FROM THE ARCADIAN GATE
From Arcadian Gate, with its tower-topped bulk,
White on Ithóme’s war-ridden hulk,
A road winds down past the artichokes,
And the almond-trees, and acacia-spokes.
And, silver-harnessed, the small brooks fly
Down to Messenian industry.
And, here one sees, under the trees,
Greek women making the cheese.
Black kettles hang from the giant plane,
Where children gather, and where you gain
A charming sight from your donkey-mount,
For the wash-trough’s set by the village-fount,
And, hanging high on the olive-boughs,
Where, grey, light-fingered zephyrs drowse,
Swaying in bags, in the summer breeze,
Greek babies take their embroidered ease.
In old Dodona, so they say,
In a time when priest-craft had its sway,
“The Will of the Gods” came jostling,
Through the oak-leaves’ gentle rustling,
And the Priest of the Oracle carefully hung
Brazen vessels, which, easily rung,
By moving branches, in many keys,
Instructed the Greeks how their gods to please.
’Tis an old Greek fashion this hanging of things;
Many the legends from which it springs.
Twists of scarlet, and bright-dyed flax,
Hang on the rough Arcadian shacks,
Where the railroad follows the mountain base.
They hang brown jugs by the watering-place.
Amulets hang on the goats and the swine;
Wreaths hang high on the house and the shrine.
And now the pots for the cheese
And the babies in black-eyed reveries
Sway, like the brasses long ago.
Hanging on high branch and on low!
Somehow the sight doth strangely please,
This new fruit on the old Greek trees!
One hears “Will of the Gods!” in speech
Babbling from olive and oak and beech.