her.

Her face was like a cloudless early dawn; Her hair like moonlight shimmering upon The restless wave; her passing, like the flash Of a swift fish that in the night swims by Upon its silver path; her eyes were tinged With the deep color of the sea beneath Black clouds; her voice, the sound of a calm night Upon the beach; her chiseled dimples twin Upon her cheeks were overfilled with smiles That Loves might drink from them to slake their thirst.

Boy-like, she stepped on nimble foot and free, Boldly and daringly with fearless look, A child's soul dwelling in a woman's flesh.

And when the high tide covered all the land, Making the pier a sea, the street a strand, And when the boat cast anchor at my threshold, Then from her home the little girl came forth Half bare, half clad, robed in the robe of light In a swift dancing flood that revelled full Of water-lust and crowns of seething foam.

She gave her orders to the sea; she ruled The tide and forward drove the foaming waves, Just as a shepherd lass, her white-clad sheep. Her native country, first and last, the sea! And whenever she passed, a Venus new Seemed rising from the shining water's depths.

The fisherman, a primitive world's breed, The sum of Christian and of Satyr blood, Returning from his fruitful fishing path, Looked upon her as on an evil tempter And on a sacred image; and his oars Hung on his hands inert as palsy stricken, And the swift-winging bark stood like a rock; And, marble-like, the fisherman within Gazed with religious trembling and desire, Exclaiming as in trance: "O holy Virgin!"



AT THE WINDMILL

About the windmill, the old ruin, when The smile of dawn shines in its rosy tinge, The fisherboys now stir the silent air With sudden ringing shouts and joyful plays; And the light barks that, fastened, wait their coming, Flutter impatiently like flapping wings Of birds whose feet are bound. And all about, The lake-like sea revels in shimmers white Like a wide-open pearl shell on the beach.

About the windmill, the old ruin, when The noon's beams burn like red-hot iron bars, A laden sleep draws with its heavy breath All weary skippers and all mariners: The harpoons creak not in the hand's hard clasp; The fish alone stir in the realm of dew; The calm lagoon about is all agleam, A shield of silver, plaited with pure gold.

Far by the windmill, the old ruin, when The sun is setting, decked in all his glory, The boys go running, looking for pumice stones; And lads and lasses, for sweet furtive glances; And old men, lingering for memories. Old age is calm, and youth considerate. And the lagoon about, a purple glow, A garden thickly planted with blue gentians.

Far by the windmill, the old ruin, when The secret midnight glides by silently, Sea Nereids, brought on the wings of air From the sea caves of Fairies on their steeds Of mist with manes of radiating light, Sing songs, and bathe their diamond forms, and love, While round about the princess-like lagoon Wears as her royal robe the star-spun sky.

Far by the windmill, the old ruin, ere The smile of dawn shine with its rosy tinge, The hosts of tyrant slayers mount from below And kiss the earth war-nurtured and war-glad. They raise again the ruin to a castle With rifles singing back to victories; And the lagoon is full of flashes swift, Like a dark eye kindled with fiery wrath.



WHAT THE LAGOON SAYS

I have the sweetness of the lake and have The bitterness of the great sea. But now, Alas! my sweetness is a little drop; My bitterness, a flood. For the cold winter, The great corsair, has come with the north wind, Death's king. My azure blood has slowly flowed Out of my veins and gone to bring new life To the deep seas. A shroud weed-woven wraps me.

My little islands as my tombstones stand, And yonder well-built weirs are like young trees That droop above my grave bereft of water.

But even so in the death's cold clasp, I hear Within my breast a secret voiceless flutter Like the young fish's flurry when, transfixed, It is dragged by the spear out of the sea. For I still dream of the sweet breath of love, And wait for the hot summer's kiss and yours, O angels of good tidings and new life, Spring breezes, sources of my dreams and love!



PINKS

Fair pinks, with your breath, I have drunk your soul! Brown is the fisherman, and brown the land With the sea brine, the south wind, and the sun; And round the brown land's neck, like necklace Of coral, grow the pinks. Pinks of the gardens, And pinks of the windows; pinks like crowns and stars; Gifts good for any hand, and ornaments For any breast. O flowers blossoming In pleasant rows along the houses' stairs, You sprinkle each man's path with fragrances; And now and then, you bow, touched by the dress Of the young girl who, breeze-like, passes by.

Pinks full and pinks faint-colored; flowers that cause No languor as the roses nor refresh, Like jasmines, flesh and soul; but whose scent has Something of the sharp breath of the lagoon, Even when you are pale like fainting virgins, And even when a world-destroying fire Enflames your petals without burning you!

Pinks, that display now your form's nakedness Like children's bodies freshly bathed, and now The varied ornaments of senseless dwarfs, And now the purple of great emperors! All the transporting music of the red, Like that of many tuneful instruments, Springs from your heart and knows no end, but plays Before my eyes its lasting harmonies. Sweet pinks, with your breath, I have drunk your soul!



RUINS

I turned back to the golden haunts of childhood, And back on the white path of youth; I turned To see the wonder palace built for me Once by the holy hands of sacred Loves.

The path was hidden by the thorny briars; The golden haunts, burned by the midday sun; An earthquake brought the wonder palace low;

And now amidst the ruins and ashes, I Am left alone and palsy-stricken; snakes And lizards, pains and hatreds dwell now here In constant loathful brotherhood with me. An earthquake brought the wonder palace low!



PENELOPE

Wars distant, tempests wild, and foreign lands Keep thy life-mate for years and years away; Dangers and scornings threaten thee; and care With guile and wrath gird thee, Penelope.

About thee, enemies and revellers! But thou wilt hear, and look, and wait for none But him; and on thy loom thou weavest always And then unweavest the thread of thy true love, Penelope.

Than Europe's goods and Asia's Even a greater treasure is thy kiss; Thy loom, much higher than a royal throne; Thy brow an altar, O Penelope!

Mortals and gods know only one more priceless Than thine own loom, thy forehead, or thy kiss: Thy mate, the king thou always longest for, Penelope. Yet even though strange lands Keep him away from thee, and distant wars, And monstrous Scyllas, and the guileful Sirens, Not even they can blot him from thy soul, Him, thy thought's whitest light, Penelope!



A NEW ODE BY THE OLD ALCAEUS

To Lesbos' shores, where the year's seasons always Sprinkle the field with flowers, and where glad The rosy-footed Graces always play With the young maidens, once the stream of Hebrus, Hand-like, brought Orpheus' orphan lyre; and since That time, our island is a sacred shrine Of Harmony, and its wind's breath, a song!

The soul Aeolian took up the lyre Born upon Thracian lands, as foster child; And on its golden strings the restless beatings Of Sappho's and Erinna's flaming hearts Were echoed burningly.

And I, who fight Always against blind mobs and tyrants deaf, I, the pride of the chosen few, the stay Of the great best, returning from exile, A billow-tossed world-wanderer, did stir The selfsame lyre with a new quill and breathed Upon its strings a new heroic breath.

Upon the love-adorned and verdant island, Like a god's trident, now Alcaeus' quill Wakens the storm of sounds, and angrily He strikes with words that are like poisoned arrows Direct and merciless against his foe, Whether a Pittacus or Myrsilus.

In vain did tender love reveal before me On rose-beds Lycus, the young lad, with eyes And hair coal-black, with rosy garlands bound, And Sappho of the honeyed smile, the pure, A muse among the muses, and the mother Of a strange modesty. Love moved me not!

