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diff --git a/24191.txt b/24191.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7816e8e --- /dev/null +++ b/24191.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5830 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Life Immovable, by Kostes Palamas + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Life Immovable + First Part + +Author: Kostes Palamas + +Translator: Aristides E. Phoutrides + +Release Date: January 7, 2008 [EBook #24191] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE IMMOVABLE *** + + + + +Produced by David Starner, katsuya and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES + +Punctuation, spelling and obvious printer's errors have been corrected. +Footnotes from the original text have been collated at the end of this +e-book and references to them have been amended according to the new +footnote numbering used in this e-book. + + + + +[Illustration: Kostes Palamas] + + + + +KOSTES PALAMAS + +LIFE IMMOVABLE +_FIRST PART_ + + +TRANSLATED BY ARISTIDES E. PHOUTRIDES + + +WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY THE TRANSLATOR + + +CAMBRIDGE +HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS +1919 + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1919 +HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS + + + + +TO MRS. EVELETH WINSLOW + +THIS VOLUME OF TRANSLATIONS IS DEDICATED AS A TOKEN OF HER +APPRECIATION OF THE POET'S WORK + + + + +PREFACE + + +The translations contained in the present volume were undertaken since +the beginning of the great war when communication with Greece and +access to my sources of information were always difficult and at times +impossible. In hastening to present them to the English speaking +public before discussing them with the poet himself and my friends in +Athens, I am only yielding to the urgent requests of friends on both +sides of the Atlantic who have regarded my delay with justifiable +impatience. I am thoroughly conscious of the shortcomings that were +bound to result from the above difficulties and from the interruption +caused by my two years' service in the American army; and were it not +for the encouragement and loyal assistance of those interested in my +work it would have been impossible for me to bring it at all before +the public. My earnest effort has been to be as faithful to the poet +as possible, and for this reason I have not attempted to render rime, +a dangerous obstacle to a natural expression of the poet's thought and +diction. But I hope that the critics will judge my work as that of a +mere pioneer. I know there is value in the theme; and if this value is +made sufficiently evident to arouse the interest of poetry lovers in +the achievements of contemporary Greece I shall have reaped my best +reward. + +I wish to express my thanks to Dr. Christos N. Lambrakis of Athens +for the information which he has always been willing to furnish me +regarding various dark points in the work translated; to Mrs. Eveleth +Winslow of Washington for many valuable suggestions and criticisms; +and above all to Professor Clifford H. Moore of Harvard University +for the interest he has shown in the work and the readiness with which +he has found time in the midst of his duties to take charge of my +manuscript in my absence and to assist in seeing it through the press. + +ARISTIDES E. PHOUTRIDES. + +WASHINGTON, D.C. +July 7, 1919. + + + + +CONTENTS + + +INTRODUCTION + + KOSTES PALAMAS, A NEW WORLD-POET + LIFE IMMOVABLE, FIRST PART + + +TRANSLATIONS + + LIFE IMMOVABLE,--INTRODUCTORY POEM + + +FATHERLANDS + + FATHERLANDS, I-XII + THE SONNETS + EPIPHANY + MAKARIA + THE MARKET PLACE + LOVES + WHEN POLYLAS DIED + TO PETROS BASILIKOS + SOLDIER AND MAKER + THE ATHENA RELIEF + THE HUNTRESS RELIEF + A FATHER'S SONG + TO THE POET L. MAVILES + IMAGINATION + MAKARIA'S DEATH + TO PALLIS FOR HIS "ILIAD" + HAIL TO THE RIME + + +THE RETURN + + DEDICATION + THE TEMPLE + THE HUT + THE RING + THE CORD GRASS FESTIVAL + THE FAIRY + OUT IN THE OPEN LIGHT + FIRST LOVE + THE MADMAN + OUR HOME + THE DEAD + THE COMRADE + RHAPSODY + IDYL + AT THE WINDMILL + WHAT THE LAGOON SAYS + PINKS + RUINS + PENELOPE + A NEW ODE BY THE OLD ALCAEUS + + +FRAGMENTS FROM THE SONG TO THE SUN + + IMAGINATION + THE GODS + MY GOD + HELEN + THE LYRE + GIANTS' SHADOWS + THE HOLY VIRGIN IN HELL + SUNRISE + DOUBLE SONG + THE SUN-BORN + ON THE HEIGHTS OF PARADISE + THE STRANGER + AN ORPHIC HYMN + THE POET + KRISHNA'S WORDS + THE TOWER OF THE SUN + A MOURNING SONG + PRAYER OF THE FIRST-BORN MEN + THOUGHT OF THE LAST-BORN MEN + MOLOCH + ALL THE STARS + ARROWS + + +VERSES OF A FAMILIAR TUNE + + THE BEGINNING + THE PARALYTIC ON THE RIVER'S BANK + THE SIMPLE SONG + THREE KISSES + ISMENE + THOUGHTS OF EARLY DAWN + TO A MAIDEN WHO DIED + TO THE SINNER + A TALK WITH THE FLOWERS + TO MY WIFE + THE ANSWER + THOUGHT + THE SINNER + THE END + + +THE PALM TREE + + THE PALM TREE + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + + + +KOSTES PALAMAS[1] + +A NEW WORLD-POET + + _And then I saw that I am the poet, surely a poet among many + a mere soldier of the verse, but always the poet who desires + to close within his verse the longings and questionings of the + universal man, and the cares and fanaticism of the citizen. I + may not be a worthy citizen; but it cannot be that I am the + poet of myself alone. I am the poet of my age and of my race. + And what I hold within me cannot be divided from the world + without._ + + KOSTES PALAMAS, Preface to _The Twelve Words of the Gypsy_. + + _Kostes Palamas ... is raised not only above other poets of + Modern Greece but above all the poets of contemporary Europe. + Though he is not the most known ... he is incontestably the + greatest._ + + EUGENE CLEMENT, _Revue des Etudes Grecques_. + + +I +THE STRUGGLE + +Kostes Palamas! A name I hated once with all the sincerity of a young +and blind enthusiast as the name of a traitor. This is no exaggeration. +I was a student in the third class of an Athenian Gymnasion in 1901, +when the Gospel Riots stained with blood the streets of Athens. The +cause of the riots was a translation of the New Testament into the +people's tongue by Alexandros Pallis, one of the great leaders of the +literary renaissance of Modern Greece. The translation appeared in +series in the daily newspaper _Akropolis_. The students of the +University, animated by the fiery speeches of one of their Professors, +George Mistriotes, the bulwark of the unreconcilable Purists, who would +model the modern language of Greece after the ancient, regarded this +translation as a treacherous profanation both of the sacred text and of +the national speech. The demotikists, branded under the name of [Greek: +Malliaroi] "the hairy ones," were thought even by serious people to be +national traitors, the creators of a mysterious propaganda seeking to +crush the aspirations of the Greek people by showing that their language +was not the ancient Greek language and that they were not the heirs of +Ancient Greece. + +Three names among the "Hairy Ones" were the object of universal +detestation: John Psicharis, the well known Greek Professor in Paris, +the author of many works and of the first complete Grammar of the +people's idiom; Alexandros Pallis, the translator of the Iliad and of +the New Testament; and Kostes Palamas, secretary of the University of +Athens, the poet of this "anti-nationalistic" faction. Against them the +bitterest invectives were cast. The University students and, with them, +masses of people who joined without understanding the issue, paraded +uncontrollable through the streets of Athens, broke down the +establishment of the _Akropolis_, in which Pallis' vulgate version +appeared, and demanded in all earnestness of the Metropolitan that he +should renew the medieval measure of excommunication against all +followers of the "Hairy Ones." + +Fortunately, the head of the Greek Church in Athens saved the +Institution which he represented from an indelible shame by resisting +the popular cries to the end. But the rioters became so violent that +arms had to be used against them, resulting in the death of eight +students and the wounding of about sixty others. This was utilized by +politicians opposing the government: fiery speeches denouncing the +measures adopted were heard in Parliament; the victims were eulogized as +great martyrs of a sacred cause; and popular feeling ran so high that +the Cabinet had to resign and the Metropolitan was forced to abdicate +and die an exile in a monastery on the Island of Salamis. It was then +that I first imbibed hatred against the "Hairy Ones" and Palamas. + +About two years later, I had entered the University of Athens when +another riot was started by the students after another fiery speech +delivered by our puristic hero, Professor Mistriotes, against the +performance of Aeschylus' _Oresteia_ at the Royal Theatre in a popular +translation made by Mr. Soteriades and considered too vulgar for +puristic ears. This time, too, the riot was quelled, but not until one +innocent passer-by had been killed. I am ashamed to confess that on that +occasion I was actually among the rioters. It was the day after the riot +that I first saw Palamas himself. He was standing before one of the