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 wingèd 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

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, damnèd, 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 Moréas, Voyage de Grèce, 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 Göthe'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 Poèmes, L'âme:

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?