I raised an altar to the war-god Ares; And on my walls, I hung war ornaments, Weapons exulting in the battle's roar. I sang of the sword bound with ivory, My brother's spoil from distant Babylon. I saw my hapless country's ship tossed here And there, and beaten by the giant waves Of anarchy; and with my golden Lyre, Whose voice is mightier than the wild fury Of a tempestuous sea, I called on War, The War who revels in men's blood, to come As a destroyer or deliverer.

And when the war did come in savage din, Brought upon Lesbos by the might of Athens, With heart exultant, I saluted him: "Hail, war of glory!" Yet, alas and thrice Alas! Amidst the world of death and ruins, Though eager warrior and heavy armed, I felt the solid earth beneath me shake; My vengefulness, fade into fleeting mist; My breastplate, press on me like a nightmare; And my white-crested helmet, like a tombstone!

Confusion was my harbor; and I felt In me Life's longing win the victory. And while the nations twain, like maddened bulls Goad-driven, rushed upon each other's death, And stern Alecto spread about the flames Of Tartarus, I saw before mine eyes —O sight enchanting!—Lesbos' luring shores!

Never before were they so beautiful With love and verdant! There I gazed on Lycus, The boy with eyes and hair coal-black that never Before had touched my heart so powerfully. And the Muse Sappho of the honeyed smile Glittered before me, pure and violet crowned; And her strange modesty bewitched my tongue With power unwonted until then; and I, The strong, silently feasted on her beauty!

And while about the maddened Ares raged, Reaper of men and vanquisher of rocks, With my soul's eyes, I followed on the trail Of the Lyre-God, who passed that way, returning From the Hyperboreans' land. He passed Aloft, crowned with a golden diadem, Upon a chariot drawn by snow-white swans, Towards his Delphic palaces, flower-decked, With nightingales and April on his train.

Oh, would that I might live to touch them! Would That I might hold their charms in my embrace, Those charms so sweet and guileful and divine!

And at the thought—alas, and thrice alas!— I threw my trusted sword and shield away, And fled, a shameful coward and a traitor!



FRAGMENTS FROM THE SONG TO THE SUN 1899



IMAGINATION

Imagination, mistress, come! Come thou leading master, mind! And you, O tireless workers, come, Water-Fairies of the Rhythm! Come, and from Desire's great depths, And from the Reason's lofty heights, Bring, oh bring me lasting flowers Wrought on marble and on gold! Bring me words of splendid sound! Build with them the palace high! And within it raise aloft The Sun's image all-transcending Wrought of sunlight gleaming bright!



THE GODS

And the first-born man beheld The sun rise in the east; And from within his bosom lo, A stream of music rose, An answer sweet to the sun's light, A music stream of hymns, Countless words and countless praises To the fountain of the day! And—O miracle!—all hymns And countless words and praises Spread in waves from end to end! And taking flesh in time, They became great gods of light And signs of harmony!



MY GOD

Wounded with the mighty love Of my mistress Life, I wander on, her loyal herald And her worshipper. To thy mystic suppers call Me not, O Galilean, Prophet of the misty dream, Denier of things that are! Crowned with lotus, show me not Nirvana's senseless bliss! Yet, do thou, O Sun, shine forth About, within, above; Shine upon my love and make A world of the Earth planet! Shine life-giving with thy light, O my Sun and God!



HELEN

... She gave not me, but made a breathing image Of the light air of heaven and gave that To royal Priam's son! And yet he thought That he had me—a vain imagining!...

EURIPIDES, Helen, 33-36.

Helen am I! In the Sun's fountain Have I taken birth! I am the Sun-god's golden dream, And unto him I go! Not about me, but about Mine image, which the gods Had wrought, life's perfect counterfeit, Recklessly gods and heroes Plunged into war and war's destruction! For the Cimmerian Enchanter carried far away As his own mate my shade Thrice-beautiful, that rose to life From Night's embrace in an Enchanted land and hour. I am The bride intangible, Inviolable, beyond all reach! Helen am I!



THE LYRE

I know a lyre that is as priceless As a sacred amulet; A spirit with a master hand Made it and cast it here. No mortal hand of skill or love Or power rouses it, Nor makes it answer to the touch With sound or voice or sigh. Even the wise and beautiful, The northwind and the breeze Cannot awaken the sweet lyre! Only the Sun-god's beams, They with one kiss alone can make Its sun-enamored strings Sing Siren-like!



GIANTS' SHADOWS

Like moanings of the sea, I hear Voices ascend from darkness: Are they the giants' shadows moving? —Shadow, who art thou? Speak! —I am the Telamonian! And see, within me I Close the whole sun that never sets Though Hades yawn about; Weep not for me! —And thou beside him? —The heart of Teutons' land Brought me to life. A maker, I, Maker sublime of worlds Olympian, have even here In Tartarus' dark realm One longing for my heart, one thirst: I long and thirst for light!



THE HOLY VIRGIN IN HELL

The chariot moves, drawn by wings Of Cherub Spirits, on! In Hell, the Holy Virgin gleams! "Mercy, O sunlike Lady!" The damned cry and beat their breasts Amidst the flames that burn, Fed by the great abyss. Among them, A sudden proud complaint Is heard: "A worshipper was I Of the great Sun; was this A cause for night to fetter me? Tell me, O sunlike Lady! The light of life I sucked, did that Become the Hell's embrace And Satan's kiss for me?"



SUNRISE

The white swans gently drag their boats Of ivory; bright beams Glimmer as through a veil of agate; And coral-wrought, the crowns Shine on fair locks like amber gleaming. A pearl lake dreamlike lives With water lilies studded. Azure-browed Fairies revelling Quaff wine of honey gold; And mighty riders steal away With brides thrice-beautiful. But thou, an archer mightier, Risest unmaking all The multitudes of binding charms With the one charm of light, O God of wing-sped chariot!



DOUBLE SONG

The lithesome maiden stood thrice-fair, Her eyes like gems agleam! "I pour the crimson wine of love In empty cups of gold!" —"Maiden, I am the nestless bird; Flowery boughs bar not My way. Bound for bright suns magnetic, I sail through darkness blind. Seer am I and worshipper Of all that is and lives! I am the harp of thousand strings Of countless sounds!" —"Thou blind! Seest thou not within mine eyes The magnetism and glory Of all the suns?"



THE SUN-BORN

On great Olympus, a feast of joy! The gods divide the earth; The light-bestower is away; Forgotten he will be. And the light-giver came and nodded To the blue sea; and lo, The sea was rent with fruitful heave! And the Sun's island rose With a thousand beauties crowned; And makers lived upon the island, Beings above all men; And they made statues masterful, All beautiful like gods And living as immortals live!



ON THE HEIGHTS OF PARADISE

The little house I built for thee To dwell therein, enchanter, Even that—to my care-bent grief— Becomes a heavy grave. Yet, little soul of lily whiteness, Spare me thy sad complaint; For on the heights of paradise, I wander longing and I search. I search and wait for it. And on the crossroads wide Of the suns, I shall find a house Snow-white that even eagles High-flying never face; a house That Visions great alone May touch. Therein I shall enthrone thee!



THE STRANGER

When first the vaulting palm-leaves spread Their shelter over thee, The golden Cyclads danced about With merry shouts and laughter. But now,—O nakedness of plains And mountains! Withering Of green leaves everywhere! Thorns suck The green blood of the vines! No April looked on thee again; And on the desert land, The wars of elements and beasts Rage furious. But thee The snow-white swans bring back no more; Thou art for ever guest At the Hyperboreans' feast.