side +entrances to the University building when my companion showed him to me +with a hateful sneer: + +"Look at him!" + +"Who is it?" + +"The worst of them all, Palamas!" + +I paused for a moment to have a full view of this notorious criminal. +Rather short and compact in frame, he stood with eyes directed towards +the sunlight streaming on the marble covered ground of the yard. He held +a cane with both his hands and seemed to be thinking. Once or twice he +glanced at the wall as if he were reading something, but again he turned +towards the sunlight with an expression of sorrow on his face. There was +nothing conspicuous about him, nothing aggressive. His rather pale face, +furrowed brow, and meditative attitude were marks of a quiet, retiring, +modest man. Do traitors then look so human? From the end of the +colonnade, I watched him carefully until he turned away and entered the +building. Then I followed him and walked up to the same entrance; on the +wall, an inscription was scratched in heavy pencil strokes: + + "Down with Palamas! the bought one! the traitor!" + +At last my humanity was aroused, and the first rays of sympathy began to +dispel my hatred. That remorseless inscription could not be true of this +man, I thought, and I hurried to the library to read some of his work +for the first time that I might form an opinion about him myself. +Unfortunately, the verses on which I happened to come were too deep for +my intellect, and I had not the patience to read them twice. I was so +absolutely sure of the power of my mind that I ascribed my lack of +understanding to the poet. Then his poems were so different from the +easy, rhythmic, oratorical verses on which I had been brought up. In +Palamas, I missed those pleasant trivialities which attract a boy's mind +in poetry. One thing, however, was clear to me even then. Dark and +unintelligible though his poems appeared, they were certainly full of a +deep, passionate feeling, a feeling that haunted my thoughts long after +I had closed his book in despair. From that day, I condescended to think +of him as of a sincere follower of a wrong cause, as of a sheep that had +been led astray. + +Years went by. I was no more in Greece. I had come to another country, +where a new language, a new history, a new literature opened before me. +Here, at last, I began to assume a reasonable attitude towards the +question of the language of my old country, and here first I could read +Palamas with understanding. Gradually, his greatness began to dawn on +me, and, finally, my admiration for him had grown so much that when on +April, 1914, I reached Greece as a travelling fellow from Harvard +University, I had decided to concentrate my studies during the five +months I was planning to spend there upon him and his work. With his +work, I did spend many long and pleasant hours. But him I visited only +once. The man from whom I had once shrunk as from a monster of evil, now +I shunned for fear I had not yet learned to admire in accordance with +his greatness. Owing to the urgent demand of an old classmate, Dr. Ch. +N. Lambrakis, who knew the poet, I went to see him one April afternoon +in his office at the University with my friend and fellow traveller, Mr. +Francis P. Farquhar. Mr. Palamas was sitting at his official desk; but +as soon as we entered he rose to receive us and then sat modestly in the +corner of a sofa. He had changed very little in appearance since the +time of the riots, and the more I looked at him the more I recognized +the very same image which I had kept in my mind from the first encounter +I had with him in the University colonnade ten years before. Perhaps, +the furrows of his brow had now become deeper; the white hairs, more +numerous. His eyes were still the same fiery eyes penetrating wherever +they lit beneath the surface of things and often turning away from the +present into the world of thought. His hands moved quietly; his voice +was clear and sonant; his words were few and polite. Unassuming in his +manner, he seemed more eager to receive knowledge than to talk about +himself and his work. He asked us questions about America and its +literary life: Is Poe read and appreciated? Is Walt Whitman still +popular? He admired them both; he had a great craving for the new; and +to read things about America fascinated him. When we rose to leave, we +realized that we had been doing the talking, but on both of us the +personality of the man, reserved and unobstrusive though he was, had +made a deep and lasting impression. + +This was the only visit I had with him. But I saw him more than once +walk in the streets of Athens and among the plane trees of Zappeion by +the banks of Ilissus, or sitting alone at a table of some unfrequented +coffeehouse, always far from the crowd. It was only after I had returned +to America that I wrote to him for permission to translate some of his +works. The answer came laden with the same modesty which is so prominent +a characteristic of the man. He is afraid I am exaggerating the value of +his work, and he calls himself a mere laborer of the verse. Certainly he +has been a faithful laborer for a cause which a generation ago seemed +hopeless. But through his faith and power, he has snatched the crown of +victory from the hands of Time, and he may now be acclaimed as a new +World-Poet. + +"The poetic work of Kostes Palamas," says Eugene Clement, a French +critic, in a recent article on the poet, "presents itself today with an +imposing greatness. Without speaking about his early collections, in +which already a talent of singular power is revealed, we may say that +the four or five volumes of verse, which he has published during the +last ten years raise him beyond comparison not only above all poets of +Modern Greece but above all poets of contemporary Europe. Though he is +not the most famous--owing to his overshadowing modesty and to the +language he writes, which is little read beyond the borders of +Hellenism--_he is incontestably the greatest_. The breadth of his views +on the world and on humanity, on the history and soul of his race, in +short, on all problems that agitate modern thought, places him in the +first rank among those who have had the gift to clothe the philosophic +idea in the sumptuous mantle of poetry. On the other hand, the vigor and +richness of his imagination, the penetrating warmth of his feeling, the +exquisite perfection of his art, and his gifted style manifest in him a +poetic temperament of an exceptional fulness that was bound to give +birth to great masterpieces." + + +II +LIFE INFLUENCES + +PATRAS + +Kostes Palamas was born in Patras sixty years ago. Patras is one of the +most ancient towns in Greece, known even in mythical times as Aroe, the +seat of King Eumelus, "rich in flocks." It became especially prominent +after the reign of Augustus as a centre of commerce and industry. Its +factories of silk were renowned in Byzantine times, and its commanding +position attracted the Crusaders and the Venetians as a military base +for the conquest of the Peloponnesus. The citadel walls that crown the +hill, on the slopes of which the modern city descends amphitheatrically +into the sea, are remnants of Venetian fortifications. In the history of +Modern Greece, it is a hallowed spot; for it was here that on April 4, +1821, the standard of the War of Liberation was first raised before a +band of warriors kneeling before the altar of Hagia Laura, while +Germanos, the archbishop of the city, prayed for the success of their +arms. The view which the city commands over the sapphire spaces of the +Corinthian Gulf and the purple shadows of the mountains rising from its +waters in all directions are superb, and the sunsets, that evening after +evening revel in colors there, are among the most magnificent in Greece. +A beauty worthy of life dwells over the vine-clad hills, while the +mountain kings that rise about are hoary with age and fame. The eye +wanders from the purple-laden cliffs of Kylene to the opal mantles of +the sea and from the peaks of Parnassus to the lofty range of Kiona. +This is the background of one of Palamas' "Hundred Voices," a collection +of short lyrics in the volume entitled _Life Immovable_: + + Far glimmered the sea, and the harvest darkened the threshing + floors; + I cared not for the harvest and looked not on the threshing floors; + For I stood on the end of the sea, and thee I beheld from afar, + O white, ethereal Liakoura, waiting that from thy midst + Parnassus, the ancient, shine forth and the Nine Fair Sisters of + Song. + Yet, what if the fate of Parnassus is changed? What if the Nine Fair + Sisters are gone? + Thou standest still, O Liakoura, young and for ever one, + O thou Muse of a future Rhythm and a Beauty still to be born. + +To his birth place, the poet dedicates one of his collection of sonnets +entitled "Fatherlands" and contained in the same volume. It is the first +of the series: + + Where with its many ships the harbor moans, + The land spreads beaten by the billows wild, + Remembering not even as a dream + Her ancient silkworks, carriers of wealth. + + The vineyards, filled with fruit, now make her rich; + And on her brow, an aged crown she wears, + A castle that the strangers, Franks or Turks, + Thirst for, since