THE SHEPHERDESS
Not only mulberry vendors travel Langada Pass,
Rough soldiers and black-fezzed peddlers take that trail
And stop to drink at a khan ’neath the rocky mass,
Where the pine-trees root in the drifts of sliding shale,
And a half-crazed Greek sells resin-wine and cheese
And “Thalassa” mutters, pointing to far-off seas.
For Langada Pass is miles of precipice rock
Where the rug-hung pack-mules scramble with fumbling feet
Sliding unsteadily over the cobbles, that shock,
Stone upon stone, in monotonous noontide heat.
But a mountain girl, fleet-footed, with brown knees bare,
Flutters along the crags, where the great pines flare.
Now the mulberry vendors are fuddled with Spartan rum,
They howl in the cañons and kick the sides of their steeds.
The soldiers are merry, they sit on the rocks and hum
And talk politics and twiddle their malachite beads;
Hardly a shrine for a maid, or a convent roof,
Under the blue sky, classic and calm and aloof;
The goats stand cynical, cloven of horn and hoof.
But she whistles and calls and scrambles up to her flock,
High on the bronze-grey peaks of Langada Pass,
With warm eyes mote-flecked, bright as the quartz gold rock
A deer-like, dryad-like fierce, shy, crag-born lass,
Perching where orange anemones spangle the banks
And white streams flash down thicketed mountain flanks.
We told her the tale of the world and the dreams of men,
We poured out wine-of-the-world in her shepherd cup,
She took it calmly, thoughtfully, drinking up
All that we were, quaffing us, thirstily, then:
“Salute your cities,” the wild little shepherdess said,
And swift as an eagle, far up the precipice sped.
Washington, New York, and Boston have new renown!
Their rivers of seething light, where the witch wires hold
Clustering, bright-balled fruits, and the chimneys frown
Like satyrs drunk with smoke through the sunset gold—
All these must bow, in turn, to a little lass
Who “salutes the cities” out of Langada Pass!