AN ORPHIC HYMN

Far from the footpaths of the thoughtless, An Orphic priest and bard, I bring to light again a hymn Of a thrice-ancient cult. For until now my thought flowed on, A river under earth. Amidst men's tumult my lyre's rhythm, A sudden wonder rose. At night I start, at night I climb The mountain difficult; I wish alone and first to greet Light Apollonian While among mortal men below Darkness and sleep shall reign.



THE POET

Sun made the lily white, The glory of the flowery earth; Sun made the swan, which is The lily of a life white-winged; The eagle, whom he lures Spell-bound to his great heights, And the gold shimmer of the moon, The lovers' loving comrade. And then he dreamed a creature fuller Of lilies, eagles, swans, and shimmers, And made the poet. He Alone beholds thee face to face, O God; and he alone, Reaching into thy heart, reveals To us thy mysteries.



KRISHNA'S WORDS

I am the light within the sun, The flush within the fire; And on the page of the sacred book, I am the mystic word. The men of mighty deeds call me Glory; the wise men, wisdom. Of things existing and of truth, I am the fountain head! I am the life of all that is! Beings and pearls are bound Together with one thread; and that, Is I! Maya alone, The sorceress, behind me follows Beguiling me. But I Battle with her to victory!



THE TOWER OF THE SUN

Away beyond the world's far edge, And where the heavens end, The tower of the sun shines bright Dazzling the mortal's mind. Once mighty princes, sons of kings, Went on a chase most wonderful, And stopped at the Sun's tower. And the Sun came, the dragon star, The giant merciless! Woe unto him who lingers there By the far heavens' end! And the Sun came; and with his spell, He turned them into stones, The princely hunters, sons of kings!

No azure field, no streak of green, No shadow, and no breath! Only a death of light and lightning Glitters about and gleams! And in the tower, in and out, As if by masters set, A world of statues voiceless stand, The offsprings of great kings. And from their deep and smothered eyes, Something like living glance Struggles to peep through its stone veil! It seems the stone-bound princes Wait for a sail, long lingering, From the world's shores away.

And thou, O princess beautiful, Camest from far away, A fair Redeemer! The Sun's tower Gleamed forth as if the light Of a new Dawn embraced its walls. Thou knowest where Life's Fountain Flows, and thou searchest silently, With steps that slowly move Towards the fountain tower-guarded where Life's water flows. And lo, Taming the watchful dragon's fangs, Thou drawest from the fountain Where the sweet water of Life flows on; And sprinkling them with it, Thou wakest up the sons of kings! And on thy homeward trail, Thou shinest with transcending gleam, Like a far greater Sun!



A MOURNING SONG

No! Death cannot have taken thee! In the sweet hour of love, The Sun-god lifted thee away, O child of sunlike beauty! He took thee to his palaces To fill thee with his love, A love that lives in light and is An endless glittering! Flowers with light-born fragrances And fruits as sweet as light, The Sun will pluck for thee; and he Will bathe thee in a stream Flooded with light. And clad In a white robe of light, my child, Thou wilt come back to me, Riding on a star-crowned deer!



PRAYER OF THE FIRST-BORN MEN

Each time the dawn reveals thy face, Each time the darkness hides thee, Before the eyes of all the world, In crimson red thou shinest, Father and God blood-revelling! A bath in blood immortalizes Thine unfathomed beauty! Blood feeds and veils thee, Father And God blood-revelling! To quench thy thirst, we offer thee Our only children's lives; And if their blood fills not thy thirst, We spread for thee a sea Of all the blood of our own heart!



THOUGHT OF THE LAST-BORN MEN

Where temples sounded with hosannas, Stones lie dumb in crumbling ruins; And forgetfulness has swept Dreams and phantoms once called gods. Even you are gone, O myths, Golden makers of the thought, Gone beyond return! In the empty Infinite, Blind laws drive in multitudes Flaming worlds of endless depths. And yet neither gold-haired Phoebus, Who is dead, nor yet the sun, Who now lives a world-abyss, None, God or law, upon this earth Could save us or will ever save Either from the claws of love Or from the teeth of death!



MOLOCH

Barbarians defile the land Where the Greek race was born! And where the loves flew garlanded, Night-bats roam to and fro! And in our night, as a glowworm, The ancients' memory Sends forth its greenish counterfeit Of light! It is a night That our undying sun cannot Dispel with its bright beams! From depths and heights, barbarians Suck soul and fatherland! And when with a low moan thrice-deep, We ask thee, Grecian God, "Art thou the golden-haired Apollo?" Grimly thou answerest, "Moloch, am I!"



ALL THE STARS

When I first looked with wonderment On thee, O Muse of Light, The morning star upon thy brow Shone with bright glittering. And I said: "More of light I need!" And as I looked again On thee, O Muse of Light, the moon Shone brightly on thy brow. And "More!" I said and looked again: And saw the sun agleam! But still insatiate I am, And wait to look on thee When on thy brow, O Muse of Light, The star-spun sky shall shine!



ARROWS

Thou earnest, Phoebus, lower down From pure Olympus' heights Towards the land where idle men And sluggards worthless dwell; And on thy lyre thou playedst, Fountain Of flowing harmonies! The deaf made answer with their sneers! The blind, with scornful laughter! And then to rid the world of filth And purify the air, Thou threwest away thine angry lyre; And turning archer, thou, With fiery arrows smotest all The flocks of fools away!



VERSES OF A FAMILIAR TUNE 1900



THE BEGINNING

A wedding guest, I travel far abroad! The bride, thrice beautiful; the groom, a wizard; And I ride swiftly to the wedding feast. The land is far, and I must travel on; An endless path before me leads away, But till I reach the end, I check the ardor Of my swift-footed stallion silver-shod, And wisely shorten my way's weary length With sounds that, like sweet longings, wake in me, Old sounds familiar, low-whispering Of women's beauties and of home-born shadows. Then flowers pour their fragrances for me; And blossoms with no scent have their own speech, The speech of voiceless eyes that open wide; Unconsciously I speak my words in rimes That with uncommon measure echo forth The flames that burn within the heart, the kisses That the waves squander on the sandy beach, And the sweet birds that sing on children's lips!



THE PARALYTIC ON THE RIVER'S BANK

Upon the graceless river bank that spread Barren and desert, all things drooped in sickness; And I, with palsy stricken, lay in pains! Vainly my hands shook feather-like with fever; Methought my feet were nailed upon the ground; The river, wide and wild; and far beyond, As far as eyes could see, the other bank Revelled in lusty growth and endless mirth With leafy slopes and forests glistening! Meadows unreaped and glades untrod were there, And floods of green and tempests of new blossoms! About the tree-tops glittered crowns of light; Shadows thrice-deep hid mysteries divine; And all descended blindly to the bank Where the wild river's anger held them back, Seeking, it seemed, a ford to come across To the dark bank of wilderness and torture!

And toward me all seemed to stretch their hands, Sending me shameless kisses as I lay Parched by the burning wind and worn with fever. Nearby a sun-dried reed poured forth its sighs; And farther, a small laurel stirred its leaves: The double treasure of my wilderness.

I wished to cut a flute from the dry reed And wished a crown of laurel; but I lay Nailed down immovable as if the rod Of an enchantress evil-born had touched me; And within me, with wings of impotence, My wounded mind fluttered on hopelessly!