Venice founded it with might. + + O'er her a mountain stands, a sleepless watch; + And white like dawn, Parnassus shimmers far + Aloft with midland Zygos at his side. + + Here I first opened to the day mine eyes; + And here my memory weaves a dream dream-born, + An image faint, half-vanished, fair--a mother. + + +MISSOLONGHI + +But in Patras, the child did not stay long. His early home seems to have +been broken up by the death of his mother, and we find him next in +Missolonghi, another glorious spot in the history of Modern Greece. It +does not pride itself on its antiquity. It developed late in the Middle +Ages from a fishing hamlet colonized by people who were attracted by the +abundance of fish in the lagoon separating the town from the sea. This +lagoon lies across the Corinthian Gulf to the northwest of Patras, +hardly an hour's sail from it. Its shallow waters, which can be +traversed only by small flat-bottomed dories propelled with poles, +extend between the mouths of the Phidaris and the Achelooes, and are +studded with small islets just emerging above the face of the lagoon and +covered with rushes. Two of these islets, Vassiladi and Kleisova, +attained great fame by the heroic resistance of their garrisons against +the forces of Kioutachi and Imbrahim, Pashas in the War of Liberation. +The town itself is a shrine of patriotism for modern Greeks. For from +1822 to 1826, with its humble walls hardly stronger than fences, it +sustained the attacks of very superior forces, and its ground was +hallowed by the blood of many national heroes. Just outside its walls +lies the "Heroes' Garden" or "Herooen," where under the shadows of +eucalyptus and cypress trees, Marcos Bozzaris, Mavromichalis, the +philhellene General Coreman, and Lord Byron's heart are buried. It was +during the second siege that Byron died here in the midst of his noble +efforts for the freedom of Greece. The fall of the city brought about by +famine is the most glorious defeat in the history of the Greek +Revolution. The garrison of three thousand soldiers with six thousand +unarmed persons including women and children, unwilling to surrender, +attempted to break through the Turkish lines. But only one-sixth managed +to escape. The rest were driven back and mercilessly cut down by their +pursuers. Many took refuge in the powder magazines of the city and +waited until the Turks drew up in great numbers; then they set fire to +the powder and blew up friends and foes alike. The second sonnet of +Palamas' "Fatherlands" is devoted to this lagoon city: + + Upon the lake, the island-studded, where + The breeze of May, grown strong with sea-brine, stirs + The seashore strewn with seaweed far away, + The Fates cast me a little child thrice orphan. + + 'Tis there the northwind battles mightily + Upon the southwind; and the high tide on + The low; and far into the main's abyss + The dazzling coral of the sun is sinking. + + There stands Varassova, the triple-headed; + And from her heights, a lady from her tower, + The moon bends o'er the waters lying still. + + But innocent peace, the peace that is a child's, + Not even there I knew; but only sorrow + And, what is now a fire--the spirit's spark. + +Here then, "the spirit's spark" was first kindled, and here, in the city +of his ancestors, the poet was born. The swampy meadows overgrown with +rushes and surrounded with violet mountains, the city with its narrow +crooked streets and low-roofed houses, the lagoon with its still shallow +waters and modest islets, the life of townsmen and peasants with their +humbles occupations, passions, and legends, above all, the picturesque +distinctness of this somewhat isolated place, secluded, as it seems, in +an atmosphere laden with national lore--these were the incentives which +stirred Palamas in his quest of song. They have stamped their image on +all his work, but their most distinct reflection is found in _The +Lagoon's Regrets_, which is filled with memories of the poet's early +life in a world he always remembers with affection: + + Imagination flies to hells and stars, + A witch beguiling, an enchantress strange; + But ours the Heart remains and binds both life + And love with the native soil, nor seems to die. + + Peaks, depths, I sought Eurydice of old: + "What longing moans within me now, new-born? + Would that I were a fisherman at work, + Waking thy sleeping waters with my oar, + O Missolonghi!" + +Humble but natural in feeling is the appeal to a friend of his childhood +days: + + The peasant's huts in Midfield + For us, old friend, are waiting: + Come as of old to eat + The fresh-made cheese, and taste + The hard-made loaf of cornbread. + + Come, and drink the milk drawn pure; + And filled with dew and gladness, + Stir up the hunger of the youth + Beside you, buxom lasses. + +Here, too, he sings of the "crystal salt that is drawn snow-white from +the lake"; of the rain "that always weeps" and of the conquering tides. +Here he listens to the whispers of the waves while they murmur with each +other with restrained pride; and here over Byron's grave he dreams of +the great poet of Greece, who will come to ride on Byron's winged horse. +The poems of this collection are short but exquisitely wrought in verse +and language, full of life and of feeling. They are especially marked +with Palamas' attachment to the little and humble, which he loves to +raise into music and rhythm, and for which he always has sympathy and +even admiration. + + +ATHENS, THE VIOLET-CROWNED + +Missolonghi nurtured the poet in his youth and led him to the threshold +of manhood. But when he had graduated from the provincial "gymnasion," +he naturally came to Athens in order to complete his education in the +University of that city, the only University in Greece. This brought him +to the place which was destined to develop his greatness to its zenith. +The quiet, retired, and humble life of the Lagoon with its air filled +with legend was suddenly exchanged for the shining rocks of Attica and +its great city, flooded with dazzling light and roofed with a sky that +keeps its azure even in the midst of night. Life here is full, restless, +and tumultuous as in the days of Athens of old. The violet shadows of +the mountains enclosing the silver olive groves of the white plain are +still the makers of the violet crown of Athens. + +The poet in one of his "Hundred Voices" pictures a clear Attic afternoon +in February: + + Even in the winter's heart, the almonds are ablossom! + And lo, the angry month is gay with sunshine laughter, + While to this beauty round about a crown you weave, + O naked rocks and painted mountain slopes of Athens. + + Even the snow on Parnes seems like fields in bloom; + A timid greenish glow caresses like a dream + The Heights of Corydallus; white Pentele smiles upon + The Sacred Rock of Pallas; and old Hymettus stoops + To listen to the love-song of Phaleron's sea. + +It is its scanty vegetation that makes the southwestern region of Attica +look like a mountain lake of light. The nakedness of the mountain ranges +and the whiteness of the plains are vaulted over by a brilliant sky and +surrounded by a sea of a splendid sapphire glow. Even the olive trees, +which still grace the fields about Athens are bunches of silver rather +than of green. In "The Satyr, or the Naked Song," taken from the volume +of _Town and Wilderness_ we may detect the very spirit which, springing +from the same soil thousands of years ago, created the song which +gradually rose from primitive sensuousness to the heights of the Greek +Tragedy: + + All about us naked! + All is naked here! + Mountains, fields, and heavens wide! + The day reigns uncontrolled; + The world, transparent; and pellucid + The thrice-deep palaces. + Eyes, fill yourselves with light + And ye, O Lyres, with rhythm! + + Here, the trees are stains + Out of tune and rare; + The world is wine unmixed; + And nakedness, a mistress. + Here, the shade is but a dream; + And even on the night's dim lips + A golden laughter dawns! + + Here all are stripped of cover + And revel lustfully; + The barren rock, a star! + The body is a flame! + Rubies here and things of gold, + Priceless pearls and things of silver, + Scatter, O divinely naked Land, + Scatter, O thrice-noble Attica! + + Here manhood is enchanting, + And flesh is deified; + Artemis is virginity, + And Longing is a Hermes; + And here, and every hour, + Aphrodite rises bare, + A marvel to the Sea-Things, + And to the world, a wonder! + + Come, lay aside thy mantle! + Clothe thee with nakedness, + O Soul, that art its priestess! + For lo, thy body is thy temple. + Pass unto me a magnet's stream, + O amber of the flesh, + And let me drink of nectar drawn + From Nakedness Olympian! + + Tear thy veil, and throw away + Thy robe that flows discordantly! + With nature only match thy form, + With nature match thy plastic image. + Loosen thy girdle! Cross + Thy hands upon thy heart! + Thy hair is purple royal, + A mantle fairly flowing. + + And be a tranquil statue; + And let thy body take + Of Art's perfection chiseled + Upon the shining stone; + And play, and sing, and mimic + With thoughtful nakedness + Lithe beasts and snakes and birds + That dwell in wilderness. + + And play, and sing, and mimic + All things of joy, all things of beauty; + And let thy nakedness + Pale into light of living thought. + Forms rounded and forms flat, + Soft down, lines curved and straight, + O shiverings divine, + Dance on your dance of gladness! + + Forehead, and eyes, and waves + Of hair, and loins, ... + And secret dales and places! + Roses of love and myrtles! + Ye feet that bind with chains! + Hands, Fountains of caress, + And Doves of longing sweet, + And falcons of destruction! + + Whole hearted are thy words, + And bold, O mouth, O mouth, + Like wax of honey bees, + Like pomegranates in bloom. + The alabaster lilies, + April's own fragrant censers, + Envy thy breast's full cups! + Oh, let me drink from them! + + Drink from the rosy tinged, + Erect, enameled, fresh, + The milk I dreamed and dreamed + Of happiness. Thee! + I am thy mystic priest, + And altars are thy knees; + And in thy warm embrace + Gods work their miracles! + + Away, all tuneless things! + Hidden and covered things, away! + Away, all crippled, shapeless things, + And things profane and strange! + Erect and naked all, and guileless, + Bodies and breasts and earth and skies! + Nakedness, too, is truth, + And nakedness is beauty! + + * * * * * + + In nakedness, with sunshine graced, + That fills the Attic day, + If thou beholdest stand before thee + Something like a monster bare, + Something that like a leafless tree + Stands stripped of shadow's grace, + And like a stone unwrought, + His body is rough and gaunt, + + Something that naked, bare, and nude + Roams in the thrice-wide spaces, + Something whose life is told in flames + That light beneath his eyelids, + Akin to the old Satyrs' breed + And tameless like a beast, + A singer silver-voiced, + Flee not in fear! 'Tis I! + + The Satyr! I have taken here + Roots like an olive tree, + And with my flute deep-sounding, + I make the breezes languish. + I play and lo, all things are mated, + Love giving, love receiving. + I play and lo, all things are dancing, + All: Men and beasts and spirits! + + +ATHENS, THE CENTRE OF GREECE + +So much of the natural atmosphere of Athens and Attica. But the +Athenians themselves, their thoughts, life, and dreams have not proved +less important nor less effective for the poet's growth. The spiritual +and intellectual currents moving the Greek nation of today start from +this city. Here politics, poetry, and philosophy are still discussed in +the old way at the various shops, the coffee houses, and under the plane +trees by the banks of Ilissus. The "boule" is the centre of the +political activity of the state. The University with its democratic +faculty and still more democratic student body is certainly a "flaming" +hearth of culture. Only, its flames are sometimes so ventilated by +current events and political developments that the students often assume +the functions of the old Athenian Assembly. In the riotous expression of +their temporary feelings, the students are not very different from the +ancient demesmen. In my days, at least, the most frequent greeting +among students was "How is politics today?", with the word "politics" +used in its ancient meaning. Any question of general interest might +easily be regarded as a national issue to be treated on a political +basis. Thus it happened that when the question of language was brought +to the foreground by Pallis' vernacular translation of the New +Testament, the students took up arms rather than argument. + +Into this world, the poet came to finish his education. In one of his +critical essays (_Grammata_, vol. i), he tells us of the literary +atmosphere prevailing in Athens at that time, about 1879. That year, +Valaorites, the second great poet of the people's language, died, and +his death renewed with vigor the controversy that had continued even +after the death of Solomos, the earliest great poet of Modern Greece. +The passing away of Valaorites left Rangabes, the relentless purist, the +monarch of the literary world. He was considered as the master whom +every one should aspire to imitate. His language, ultra-puristic, had +travelled leagues away from the people without approaching at all the +splendor of the ancient speech. But the purists drew great delight from +reading his works and clapped their hands with satisfaction on seeing +how near Plato and Aeschylus they had managed to come. + +Young and susceptible to the popular currents of the literary world, +Palamas, too, worshipped the established idol, and offered his +frankincense in verses modelled after Rangabean conceptions. In the same +essay to which I have just referred, he tells us of the life he led with +another young friend, likewise a literary aspirant, during the years of +his attendance at the University. The two lived and worked together. +They wrote poems in the puristic language and compared their works in +stimulating friendliness. But soon they realized the truth that if +poetry is to be eternal, it must express the individual through the +voice of the world to which the individual belongs and through the +language which the people speak. + +This truth took deep roots in the mind of Palamas. His conviction grew +into a religion permeated with the warmth, earnestness, and devotion +that martyrs only have shown to their cause. Believing that purism was +nothing but a blind attempt to drown the living traditions of the people +and to conceal its nature under a specious mantle of shallow +gorgeousness, he has given his talent and his heart to save his nation +from such a calamity. In this great struggle, he has suffered not a +little. When the popular fury rose against his cause, and he was +blackened as a traitor and a renegade, he wrote in words illustrating +his inner agony: + + I labored long to create the statue for the Temple + Of stone that I had found, + To set it up in nakedness, and then to pass; + To pass but not to die. + + And I created it. But narrow men who bow + To worship shapeless wooden images, ill clad, + With hostile glances and with shudderings of fear, + Looked down upon us, work and worker, angrily. + + My statue in the rubbish thrown! And I, an exile! + To foreign lands I led my restless wanderings; + But ere I left, a sacrifice unheard I offered: + I dug a pit, and in the pit I laid my statue. + + And then I whispered: "Here, lie low unseen and live + With things deep-rooted and among the ancient ruins + Until thine hour comes. Immortal flower thou art! + A Temple waits to clothe thy nakedness divine!" + + And with a mouth thrice-wide, and with the voice of prophets, + The pit spoke: "Temple, none! Nor pedestal! Nor light! + In vain! For nowhere is thy flower fit, O maker! + Better for ever lost in these unlighted depths. + + "Its hour may never come! And if it come, and if + Thy work be raised, the Temple will be radiant + With a great host of statues, statues of no blemish, + And works of thrice-great makers unapproachable. + + "To-day was soon for thee; to-morrow will be late. + Thy dream is vain; the dawn thou longest will not dawn; + Thus, burning for eternities thou mayest not reach, + Remain, Cloud-Hunter and Praxiteles of shadows! + + "To-morrow and to-day for thee are snares and seas. + All are but traps for drowning thee and visions false. + Longer than thy glory is the violet's in thy garden! + And thou shalt pass away; hear this, and thou shalt die!" + + And then I answered: "Let me pass away and die! + Creator am I, too, with all my heart and mind; + Let pits devour my work. Of all eternal things, + My restless wandering may have the greatest worth." + +The same idea, though expressed in a more familiar figure, is found in +another poem published among _The Lagoon's Regrets_. + + THE GUITAR + + In the old attic of the humble house, + The guitar hangs in cobwebs wrapped: + Softly, oh, softly touch her! Listen! + You have awaked the sleeping one! + + She is awake, and with her waking, + Something like distant humming bees + Creeps far away and weeps about her; + Something that lives while ruins choke it. + + Something like moans, like humming bees, + Thy sickened children, old guitar, + Thy words and airs. What evil pest, + What blight is eating thine old age! + + In the old attic of the humble house, + Thou hast awaked; but who will tend thee? + O Mother, wilderness about thee! + Thy children, withering; and something, + Like humming bees, sounds far away! + +A distinct note of pessimism is found in the lines of both these poems. +In the latter, it becomes a helpless cry of anguish. But despair seems +to cure the poet rather than drown his faith in hopelessness. As a +critic, he encourages every initiate of the cause. As a "soldier of the +verse," he himself fights his battles of song in every field. In short +story, in drama, in epic poetry, and above all in lyrics, he creates +work after work. From the _Songs of my Country_, the _Hymn to Athena_, +the _Eyes of my Soul_ and the _Iambs and Anapaests_, he rises gradually +and steadily to the tragic drama of the _Thrice Noble-One_, to the epic +of _The King's Flute_, and to the splendid lyrics of _Life Immovable_ +and _The Twelve Words of the Gypsy_ which are his masterpieces. + +Nor does he always meet adversity with songs of resignation. At times, +he faces indignantly the hostile world with a satire as stinging as that +of Juvenal. He