And then thou camest girt with working garb; With girdle flower-spun, with apron full Of fruits, didst thou bend over me. The spell Thou didst dispel and gavest me to eat And cleansedst me with myrrh; and suddenly, A soul divine and merciful came down On the bank merciless; and in thine arms Lifting me gently, thou didst go forth Amidst a moaning as of humming bees. Thou stoodst on the threshold of the peasant hut, The hut that was earth-built and filled with grass As if the art of a small bird had wrought it.

Thou didst lay me upon a bed at dusk That I might rest; and mingled with sweet care And innocence, thou didst lean by my side With body ripe and beautiful. Wert thou A lover, mother, sister, or a woman? Thou didst lay on my brow thy hand to lull me; And in thy thoughtful face, I saw the gleam Of kindly Nausica and good Rebecca.

I slept and woke; even my sorrow's ogress Had turned into a fairy sweetly sad! And in my hands I found both, laurel bough And reed! I drank the fragrant morning breath Of pines; and taking up the laurel boughs, I wove with master hand the whole day long All kinds of laurel crowns for thee; and then I poured into the unaccustomed air Of thy small hut a flute's soft-flown complaint.

But from my bed, I lifted up mine eyes To the window's light and saw again, alas, The desert river bank, and, far beyond, The world that squandered diamonds and pearls And revelled in its joy of green dew-clad. Again they nodded secretly at me, Stretching their hands and feigning love! And even near thee, palsy struck I was, The paralytic on the river bank!



THE SIMPLE SONG

Thou camest far away from lands beyond! Thou wert not a gold sunlit cloud at sunset But mother of a honeyed tenderness That until then lay hidden in my mind's Tenderest shrine; the golden seal of a Young maiden's joy stamped with its touch! The evening star thou wert not; but thou wert The sister of a simple love that lay Hidden till then in my heart's inner depths.

Before me thou didst not unfold the spaces Of the blue skies; not didst thou lift mine eyes Towards the rough-hewn peak; nor didst thou open To me the way for distant palaces; Nor didst thou lead me by a secret path Untrod. But lifting with one hand the basket, Gently thou heldest with the other mine; And leading me to sit by ferns dew-clad And deep green grass and snow-white flowers, thou Badest me stoop and gather; and I stooped And gathered all my hands could reach: wall-flowers, Hyacinths, violets, and daffodils; And found beside them a May day anew.

Over their petals newly reaped and fresh That made the basket seem a cruel spring, I bent and wept for their deaths swift and fair; And lo, thou didst face them, a Life agleam!



THREE KISSES

A Dream flew down and stood before mine eyes— Who knows from what unknown deep-hidden nest? It took the face of my own secret love And blew me with its hands three airy kisses:

The first air-kiss spread in my breast the din Of bitter and sweet life in waves of air; And the world's music sounded manifold, A tempest's roar and a sweet breath's caress.

The second air-kiss whispered low to me All whisperings that Silence stoops to sing Over bare wilderness and tombs and ruins, Songs that no soul nor even wind can hear.

The third air-kiss would bring to me, it seemed, Secrets from somewhere heard by none before. Perhaps, by some bright star, two spirits white Embraced each other as they passed in thought.



ISMENE

To N.G. Polites, her father.

Where is the little girl and beautiful Who drew the milk of a full life and precious? She filled her home with fragrance, and away She sailed to anchor in another land.

She filled her home with fragrance, and on wings Swiftly she fled and passed away. Who knows Why she has left the flesh? Perhaps, she went Among the mystic joys of things unseen And things intangible to be herself Something new, something beyond compare or word.

And yet her house is wrapped in spider webs And longs for her. To her warm nest, will she Return? Perhaps, each time you feel, O home, Within your bosom something sweet and tender That cannot be explained, it may be she; Who knows? Then speak to her and say: "Do you, Too, long for me, O soul without return?"



THOUGHTS OF EARLY DAWN

Who are you that awake me in the morning? Not the reveille that sweetens with its sounds The soldier's hardy life. Nor can you be The chapel bell that slowly rings to prayer.

* * * * *

Your steps fall heavy on the road. You bring Thought, light, and sound, my sacred Trinity. What if you rouse the slave who goes to work? What if you call the prodigal to sleep?

* * * * *

Not many were the flowers; and few, the lilies; And I did long to reap the lily-treasure. I eyed the lilies all, and walked into The garden rich to clasp them in mine arms.

* * * * *

And in the garden, all the roses smiled; Under their veils, the violets bowed down. I passed them by. The pansies looked erect And scentless, wrapped in thought: by them, I stopped.

Sweet child, upon thy tomb, a rosebud blossomed; The hand would reach at it, but it cannot. And on its path the wind would blow on it; But ere he light, it dies into a kiss.

* * * * *

Like church lights shine the blossoms in the light; And butterflies are drunk with airy fragrance; Yet neither for fragrance nor for light, I come Into the quiet garden as before.

* * * * *

I come to see the children beautiful, Running and playing, full of beaming smiles, Children that make of grassy beds a heaven And rise like miracles among the flowers.

* * * * *

The brows of righteous men pass slow before me, Clouds calm and wide, full of refreshing rain; And from the lightless depths of hell, methinks I hear breast-beatings and dark blasphemies. And suddenly, I mingle speech with rime, The rime that above human things and woes, Like the Platonic Diotima, rises A prophetess upon a path sublime Towards worlds of thought and earth-transcending loves.

* * * * *

Whatever be thy substance, O bright gleam, Iron or stone, silver or wind, air-cloud Or dream, my longing is the same for thee! Within me thought and hands and art and science Struggle to build together the same temple. Maternal Rhea treasures in her breast All marbles: purple, green, and white. I searched And found them in your care, Taygetus Snake-like, and Cyclads fair, and Attica. And now the columns stand a forest speechless And motionless; and among them, the rhythms And thoughts move in slow measures constantly. And in their depths, light-written images Show Love that leads and Soul that follows him.

* * * * *

The axe and hammer of the priest black-robed Struck down the holy idols of the temples; And yet the soul of the ruins perished not! It climbed the heaven's spaces as a star Until new sculptured lilies came to life In master minds, the gardens of the wise. Thus axe and hammer of the priest black-robed Broke not the holy idols of the temples!

* * * * *

Sweet child, upon thy tomb a rosebud blossomed; Is it thy joy or grief? Thy heart or thou? If mind, remember me! If mouth, speak forth! "I am the movement of the motionless, The lightning flushing from the source of nothing!"

* * * * *

Thy cup is foaming with its black strong wine; Bring to our fountain thy white-foaming cup, And brighten into red thy black strong wine With the fresh water of our fountain here.

* * * * *

I have a thought of dew; a heart of flame! The wine vat boils; the spring flows fresh and cool; And I did mingle in my chiseled cup The black strong wine with the sweet water dew.

A hundred years! A hundred years are gone Of Grecian mornings and of Grecian sunsets! Make them a coffin wide, O carpenter, And bury them, the hapless dead, in silence!

* * * * *

A hundred dragons watch a queen black-robed, A widowed orphan queen in a lone castle; And they dig up the scattered fragments of An ancient and exhaustless treasure, once Her own, and bring them as their gifts to her! "I need no fragments! May the hour be cursed And you, dragons, who hold me prisoner! I dream of her, the living perfect land Where I was queen! While here, I am a slave!"

* * * * *

Loud-crying birds that fly toward the heights, White swans, and swans that cut so tenderly The silent waters of the lake in thoughts Of silent sorrow, tameless birds and weary! O swans that dream the conquest of the sun, And swans that wait the coming of deep sleep!