dares attack with Byronic boldness every idol that his +enemies worship. Often he strikes at the whole people with Archilochean +bitterness and parries blow for blow like Hipponax. At times, he even +seems to approach the rancor of Swift. But then he immediately throws +away his whip and transcends his satire with a loftier thought, a +soothing moral, a note of lyricism, and above all with an unshaken faith +in the new day for which he works. The eighth and ninth poems of the +first book of his "Satires" are good illustrations of this side of his +work: + + 8 + + The lazy drones! The frogs! The locusts! + Big men! Politicians! Men who draw + Their learning from the thoughtless journals! + + A crowd of stupid, haughty blockheads! + Unworthily, thy name is set + By each as target for blind blows; + + But forward still thy steps thou leadest, + Up toward the high bell-tower above, + And climbest: Spaces spread about thee, + + And at thy feet, a world of scorners. + Though thou rainest not the godsent manna, + A great Life-giver still, thou tollest + + With a new bell a new-born creed. + + + 9 + + Aye! Break the tyrant's hated chains! + But with their breaking go not drunk! + The world is always slaves and lords: + + Though free, chain-bound your life must be; + Other kinds of chains are there + For you: Kneel down! For lo, I bring them! + + They fit you, redeemers or redeemed! + Bind with these chains your golden youth; + I bring you cares and sacrifices. + + And you shall call them Truth and Beauty, + Modesty, Knowledge, Discipline! + To one command obey last, first, + + The world's great laws, and men, and nations. + +One of his "Hundred Voices" has something of this satiric note. It is a +blow against a worthless pretender of the art of verse, who courts +popularity with strains not worthy of the sacred Muse. Palamas, acting +with greater wisdom than Pope, does not give the name of this unknown +pretender: + + Bad? Would that thou wert bad; but something worse thou art: + Thou stretchedst an unworthy hand to the sacred lyre, + And the untaught mob took thy reeling in the dust + For the true song of golden wings; and thou didst take + Thy seat close by the poet's side so thoughtlessly, + And none dared rise and come to drag thee thence away. + And see, instead of scorning thee, the just was angry; + Yet, even his verse's arrow is for thee a glory! + + +_The Grave_ + +In tracing the great life influences of our poet, we must not pass over +the loss of his third child, "the child without a peer," as he says +in one of his poems addressed to his wife, "who changed the worldly +air about us into divine nectar, a worthy offering to the spotless-white +light of Olympus." To this loss, the poet has never reconciled himself. +The sorrow finds expression in direct or covert strains in every work he +has written. But its lasting monument was created soon after the child's +death. A collection of poems, entitled _The Grave_, entirely devoted +to his memory, is overflowing with an unique intensity of feeling. +The poems are composed in short quatrains of a slowly moving rhythm +restrained by frequent pauses and occasional metrical irregularities, +and thus they reflect with faithfulness the paternal agony with which +they are filled. They belong to the earlier works of the poet, but they +disclose great lyric power and are the first deep notes of the poet's +genius. A few lines from the dedication follow: + + Neither with iron, + Nor with gold, + Nor with the colors + That the painters scatter, + + Nor with marble + Carved with art, + Your little house I built + For you to dwell for ever; + + With spirit charms alone + I raised it in a land + That knows no matter nor + The withering touch of Time. + + With all my tears, + With all my blood, + I founded it + And built its vault.... + +In another poem, in similar strains, he paints the ominous tranquility +with which the child's birth and parting were attended: + + Tranquilly, silently, + Thirsting for our kisses, + Unknown you glided + Into our bosom; + + Even the heavy winter + Suddenly smiled + Tranquilly, silently, + But to receive you; + + Tranquilly, silently, + The breeze caressed you, + O Sunlight of Night + And Dream of the Day; + + Tranquilly, silently, + Our home was gladdened + With sweetness of amber + With your grace magnetic; + + Tranquilly, silently, + Our home beheld you, + Beauty of the morning star, + Light of the star of evening; + + Tranquilly, silently, + Little moons, mouth and eyes, + One dawn you vanished + Upon a cruel deathbed; + + Tranquilly, silently, + In spite of all our kisses, + Away you wandered + Torn from our bosom; + + Tranquilly, silently, + O word, O verse, O rime, + Your witherless flowers + Sow on his grave faith-shaking. + +In another poem reminiscent of Tibullean tenderness, the corners of the +deserted home, in which the child, during his life, had lingered to +play, laugh, or weep, converse with each other about their absent guest: + + Things living weep for you, + And lifeless things are mourning; + The corners, too, forlorn, + Remember you with longing: + + "One evening, angry here he sat, + And slept in bitterness." + "Here, often he sat listening + Enchanted to the tale." + + "Here, I beheld with pride + The grace of Love half-naked; + An empty bed and stripped + Is all that now is left me." + + "I always looked for him; + He held a book; how often + He sat by me to read + With singing tongue its pages!" + + "What is this pile of toys? + Why are they piled before me + As if I were a grave? + Are they his little playthings? + + "The little man comes not; + For death with early frost + Has nipped his little dreams + And chilled his little doings." + + "His little sword is idle, + And here has come to rest." + "And here his little ship + Without its captain waits." + + "To me, they brought him sick + And took him away extinguished." + "They watered me with tears + And perfumed me with incense." + + "The dead child's taper burns + Consuming and consumed." + "The tempest wildly beats + Upon the doors and windows, + And deep into our breasts + The tempest's moan is echoed." + + And all the house about + For thee, my child, is groaning ... + + +THE WORLD BEYOND GREECE + +Greece seems to encompass the physical world with which Palamas has come +in contact. He does not seem to have travelled beyond its borders, and +even within them, he has moved little about. With him scenery must grow +with age before it speaks to his heart. Fleeting impressions are of +little value, and the appearance of things without the forces of +tradition and experience behind it does not attract him: + + Others, who wander far in distant lands may seek + On Alpine Mountains high the magic Edelweis; + I am an Element Immovable; each year, + April delights me in my garden, and the May + In my own village. + O lakes and fiords, O palaces of France and shrines + And harbors, Northern Lights and tropic flowers and forests, + O wonders of art, and beauties of the world unthought,-- + A little Island here I love that always lies before me. + +We must not think, however, that the spirit of Palamas rests within the +narrow confines of his native land. On the contrary, it knows no chains +and travels freely about the earth. He is a faithful servant of +"Melete," the Muse of contemplative study, a service which is very +seldom liked by Modern Greeks. In his preface to his collection of +critical essays entitled _Grammata_ he rebukes his fellow countrymen for +this: "On an old attic vase," he says, "stand the three original Muses, +the ones that were first worshipped, even before the Nine, who are now +world-known: Mneme, Melete, Aoide--Memory, Study, Song. With the first +and last, we have cultivated our acquaintance; and never must we show +any contempt for the fruit of our love for them. Only with the middle +one, we are not on good terms. She seems to be somewhat inaccessible, +and she does not fill our eyes enough to attract us. We have always +looked, and now still we look, for what is easiest or handiest. Is that, +I wonder, a fault of our race or of our age? And is the French +philosopher Fouillee somewhat right when in his book on the _Psychology +of Races_ he counts among our defects our aversion to great and above +all endless labors?" That Palamas is not subject to this fault, one has +only to glance at his works to be convinced. There is hardly an +important force in the world's thought and expression whether past or +present, to which Palamas is a stranger. The literatures of Europe, +America, or Asia are an open book for him. The pulses of the world's +artists, the intellectual battles of the philosophers, the fears and +hopes of the social unrest, the religious emancipation of our day, the +far reaching conflict of individual and state, in short, all events of +importance in the social, political, spiritual, literary, and artistic +life are familiar sources of inspiration for him. With all, he shows the +lofty spirit of a worshipper of greatness and depth wherever he finds +them. Tolstoi or Aeschylus, Goethe or Dante, Ibsen or Poe, Swinburne or +Walt Whitman, Leopardi or Rabelais, Hugo or Carlyle, Serbian Folk Lore +or the Bible, Hindu legends or Italian songs, Antiquity or Middle Ages, +Renaissance or Modernity, any