Within me lies a far and secret kingdom Where I can see lake-swans and winds like you!

* * * * *

My banished life has found a home near thee; And by thy grace, I am thy priest, O Phoebus! And taking from thy bright divinity, I made the sun-born maiden to thy glory! I lifted to thine image my loud praises, And lo, bells hoarse and tuneless answered them. Yet what of it? Thine endless praise I am, And paeans follow on my dithyrambs!



TO A MAIDEN WHO DIED

O little life, quenched by the blow of death Amidst the tender dreams of rosy dawn, I cannot lift thee into deathlessness Upon the chiseled glitter of the marble!

I am a humble bard; and thou, a music Silenced, whose strains my memory cannot Recall. Yet with a deeper bond my soul Thou bindest, O breath unpainted and unsung.

Like a far dawn, thou smiledst in my mind, A dawn most sweet and shy and fleeting. Then One day, over my child's pure head thou bentest With face abloom with smiles and fond caresses.

And something amber-like remained in me From thee, though thou didst pass; and in the evening Which in me rises slowly, the dream fairy Of the azure tales looks with thy face on me.



TO THE SINNER

Sinner, thy mother gave thee not the milk That makes the cheek a rose, the man a castle! Each nursing was a sin; each drop, a sickness! Within thee, ancient lives revive thrice-wretched.

Vices of ancestors unknown and instincts Of beastly fathers, ever travelling, Before they rose to light, thus to become Like smiles and fields of azure blue, came down To dwell in thee, a people of tormentors!

And one day, sinner, thine own mother gave To thee the wonder-working holy image To carry it to the sacred festival Of the illumined church with open gates Calling upon its throngs of worshippers.

And on thy way, the luring harlot watched And stripped thee of thy mind; and as thy hands Struggled to clasp her, down the image fell, The sacred image, in the ditch's filth!

And forthwith even there, the plague began To visit thee! And crumbling down, thou didst Begin to groan and tremble nearer death Than the dead corpse on which the ravens feed! And Satan crouching upon thee rejoices!

And seeing it, thou strugglest painfully, Stretchest thy hands towards the ditch's filth, And darest a prayer to the saint defiled, Though still enflamed by thirst for the vile kiss!



A TALK WITH THE FLOWERS

Upon my passing, slow or swift, by you I lingered not, nor stooped to pluck you, flowers! I saw you as a vision skyward roaming, And I adored you just as thought and sky! My hand reached not to touch you sinfully, My flowers! For what is most beautiful Is also most remote. You were for me The music that the wind brings on its wings In perfect strains directly to the heart. I wished your dazzling could remain as that Of castles barred and inaccessible. From far thy fragrance came to me, O jasmine; And thy gleam, lily, like the eyes' light-kisses!

But since my darling child lay down to sleep The bitter sleep that knows no wakening, I am the cruel reaper always bending Above you, gathering you one by one, And ever binding you in royal garlands, And ever weaving you into rich robes For him! I wish to play new plays with him, And spread you over him as mine embrace! I wish to raise him as a flower garden Breathing into his grave the flower soul Of an immortal April. Oh, I wish ... Weak though I am, would all earth's verdancy Were a long dream and kiss for my beloved! Would that whatever is beyond man's touch, Air-born, transcending earth, or fleeting, all That has a sunbeam as its heart, a breeze as body, Fair vision, thought, or heaven—would that I Could close them into forms and scatter them Upon his flower-clad grave with you, sweet flowers!

In my paternal love, pure white, the flames Of passion burn; and then, the yellow languor Of a sick man! Thus did I love him, flowers! His father though they called me, I was his lover!

O flowers, did you know it? Was your life, So pure and little, ever touched by such A woe? Does not a quenchless longing stir you As you grow on the selfsame flower bough?

The body of my child, sent up from depths Unfathomed of a secret Fate unhoped, Was an epiphany of the fair bride, The bride undreamable, intangible Of a god's dream! Was he of mine own blood? I never thought whether he was to live, Grow, or advance in thought and deed; I was Drunk with his luring wine, his eyes, his face, His gait! The breath of blest Makaria Had blown on him! The stranger's song revolved Before my mind: "Thou little line so fine, Written with roses, line that wert his mouth, How dost thou give birth to that mighty trembling?"[22]

How often when he turned away his lips So beautiful in careless weariness From mine embrace, I felt the torturings Of a disease and drank the bitter draughts Of jealousy! How often, when he lay Reclining on mine arms and breathing gently, I thought I held the graspless image of Beauty light-born, and said: "What is there more For me to hope?" O flowers, did you know it? Can you, too, mingle your little hidden hearts Fed with sweet honey, the pure frankincense Of a thrice-blue and earth-transcending worship, With love's uneasy little tremblings?

Of jealousy! How often, when he lay Reclining on mine arms and breathing gently, I thought I held the graspless image of Beauty light-born, and said: "What is there more For me to hope?" O flowers, did you know it? Can you, too, mingle your little hidden hearts Fed with sweet honey, the pure frankincense Of a thrice-blue and earth-transcending worship, With love's uneasy little tremblings?

Oh, The bitterest and saddest blows, the blows That know no healing on this earth of ours, Come from our dearest! Thus he fled and left me A bitterness beyond all sorrow's pangs, O little flowers, flowers of dark death!



TO MY WIFE

Here bloomed our home; the young plant verdant blossomed In the cool shade of the fresh green grape-vine; And here the mystic moon, entwined in green, Descended like a first-seen ghost on us.

Here the two fountains of desire refreshed Our years: the one, before our eyes; the others, In dreams. The fair Muse silenced here care's crickets And stirred the sacred frenzy of the lyre.

Here we enjoyed our first-born's flutterings; And here the little gleaming face and round, Our second fruit, maddened us with pure joy! As the unhoped return of a longed friend, Here we received one day into our bosom The transitory child beyond compare, The third one, who transformed the worldly air About us into flowing wine for gods, An offering unto the gleaming light Of high Olympus, dwelling of the blessed!

Here was thy youth, even when care oppressed thee, A fair Venetian painting, the blithe work Of a light-beaming Titian, that revealed Pure shining joy in thy lithe body's form.

Here bloomed our home; the young plant verdant blossomed, Hidden in the cool shade of the green vine. Now, nothing remains. Only the mystic moon Weeps in a palace voiceless, wide, and gloomy!

The life that died here wished for April as Grave-digger, and a flower-bed as grave. Oh, who had cursed it? Nothing but a tomb Was found for it! A tomb unfit and graceless!



THE ANSWER

Take me and hear me, Hamadryads fair, And Aegipans, Wood-Nymphs, and shepherd gods! The bridal beds are set! The forest glades, In flurry! The Flower Festival has come! The bacchic revelry bursts forth in glow And frenzy! Where is nature and where is Its end? I know not whether I am myself; Great Pan, it seems, dwells in my bosom here.

O wonder! I do live the holy life And wild of purest nature's elements! O God of the golden crown, the three fair Graces And the Nine Sisters of the Song gave me The gift of tranquil visions beautiful! I filled me with the foam-begotten beauty Of all! I hear the nightingales' sweet song In answer to the song of Sophocles! The woes of Aeschylus resound prophetic, Ocean-born! Face to face with me, as swift As glance, green-clad Atlantides rise forth From the abyss and sink in it again.