nation or any lore are objects worthy of +study and stores of wisdom for him. Indeed, very few living poets could +be compared with him in scholarship and learning. + +Nor does he lift his voice only for individual or national throbbings. +He sings of the great and noble whenever he sees it. One of his best +lyric creations is a song of praise to the valor of the champions of +Transvaal's freedom, his "Hymn to the Valiant," the first of the +collection entitled "From the Hymns and Wraths," a paean that has been +most highly lauded by Professor D.C. Hesseling of the University of +Leyden (_Nederlandsche Spectator_, March, 1901). Here is a fragment of +it, the words which the Muse addresses to the poet: + + ... Awake! Thou art not maker of statues! + Awake! For songs thou singest! + And song is not for ever + The heart's lament + To fading leaves of autumn, + Nor the secret speech thou speakest, + A Soul of Dream, to the shadows of Night. + + For suddenly there is a clash and groaning! + The joy of birds sea-beaten, + In storms of Elements + And storms of Nations! + Song is, too, + The Marathonian Triumpher! + Over the ashes of Sodoma, + It is blown by the mouth of wrath! + + Something great and something beautiful, + Something from far away, + Travelling Glory brings thee + On her sky-wandering pinions. + + Glory has come! On her wings and on her feet, + Signs of her wanderings are shown, + Dust gold-loaded and distant; + And she brings aloes blossoming, first-seen, + From the land that feeds the Kaffir's flocks. + + In your aged summers, + A new-born spring has spread! + From North to South, + The Atlantic Dragon groans a groan first-heard; + To the African lakes and forests, + His groan has spread and echoed; + From the Red Sea, a Lamia's palace, + To the foam-shaped breast of the White Sea, + A Nereid's realm. + + Thinly the plants were growing + On the bosom of the ancient Motherland; + Winds carried away the seed + And brought it to the Libyan fields + And scattered it into deep ravines + And on the lofty mountain lawns. + + A new blood filled the herbs, + And even the strong-stemmed plants + Waxed stronger. + Men war-glad are risen! + And the waterfalls roar + In the mountain's heart; + Men war-glad are risen + Like diamonds rare to behold + That the earth begets! + + You know them, heights, winds, horizons, + High tides and murmurings of restless waters, + Golden fountains, that shall become + Their crowns! + And you, O gold-built mountain passes, + Castles fit for them, you know them; + Their fame, thou heraldest with pride + From thy verdant distant country + To Europe Imperial, + O Africa, O slave unknown! + + And first of all thou knowest, + O heartless tamer of continents and races, + Rider of Ocean's Bucephaluses, + Thou knowest the worth of the few, + Who dare live free ... + +Within the limits of a general introduction it would be difficult to +enter every nook and corner of the poet's world. We must even pass over +some of the most potent influences of his life. The national dreams of +the Modern Greeks have a splendid dwelling in the thought of Palamas, +who follows with restlessness his people's woes and exults in their +joys. A group of poems dedicated to the "Land that Rose in Arms" and +published in the last volume of the poet's work, the _Town and +Wilderness_, form his noblest patriotic expression. The present +world-conflict has naturally stirred him to new compositions, of which +his "Europe" is preeminently noteworthy as illustrating faithfully the +various aspects of the poet's genius. This poem appeared first in the +_Noumas_, an Athenian periodical, and was then published in the last +volume of the poet's works, the _Altars_.[2] + + EUROPE + + I. THE WAR + + Deer-like the East pants terror-struck! The West, + A flame ablaze that leaps amid the skies! + Nations are wolves! and Hatreds are afoot, + Whetting their bayonets! + + With force gigantic, lo, the bursting forth + Of the barbarian sweeps on, age-wrought; + Oceans are cleft and swallow Gorgon-ships, + Castles of might afloat! + + What sorcerers, in Earth's deep bosom buried, + Beat into shape the metal? For what kings + Slave they? What crowns forge they? The tower-ships, + The ports, the oceans quake! + + Lovingly the dream born of dream flies high + Air wandering amid the eagles; yet + O victory! Lord of the azure, man + Spreads horror even there. + + Methinks the Niebelungen of the Night + Startle sun's radiance ... And ye, the Rhine's + Water-born Nymphs, are lashed and swept away + By monstrous hurricanes. + + Siegfried, the hero of the golden hair, + Makes men and elements before him kneel. + War is the arbiter of rising worlds; + And Violence, arbitress. + + Franks, Anglo-Saxons, Alemanni, Hungars! + Europe, a viper! And the armies, dragons! + Here, Uhlans are destroyers pitiless; + And there, the Cossacks' bands! + + From endless sweeps of steppes, the Slav blows forth + An endless squall, the havoc's ruthless vow! + Liberty is the phantom; and the slave, + The stern reality. + + Helvetians, Scandinavians, Latins, Russians, + The martyr Pole, heroic Flanders' land, + All, small and great, forward to battle rush + With one man's violence! + + Beating thy breast, thou clingest to thy throne, + Storm-wrapped, O worshipper of gods that fade, + Hypatia thou, the Frenchman's ruling queen, + Blood-bred Democracy! + + The Vosgic towers tremble! And God's wrath, + Valkyrie, the awful Nymph, wind-ridden sweeps, + A rider pitiless that threatens thee, + O Paris noble-born! + + Our age's honored prophet, Tamerlan! + A shadow's dream, Messiah of sweet Peace! + Enthroned in judgment stands America. + While from far Asia's depths, + + The Indian hermits and gold-gatherers + With yellow Mongols are afoot! With them, + The sons of Oceania, Kerman, + And Africa; Semites, + + War-glad Turanians and Aryans, + Lands that the Adriatic kisses, Rumans, + Our brother Serb, a wall!--Let Austria's + Cataract burst and roar! + + Vosges and Carpathians and Balkans quake! + Ridges and mountains tremble! The oceans roar! + Five Continents' passionate wraths and hatreds + Revel in festival! + + But lo, the Briton with sea-battling sceptre + That binds the restless waves to his command-- + What Caesars' fetters forges he anew + Upon the island rock? + + And there the Turk, who holds thee with dog's teeth + And makes of thee a valley of sad tears, + O paradisial land of old Ionia; + And here, our Mother Greece, + + Dream-weaver of unending laurel-wreaths + Beside her Cretan helmsman and her king! + Wax-pale, the world stands listening and holds + Its breath, benumbed with fright! + + + II. THE THINKER + + But lo, the thinker, whatever is his soul, + Whatever race has given him his blood, + Watches from his unruffled haunts calm-wrapped + And he stirs not. + + With pity's quivering and terror's chill, + In tears and ruins, he plucks a fruitful joy + From the great Drama, watching thoughtfully + The hidden law. + + And lo, the thinker, whatever is his soul, + Whatever race has given him his blood, + Abides in his unruffled haunts calm-wrapped + And meditates: + + Old age? No! Nor the youth of a new life. + All is the same, Europe and Law, the shark! + And never changes--hear ye not?--the march + Of history. + + A splinter in the powerful's hands, O powerless, + Yet sometimes--comfort thee--his mate and friend! + The powerful's blind hand even thou, O Science, + Often shalt be. + + Is War the Father of all things? And is + The lava messenger of lusty growth? + How can the creature grow from monster seed? + Who knows? Pass on! + + Even if some great dream be born of flesh + And the wroth tempest fling a new world forth, + Even if over the tumult Europe stand + United, one; + + And if the state of a new people rise + Founded upon the ruins of the world, + Still always thou wilt burn, O Fury's torch, + Amid the darkness. + + Even if thou wilt come to states in ruins + And empty thrones, O power of juster race, + Always the tender and the harsh shall be; + Shepherd and flocks! + + Unless, O man, something is destined thee + That thou, O History, foretellest not: + An evolution unbelievable + To gazing worlds. + + + III. THE POET + + The poet: Miracle-working lo, the seed + Of blessed dreams, sown in his heart, takes roots; + He is like mind entranced in ecstasy, + Born upon wings! + + Under his wings, all things are images + Of creatures beautiful for him to sing, + Whether they are roses April-born + Or warring legions! + + And neither the war's roaring gun nor yet + The river of red blood swift-flowing on + Can make the flower fade that fills my breast + With fragrances! + + I am the faithful friend of song; therefore, + I tremble not like child before a blackman; + Midst blood and flames and lashings horrible, + I bring thee, Love! + + Thy footprints mark a shining trail of lights + New-risen, guiding with their gleams my steps; + The restless gambol of thy fire, Dawn's smile + Upon my night. + + Thine eyes, O Fountainhead of Beauty's stream, + Mirror within them all things beautiful: + And lo, the eagles of the Czars, on wings + Sky-roaming, sail. + + The war, when thine eyes look on it, becomes + Under the magic of thy glance pure wine + Of holiness. The German is the wonder + Of deed and thought; + + Where