Phoenicians battling with the sea brought me From far away; I am the reveller World-wandering! Arts, talks, and images Are bristling in the air! Take me, O Nymphs Into your bosom! Satyrs, hear my words!

Yet Satyrs, Centaurs, Hamadryad Nymphs, And golden-spoken Hellades at once Made answer to my pleading with one voice From cities, mountains, forests, cliffs, and plains:

"Gods' wine is not for thee, O reveller!"

And the lithe Tanagraean maiden spoke With awe-inspiring prophetess Cassandra, Ivy-crowned Maenads, Gods Olympian, And the song-nourished Hellades; they spoke From the far cave of fair Calypso to The wisdom-haunted Alexandria:

"Silence! Pale monk and idle chatterer! Silence! Turn back to thy lone cloister cell."

And the Pindaric heroes laugh in scorn With the white goddesses of marble wrought By Scopas' hand; laugh, and their laughter-peals Are echoed loud and deep from far away!



THOUGHT

More than the godlike gleams of sculptured stone, More than the golden rhythms the poet weaves, Who knows if a good act unknown, some wound's Balsam, shines not with brighter lasting beams?

Who knows if for some god's unfailing ear, The dogged sin and filthy vice are not A thrice-wise and tempestuous harmony Of melodies sung by Virtue's lips serene?

Bright shine the temples of Fair Art; bright shine The rainbows heavenly of Thought; and bright, The chariots of warriors triumphant! Yet in the temple of the Universe, Can they be costlier than the mute Thought And Glory of the flower, at whose birth The dawn rejoices and whose early death The saddened evening silently laments?

The thoughtful sage high-rising smites the gates Of the Infinite and questions every Sphinx; Yet who knows if the soldier with no will, Obeying blindly, is not nearer Truth?

O struggle vast! Who knows what power measures The measureless and creates the great? Is it the matchless thought of the endowed, Or the dim soul of multitudes that bursts, Thoughtless of reason, into life? Who knows?

The holy man lifts up his hand to bless With readiness; yet who needs more such blessing? Is it the free-born bird that makes its nest Wherever its strong wings would waft it, or The flowery plant bound by a bit of earth?

Which is the light of Truth? Is it the Law That is all eyes or is it some blind love? What leads us there? The hidden path where bent And trembling we seek our way, or the wide road That makes us fly with winged confidence?

O Thought, thou dream-crowned maiden, ever wrestling With a blood-filled, swift woman masculine, Whose bosom, thine or hers, is doomed to yield The destined milk to nourish and to heal Our sickened life with health Olympian?

O Thought, thou angel, ever wrestling on With a strong giant flinging his hundred hands About thy neck to strangle thee, wilt thou Battle with sword or lily? Oh, the world Will crumble ere thy struggle finds an end!



THE SINNER

O hapless one, when thou wert born, there came The Fate thrice-blessed and clasped thee in her arms To bless thee with a hero's mighty deeds And wrap thee in the purple of a king, The Fate whose blessings teem with light and might.

Yet there, the other Fate, the bitch of ruin Unspoken and of voiceless death, kept watch; And she led thee away from the blue shore With lilies sown, to the salt marsh of terror And the sheer precipice of fearful trembling!

Nor could thy baby hands grasp more than this, A cheerless tatter from the sacred veil Of thy good mother Fate, the veil embroidered With the star-spangled sky by master hand!

O hapless One, while virgin joy bathes thee Abundant and thy tears are yet a baby's, Something within thee groans, the muffled madness Of fettered murderers, the madness of Lone cells. And while thou showest the calm life Of tame things and of love in thy still nook, Thou breedest fettered wraths and bridled hatreds. Should they burst forth, ruin and wilderness Would reign. O hapless One, the greenest spots Even of thy existence are but full Of pitfalls opened wide and yawning void! No dawning was thy lot; even those boughs Young of thine early years were parched with drought! Whatever white thou touchedst was defiled! And thine old age, if thou couldst bare thy youth, Would shriek with fear and fly from thy youth's face!

A sneering power or a grace divine Mercilessly nailed down thy hands and will, O cowardly, decrepit, idle man, Infirm and hapless, starless night enclosed In a weak child! Death will not come to thee As to the toiling laborer who toils The whole day long, and towards evening, sleep, Even before he lies, in bed to rest, Creeps sweetly upon him and seals his eyes.

Thy death shall be laden with graspless horror Such as one feels who sinned in secrecy And dreads each hour detection of his sin, Trial, death sentence, and the hangman's rope.

O hapless One, would that in thy death struggle Her bosom might still shine before thine eyes, The good Fate's breast, who blessed thy birth with goodness, The Fate whose blessings teem with light and might! Would that thou couldst show her the humble shred Torn from the star-wrought sacred veil of hers And tell her: "See, in the deep darkness smiles Something, a dawn on which I still hold fast!"

O hapless One! Would that the mighty heroes And royal purples and the blessings full Of light and might and all thou knewest not In thy dark empty life could shine upon Thy passing as the lights of distant stars!



THE END

A wedding guest, I travel far abroad! The bride, thrice-beautiful; the groom, a wizard; And I ride swiftly to the wedding feast. The land is far, and I must travel on; An endless path before me leads away.

And the far land a vision was! The steed, A smoke! The wedding, angels' shadows fleet! While I,—O cruel wakening!—lie down For ever palsy-stricken and bed-ridden!

And only you, old tunes familiar, I hold. I hold you as a dying darling child, Languid and glowing with the fever's heat, Holds on to his dear plaything, with white wings New-grown for his long journey, even I, The child unskilled, dream-roaming, stript of will!

Old tunes familiar, waft me upon Your shining wings for healing or for death To the cool shadow of the pure-white home And lay me gently on a loving bosom.



THE PALM TREE

TO DOSINES, WHO HEARD IT FIRST.



THE PALM TREE

Once in a garden about a palm tree's shade, some blue flowers, here very dark and there very light, talked with each other. A poet who now is dead, passed by; and he put their talk into these rhythms:

O Palm Tree, someone's hand has cast us here; Was it the hand led by a cursed Fate, Or moved by mind of good intent? Who knows? What impulse seized us from the cave of sleep Below to bring us to the surface here? Is it a savior's or destroyer's power That sets us motionless beneath thy shade? And is thy shade the shade of life or death?

* * * * *

The glare of the hot sun drowned everything; Gluttonous locusts groped for food about; And then, a rain. The flowers, that had drooped To sleep, awake to drink the drops of dew. And then, the clear sky's festival begins More azure than before to spread above thee.

Only thy trembling crest drops here and there Some large and shining rain-pearls on the earth.

* * * * *

The garden glitters with a new-born life; And each bird dreams it is a nightingale; Only from thy lone heights like bullets fall Thy pearl-clear drops, and oh, the pain thereof! The dew drops make a crown for everything; The gurgling waters are a balm to all; Why should this god-sent goodness of all things Be blow for us and suffering and flame?

* * * * *

How cruelly thy bullets fall and smite! No ear above and not an eye before us! Beneath thy shade we live; thy trunk is world To us; thy crown, a star-spun sky, our sky! If thou art a god merciless, reveal Thyself! If not, but nod and give us calm! Either cease slaying us one by one, or pour On us at once a flood to drown us all!

Our pain is as reward and treasure found! The golden seal of harmony has stamped us, And while Death touches us, we glory, victors! We tremble; hail O rhythm's thrice-sacred tremor! A worm may live sunless beneath the earth That a new butterfly of silken wings May live an hour of perfect life and die. The wound's gash turns into a living fountain!