Tolstoi lived, all things are justly blessed; + Where Goethe dwelt all things are light and wisdom; + And yet my heart's pure love flows now for thee, + For thee, O France! + + Though first I sucked my god-sprung mother's milk, + Still thou wert later manna unto me, + Desert-born, joy of mine and guide and teacher, + My second mother. + + On thy world-trodden earth, I have not stood; + Nor didst thou bathe me, Seine, in thy cold waters; + Yet is thy vision light unto my song, + O second mother! + + O Celtic oak-trees and Galatian-born + White lilies in lyric Paris blossoming, + With Hugo and with thee, O Lamartine, + Revels and wings! + + Dante and Nietzsche, Ibsen, Shakespeare, all, + Poured wine for me with their thrice-holy hands + Into thy gleaming cup of gold and bade + Me rise on high. + + A child: And thou didst flash before me first, + Tearing the maps of dazzled Europe's lands + With the world's Mirabeaus and with the world's + Napoleons. + + Thou art not for the gnawing worm of graves. + Thy gods still live with thee, Hypatia! + Glory and Victory may dwell with thee, + Democracy! + +From the number of the life influences which we have scantily traced in +Palamas' work we may conclude that he is a true representative of the +great world and of the age in which he lives. Loving and true to his +immediate surroundings, he does not localize himself in them, nor does +he shut his thought within his personal feelings and experiences, but he +travels far and wide with the thought and action of the universal man +and fills his life with the life of his age. + +It is exactly this universalism that makes _The Twelve Words of the +Gypsy_ his best expression and at the same time the most difficult to +understand thoroughly. The poem is reflective both of the growth of the +poet himself and of the development of the human spirit throughout the +ages with the history and land of Hellas as its natural background. +Consequently, its message is both subjective and objective. Although +differently treated, the theme is the same as that of the "Ascrean" +which appears in the latter part of _Life Immovable_ and which may be +considered as a prelude to _The Twelve Words of the Gypsy_. There is a +flood of feeling and a cosmic imagery throughout, but they only form the +gorgeous palace within which Thought dwells in full magnificence and +mystic dimness. "As the thread of my song," says the poet in his +preface, "unrolled itself, I saw that my heart was full of mind, that +its pulses were of thought, that my feeling had something musical and +difficult to measure, and that I accepted the rapture of contemplation +just as a lad accepts his sweetheart's kiss. And then I saw that I am +the poet, surely a poet among many--a mere soldier of the verse, but +always the poet who desires to close within his verse the longings and +questions of the universal man and the cares and fanaticism of the +citizen. I may not be a worthy citizen. _But it cannot be that I am the +poet of myself alone; I am the poet of my age and of my race; and what I +hold within me cannot be divided from the world without._" + +WASHINGTON, D.C. +July 5, 1919. + + + + +LIFE IMMOVABLE + +FIRST PART + + _In Palamas, we have found every trait of the Greek character: + He is religious and superstitious; a skeptic, a pagan, and a + pantheist.... He is a poet and a philosopher.... He abandons + himself to every impulse of the Greek soul. But he is always + fond of drawing back, of concentrating, of trying to encompass + in a general form the sensations and ideas which sway him. His + principal and latent care is to analyze himself and his world. + A poet and a thinker, Palamas does not attract the multitudes.... + With him everything is a mingling of lights and shadows.... But + through his work Greece of today is most clearly set forth._ + + TIGRANE YERGATE, "Le Mouvement litteraire grec; La Poesie." + _La Revue_, June, 1903, vol. xlv, p. 717 f. + + +With _Life Immovable_, the poetic genius of Kostes Palamas reaches its +full strength. The poet, who, from his very first work, _The Songs of my +Country_, had shown his power in selecting his sources of inspiration +and in weaving the essence of purely national airs into his "light +sketches of sea and olive groves and the various sunlit aspects of Greek +life,"[3] continues to broaden his vision and art through an +unquenchable eagerness for knowledge, for an understanding of things +beautiful, whether present or past, concrete or abstract. He makes broad +strides from his _Hymn to Athena_, to _The Eyes of My Soul_, _Iambs and +Anapests_, and _The Grave_. In all "the pathetic and the common meet +inseparably with an art exact and full of grace, an art that knows its +purpose."[4] But in _Life Immovable_ Palamas rises above the Hellenic +horizon, and strikes the strings of the universal heart in the same +degree as the towns of Patras, Missolonghi, and Athens expand into +Greece and Greece into the world. After all there is both realism and +symbolism in the fact that the first poem of the volume reflects the +atmosphere of the poet's native town while one of the latter ones "The +Ascrean" is filled with an all-including world-vision. + +The present volume contains only the first half of _Life Immovable_. It +consists of five collections of poems: The "Fatherlands," "The Return," +"Fragments from the Song to the Sun," "Verses of a Familiar Tune," and +"The Palm Tree." On the whole, a careful study of these collections +would furnish the key to an adequate understanding of the rest of the +poet's works for which these poems are faithful preludes. For this +reason I am tempted to give an analysis of the translated parts as a +guide to their understanding. But it is by no means my wish to lay down +a fast rule; poetry is no exact science and there should be always ample +room for freedom of suggestion and of view. + + +1. FATHERLANDS + +A series of sonnets, the "Fatherlands," make the opening of the book +and, at the same time, symbolize most clearly the growth of our poet. +Each sonnet describes a fatherland, adding another link to a chain of +worlds that dawn, one after another, upon the poet's being. The first is +Patras, his birthplace. Then follows Missolonghi with its calm lagoon +and the haunts of his boyhood. The splendor of the violet-crowned city +of Athens is succeeded by the island of Corfu, the cradle of the +literary renaissance of Modern Hellenism, which again fades before the +vision of Egypt, whence the earliest lights of civilization shone upon +the land of the Greeks. Christianity in its extreme form of asceticism +is brought forth from one of its strong citadels, Mt. Athos, the holy +mountain of Greece, and a contrast is made between the "gleaming +beauties of the world" and the utter absorption of the ascetic by the +intangible world beyond. The vision of "Queen Hellas," the classic age +of Greece, is followed by the conquering spirit of Hellenism spreading +triumphantly from the democracies of Athens and Sparta to the Golden +Gate of imperial Byzantium. + +But "imagination, like the Phaeacians' ship, rolls on," and the poet +sings: + + In my soul's depths loom many lands ... + And where the heavens mingle with the sea, + A path I seek for a sphere beyond ... + +Oceans are crossed, ages are brought forth from the past, and continents +are joined in making the poet's spirit. Finally even Earth becomes too +narrow and the greater universe opens its gates to the ultimate +fatherland, the elements of the world which will at the end absorb the +being of the poet: + + Fatherlands! Air and earth and fire and water, + Elements indestructible, beginning + And end of life, first joy and last of mine, + You I shall find again when I pass on + To the grave's calm. The people of the dreams + Within me, airlike, unto air shall pass; + My reason, firelike, unto lasting fire; + My passions' craze unto the billows' madness. + + Even my dust-worn body, unto dust; + And I shall be again air, earth, fire, water; + And from the air of dreams, and from the flame + Of thought, and from the flesh that shall be dust, + + And from the passions' sea, ever shall rise + A breath of sound like a soft lyre's complaint. + + +2. THE RETURN + +The second collection of _Life Immovable_, entitled "The Return," is +dedicated to the poet's country. It bears under its title the +significant date of 1897, the year of the unfortunate Greco-Turkish war +which ended disastrously for Greece and plunged the nation into despair. +After the defeat, almost the whole world spoke of the Greeks as of a +degenerate people beyond the hope of redemption. The sensitiveness of +the race helped in rendering the gloom of disaster most depressing. For +some time, even the Greeks began to resign themselves to their fate as a +hopeless one. Palamas is one of the first to sound the reveille. He +conceives of his collection of songs as an expression of faith in the +country's future. With perfect love and assurance "he comes to place the +crowns of Art" "dream-made and dream-engraved" upon her shattered +throne.... + + 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. + +Nevertheless even the poet's spirit cannot help reflecting the gloom +through which it tries to rise. The general depression about him