* * * * *

Things gray, things crystal, myriad hues of green, Gushings of fountains clear, and caterpillars, Earth's things immovable, air-sailing ships, And little worms, and bees, and butterflies, Sweet flower-grails and censers, fondling grass, The moss-down's countless kisses, echoes from Below, and mandolins ethereal, Leaves quivering and lilies languor-bringing!

* * * * *

The turtle-doves know not what you know, blossoms, The chosen things of beautiful loves, you! Kisses and starts and wooings of the boughs! The birth of each of you is a world's dawn! You know, O little tearful short-lived things, You know pleasure's and joy's eternities! We, the gold garlands wreathed about thy root, Are like celestial and thoughtful eyes!

* * * * *

Blithe flowers, boughs that hang with blossoms full, From dandelions to the chamaemele, You may be like the glowing coals or gems, Or like a maiden's rosy cheeks and lips. Though you, like hands, may open full or empty, And though you be dawn's smiles or evening's candles, Or the fair palaces of Fairy Dew, The gazing eyes are we! We are the eyes!

* * * * *

Though small we are, a great world hides in us; And in us clouds of care and dales of grief You may descry; the sky's tranquility; The heaving of the sea about the ships At evenings; tears that roll not down the cheeks; And something else inexplicable. Oh, What prison's kin are we? Who would believe it? One, damned, and godlike, dwells in us; and she is Thought!

* * * * *

Frolick, and form, and wanton playfulness, And some unspoken radiant vanity, And some enrapturing bewitching charm, And perfect virgin beauty are your own! Fading like gods' pale images, you seem! Even the bird sometimes bows to your grace! And Nereids wind-footed fan your faces, O roses with a thousand smiles divine!

* * * * *

A god commanded it, the flower-haired April! "O flowing fragrance, change to brilliancy!" Thus you are scentless, roses of Bengal; All others' perfume is bright light in you. And thou, O lily, king among the flowers, From what far world hast thou been led astray? Was it from fragrance's own womb, or from The whitest star? And we, O Palm? Who knows!

River ethereal of fragrance, stay! Thou hast not flowed nor watered us at birth. We said to fragrance: "Cease thy flowing course; Well not from us; nor be our breath! Sink deep Into our heart's recesses; close thyself Regardless of thy perfume in our soul! Then seek to find our thought and live with it And flow from it as honey from the bee!"

* * * * *

"Bring forth from the rich treasures of the sun All colors, flowers, and deck yourselves with them!" We said unto our little brothers: "Make Robes of the heaven's rainbow for your raiment!" And to ourselves we said: "Soul, I Shall let aside all brilliance! I need not Sunset or dawn; enough would be something Of the great sea and of the heaven's smile!"

* * * * *

Become a cloud, O great Desire, and speak With lightnings and with thunders! Rise, a lark, And sing and soar towards a new starry garden! Turn all thy flooding music into love, Mingle with it all children's innocence And all the beauty that is thine; still thou Wilt have love's shadow only but not love. For love shines, burns, illumines quenchlessly!

* * * * *

The garden draws life from a triple soul, A soul that spreads creeping upon the earth With roots beneath and wings above. A city, The caterpillar builds in its great depths; The bird builds love towards heights ethereal! About all green things live to be thy slaves And trimming ornaments, O palm! How high Skyward thou raisest thy grace-moulded body!

* * * * *

No ivy limits and no offshoot mars Thy trunk's unchained and chiseled nakedness; And yet, though naked, with a charm dream-wrought Thou coverest the alleys of the garden. And as an emblem of thy reign, a crown Of beams pearl-born and silver-born shines bright As it hangs trembling from thy top, O palm. Oh what a rhythm governs thy form divine!

* * * * *

So beautiful is not the cypress young As it waves towards the sky, moved by the breeze! So beautiful is not the mossy fountain That sings like bard and nourishes like mother! So beautiful is not sunrise or sunset! Another world's day hangs from thy high crest! So beautiful is not the tranquil lake! Gods and their hymns god-sung are at thy feet!

* * * * *

Neither an angel's shade in a hermit's cave, Nor harmony's voice in Night's deep silence, Nor the great maker's thought just as it dawns In his wide-fronted heaven, and is still A maiden dream unyoked before it finds A dwelling in the form of word or music, Color or marble! None of these is like Thine image caught and mirrored in our thought!

Is it transparent and immortal blood That flows in thee, or sap too weak to wake thee From thy long spell of blind and voiceless sleep Into a crystal life's fair revelry? Is thy head's crown another's counterfeit, Or thine own locks that smitten by the wind Become stringed lyres to sing in murmurs sweet Of the world's symphony and of thy beauty?

* * * * *

Neither thy boughs nor locks they are, but wings That thou wouldst ply with gentle flutterings! Wings? They are not, though they become; and ever A hunger tortures thee, and ever thou Strugglest to enter a sublimer world! Right, left, high, far, thou seekest a fair city, Some sunlit Athens, and standest bent on flying With swans and cranes towards the azure heavens.

* * * * *

Art thou a relic of a dead age and great, Or the first dew of a becoming life? Now some Wood Nymph bound within thee peeps out Struggling to flow into the light about; And now thou risest like the column last Of an old temple that once stood in Hellas. Evening or morning, end or a beginning, Something binds thee to skies beyond all sight.

* * * * *

Hosannas from thy boughs and palm leaves flow, Hosannas from thy royal height, as prayer To some unknown god's charms, who passes by Revealing his fair godhead first to thee. And lo, the hillsides answer thine hosannas! Oh, what thy visions, what thy secrets are? Some tremor, from new heavens wafted, makes The supple flowers and green leaves quiver.

* * * * *

And we? The migrant bird did come to us; The passing wind did touch us with its wing; The restless brook did check its rapid course; The child did cast on us his guileless glance; The jonquil proud did greet us with a nod; And the moon did look down to see us here; And all beheld our surface; none our depths! Thus the world glided over us and vanished!

* * * * *

Sweet orange blossoms, what asked the nightingales? What would the dry cicala know of noontide? All things that groan from the great depths of earth, All songs that mount exultant to the stars, The eating moth's faint voice, the restless cricket's, Perfumes and breezes, creatures lone and mated, All things that fly and creep and bend and stoop, Something they know of thee and hide it from us.

* * * * *

Within our breasts, a soul of storm and pitch Puts into our minds evil thoughts of thee. The magpie chatters long to the night bat Of thee; the locust boasts she is like thee; The wasp draws ample pleasure in thy shelter; And the night raven finds delight in thee. A world of evil and of scorn lies wait For thee who mountest tranquil to the stars.

O Health blown from the heart of the pure pine! Where thy feet tread, fruits grow 'midst thorns and clover; If with the streams thou flowest, the elements Shine; for pure wine, thou reapest the fair clusters; And where thou lingerest, a city rises! Thy breasts flow ever with milk; thy lips with dew! O mother fruitful, strong, and whole, some ill Rots us and we are pale like death's faint tapers!

* * * * *

Boughs, tresses, wings; shadows whose grace divine Frolics and spreads as bough or tress or wing; Another night, you took another form In the enchanted pitiless moonlight, A form that was neither bough, tress, nor wing: Swords you seemed, ready to descend and smite! Night's roaming butterfly, be merciful! Lift us upon thy wings and fly away!

* * * * *

Illness and wakefulness have tortured us, O palm, and we saw thee bend secretly! The dragon's heads and dogwoods were awake; We saw thee leading a strange dance with them At night; and in our first sleep, we beheld thee A heavy dream roaming with mulleins and Chameleons; about thee closed whole gardens Of thistles, aloes hard, and hosts of briars!

* * * * *

We dreamed and lo, thou wert demanding tribute Of life, blood-drenched; and in thy being raged A savage hunger; and some beast flesh-eating Nestled in thee and gnawed a hole through thee; And thy winged body turned into a cave; A vulture perched as crown upon thy head; And like fire-flames, and sea-waves, and sword-blades, From root to top, fierce snakes crept up and coiled!

* * * * *

Who ever thought of it? What Fate has ruled That from ill-smelling things and worthless stuff Should rise things of resplendent green? and from Deforming filth, the thrice-pure miracle Of May and April? Hence things blue and black Mingle in us; and in our souls, spread oceans And narrow paths; and while our minds converse With things sublime, something thrice-base defiles us!

* * * * *

O Sun, assail and strangle all black dreams, Our life's dim vapors and ill-working demons! But nourish all things good and beautiful Like sunbeams playing and like nightingales! And thou, O moon, spread over savage Night A veil translucent of heart-felt sympathy! Wave everywhere, O Beauty's purple robe! Let the great world be love and love's sweet lyre!

* * * * *

Day comes! Light scatters a thousand eyes on thee So that thou mayest greet the woods and mountains, The nests upon the trees, the palaces Of cities, and the ships on open seas Or ports. At nights, mounted on steeds of light Beautiful Fairies come from high to serve thee; The poplar lifts its many hands to thee; And the dark cypresses lull thee to sleep.

With pelicans and eagles thou conversest, And drop by drop thou drinkest the world's music; Thou seest things far, things near, and things above; Things infinite, intangible, and great; And thou communest with air-sailing ships, Light-rays, and wings, and the world-mounting ladder; While we, bent low, and lashed by sorrow's whip, Listen to the great throbbing of Earth's heart!

* * * * *

We heard it, the great throbbing of Earth's heart, The new song inconceivable, unheard, Of consummate and perfect sound! Through it, some thunder-stricken angel groans; All April's gardens breathe in fragrant balms; Some unfulfilled and secret longings weep; And a fire crackles that will ruin worlds! Something that passes by, an endless riddle!

* * * * *

Tell thou the sunlit story of the air; We shall unroll to you the tale of blackness. Come, let us mingle the two elements, Thy mighty power with our own winning grace! In unseen places, small and cold and sunless, A world of workers and of corsairs dwell; And there are paths and deeds of theirs, and days, And what the infinite air-spheres have not!

* * * * *

A swarm of bees has told us of their life, And a new youth and wise shone unto us! The grass hides unsuspected miracles; Beside us, the ant opens a deep path; A lizard, slowly creeping from below, Brought us here news of countries, nations, arts; A butterfly on her swift flight to wed The little flowers broadened our world of thought!

* * * * *

Unwedded, fruitless Palm, fair mystery! Strange was the hour—who will believe it now?— The divine world willed to become a thought, And thought revealed itself unto our mind! Now, unto darkness and to riddles new, Our little life is ready to depart! O Palm, make answer; lo, before thou speakest Thy word sublime, a hand lays wait to smite!

* * * * *

O Palm, a hand did spread to sow us here; That hand will spread again to root us out, And we shall die! The billow and the wind And the still waters will sweep us away Mercilessly! The flowery spring will not Lament us! The wide world will never know We perished! And beneath thy shadow's charms, Another fragrant race will rise to life.

* * * * *

Nor will there be a monument for us That might retain the phantom of our passing! Only about thee will a robe of light Adorn thee with a new and deathless gleam: And it shall be our thought, and word, and rime! And in the eyes of an astonished world, Thou wilt appear like a gold-green new star; Yet neither thou nor others will know of us!



FOOTNOTES

[1] This essay is republished, with a few changes, from Poet Lore, vol. xxviii, no. 1, pp. 78-104.

[2] My translation of it originally appeared in the Stratford Journal, from which I quote it in its entirety.

[3] Tigrane Yergate, op. cit., p. 710.

[4] Jean Moreas, Voyage de Grece, 1898.

[5] On Patras, the birth-place of the poet. See Introduction, p. 13.

[6] On Missolonghi, the place of the poet's childhood. See Introduction, p. 15.

[7] On the Island of Corfu, one of the most important centers of the literary renaissance of modern Greece.

[8] Iacobos Polylas, 1826-98, translator of the Odyssey and of parts of the Iliad, and an important figure in the struggle for the vernacular. He has also translated some of Shakespeare's plays.

[9] Dionysios Solomos, born in Zante, 1748, died in Corfu, 1857. He is the first great poet of modern Greece. He has written lyrics in Italian and in Greek. Several of his songs have spread as folk songs throughout the Greek world. He is mainly known as the poet of the modern Greek national hymn to Liberty.

[10] Gerasimos Markoras, born in Cephalonia, 1826, died in Corfu, 1911, a lyric and epic poet. His poem "Oath" was inspired by the Cretan struggle for freedom.

[11] On Egypt, whence the first lights of civilization dawned on Greece.

[12] On Mt. Athos, the Holy Mountain of the modern Greeks, inhabited by about ten thousand monks. Although called by its hermits "the virgin's garden" no female creature is allowed to enter its ground.

[13] Panselenus, a famous Byzantine painter, who is believed to be the author of some of the Madonnas and Christs found in the monasteries of the mountain.

[14] On classic Greece, in contrast with the following sonnet which refers to the spirit of Greece throughout the ages, from the classic period to the time of the Byzantine Empire.

[15] The Islands of the Ionian Sea.

[16] The hero of medieval Greece, Digenes Akritas, who is supposed to have lived on the slopes of the Taurus mountains in Asia Minor and to have fought against the invading Saracens. There are a great number of folk-songs about him not only in Greek but in Turkish, Bulgarian, Serbian, and Albanian as well.

[17] The word, meaning "blessed one," is here applied to ideal womanhood and must not be confused with Makaria of p. 103, the mythical Theban princess.

[18] The translator of Homer and Shakespeare. See notes 8 and 9, p. 80.

[19] A pseudonym for Constantine Chatzopoulos, one of the leading literary figures in Athens to-day. He has written poems under this pseudonym. But he is now mainly known as a master of short stories which he has published under his real name, and as the translator of Goethe's Faust and of Hofmannsthal's Electra. This poem dedicated to him was written during the unfortunate Greco-Turkish war of 1897.

[20] Maviles was born in Ithaca, 1860, and fell in the battle of Driscos, November 29, 1912. He is the writer of exquisite sonnets and the successful translator of various foreign poems. The Cretan Revolution of 1896 is here alluded to, which led to the Greco-Turkish war of 1897. Maviles was one of the first to hasten to Crete to help in the struggle for liberty.

[21] Alexandros Pallis is one of the greatest literary figures of contemporary Greece, who, like Psicharis, has lived mostly far from Greece. He is a poet, a critic, and a satirist. But his fame is mainly due to his translation of the Iliad and that of the New Testament. The publication of the latter caused the student riots of 1901.

[22] The poet had in mind the following lines of Sully Prudhomme from his Stances et Poemes, L'ame:

Tous les corps offrent des contours, Mais d'ou vienne la forme qui touche? Comment fais-tu les grands amours, Petite ligne de la bouche?



PRINTED AT THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U.S.A.

THE END