weighs +upon him, too, in spite of his effort. This shadow haunts him +constantly. Life becomes a Fairy, with a Fairy's dangerous charms and +fearful mysteries. "Something like a madman pursues life." The poet +hears this madman's falling steps and is horror-haunted: + + 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 hand the dewy crown of joy! + +This madman grows from within the individual's and the nation's life. +The wings of joys and dreams are clipped. One feels like a night-owl +upon glorious ruins, the beauty of which makes the night even darker. +Tradition, like a majestic temple, seems to choke life by its solemnity. +The present, which seems to be symbolized by the little hut, is in the +relentless grip of "a monstrous vision, the Fairy Illness, stripped in +the silver glimmer of the moon." There is always the mingling of +gleaming beauty and of bitter sorrow. There is always before us a +"cord-grass festival," the amber fragrant flowers budding upon the +piercing spikes of the cord-grass and luring man to the deadly bog where +there is no redemption. One might say that the poet verges on morbidity. + +But such an assumption would be unjust. Palamas may have a clear vision +of the tragedy of life. But in the light of this revelation, with his +unfettered contemplation, he builds, like Bertram Russell, a "shining +citadel in the very centre of the enemy's country, on the very summit of +his highest mountain; from its impregnable watch-towers, his camps and +arsenals, his columns and forts, are all revealed; within its walls, the +free life continues while the legions of Death and Pain and Despair and +all the servile captains of tyrant Fate afford the burghers of that +dauntless city new spectacles of beauty." In like manner, the world of +Greece, in which Palamas lives, "our home," as he calls it, may have its +dreadful silences that are "full of moans," moans vague and muffled as +if coming from a distant world + + Of bygone ages and of times unborn. + +But he does not lose sight of that + + Harmony fit for the chosen few, ... + 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. + +At times the poet even raises his song to rapture. Certainly the past +becomes a source of happiness in his "Rhapsody," and life is agleam with +joy in his "Idyl." But most reflective of this power of the poet to +conquer darkness with light and to turn ruins into gleaming palaces of +beauty and of song, is the poem entitled "At the Windmill." + +The local color which is by no means a rare characteristic of the poetry +of Palamas is particularly rich in this collection. Many of its songs +are vivid and clear pictures of Greek life. Yet with the touch of +symbolism, he makes such local flashes world-flames. In "The Dead," we +have a faithful description of the Greek custom of exposing the open +coffin with the body in a room whence all furniture is removed. Friends +and relatives are gathered about the dead; even children are not +excluded from paying this last honor to the departed. The windows are +closed, and in the gloom tapers and candles are burning before the +images of the saints and over the flower-covered body, while the smoke +of the incense and the fragrance of the wreaths fill the air. Yet +somehow in the verses of the song one catches the moving sounds of +mourning humanity, the image of death against life. + + +3. FRAGMENTS FROM THE SONG TO THE SUN + +"The Fragments from the Song to the Sun" contain some of the noblest +lines of Palamas' poetry. We cannot have a complete understanding of the +symbolism with which this part of _Life Immovable_ is filled. For, after +all, from the great hymn to the light-god, we have here only fragments. +But these fragments remind one of the gold-stained ruins of the +_Akropolis_ against the bright Attic sky. Throughout, we are aware of a +striking duality. The key to these sunlit melodies is probably found in +the "Giants' Shadows." Among the shadows whose voices ascend from +darkness "like moanings of the sea," the poet discovers Telamonian Ajax, +the giant who is utterly absorbed in the world within him, the source of +his light and life, and Goethe, the Teutonic poet, who turns to the +world about himself as a flower to the sun, and whose heart "longs and +thirsts for light." Here then, we detect the doubleness of the sun of +Palamas, a sun within, the source of his inner life and thought, and a +sun without, the source of all external beauty and growth. + +Thus without detracting from the charm and power of the day-star, he +ensouls it with a higher meaning and transforms a fiery globe into a +light-clad Olympian divinity, a giver of life and death, a healer and a +slayer. In "The Tower of the Sun," we find mighty princes, sons of +kings, who had gone thither in their desire to hunt for the light, +turned into stones by the "giant merciless." Motionless they stand, a +world of voiceless statues while + + From their deep and smothered eyes, + Something like living glance + Struggles to peep through its stone-veil! + +Then the fair redeemer, a princess beautiful, comes from far away--the +light, it seems, of inner knowledge and inspiration--and the Sun's tower + + Gleamed forth as if the light + Of a new dawn embraced its walls! + +She knows where the fountain of life flows and with its waters wakes up +the sons of kings, shining + + ... with transcending gleam + Like a far greater Sun. + +This is, then, the sun whom Palamas worships as a god. It is a sun who +possesses all the beauty and power of the actual source of light, but +who, at the same time, by the spell of mystic symbolism rises to the +splendor of a thrice-fair and almighty divinity containing all that is +beautiful and noble and powerful in the world. Upon such a sun he seeks +to find a light-flooded palace for his child in the "Mourning Song." To +such a sun he offers his hymns and prayers; and such a sun he conceives +as a vengeful blood-fed Moloch or a muse of light. He is a fair Phoebus, +who rises from pure Olympus' heights to play as a fountain of flowing +harmonies or to smite as "an archer of fiery arrows" all living things. + + +4. VERSES OF A FAMILIAR TUNE + +In the "Verses of a Familiar Tune" the poet conceives of himself as of a +wedding guest who travels far away to join the festival. The bride, +"thrice-beautiful" seems to be Earth; and the bridegroom, the Sun. The +journey to the festival is the span of mortal life. The poet, who must +travel over this path, endeavors to brighten it with dreams and shorten +his way's weary length + + With sounds that like sweet longings wake in him + Old sounds familiar, low whisperings + Of women's beauties and of home-born shadows ... + 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 second poem of this group, "The Paralytic on the River's Bank," +recalls the notes verging on despair which we have found in "The +Return." Again the gleaming past, appearing here as the other bank of +the river, revels + + In lustful growth and endless mirth + With leafy slopes and forests glistening. + +At the sight of such splendor, the poet lies palsy-stricken on this bank +of the river, the "graceless, barren, and desert bank" unable to rise +and sing. Then Life, like a merciful Fairy, takes him into the humble +hut of the present and makes him forget the other bank and nourishes him +until, at last, waking into the new world, he weaves the whole day long +with master hand all kinds of laurel crowns and pours into the +unaccustomed air a flute's soft-flown complaint. But again from his bed +he raises his eyes and sees once more the world beyond the river, +nodding luringly at him; and even there, in the midst of the new life, +he falls palsy-stricken, "the paralytic of the river bank." + +This note of hopelessness is immediately counteracted by the "Simple +Song," in which Life opens again her gorgeous gardens of the past to +pluck the fairest of flowers; and when he weeps over the newly reaped +blossoms that fill his basket, Life rebukes him by facing them unmoved +"a life agleam!" With like wholesomeness he greets the early dawn that +brings him "thought, light, and sound, his sacred Trinity," and enters +the chapel's garden + + To see the children beautiful, + Children that make the grassy beds a heaven + And rise like miracles among the flowers. + +But on the whole, man, the wedding guest, must travel on while the winds +of uncertainty blow about him. Riddles face him everywhere; questions +stern and unanswerable spring before him; and the life of the whole +human race seems to be that of Thought likened to "an angel ever +wrestling with a strong giant flinging his hundred hands about the +angel's neck to strangle him." For who knows if a good act unknown +shines more than the most splendid monuments of marble or verse? Who +knows if vice is wiser than virtue? Is Fair Art, War's Triumphs, and +great Thoughts expressed costlier in the Temple of the Universe 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 the multitude that bursts, + Thoughtless of reason, into life? Who knows? + +We know not "whether the holy man's blessing" is the best, nor whether +there is more light of Truth in the Law, "that is all eyes," or in some +blind love. Thus entangled in the meshes of life's sphinx-like wonders, +we spend our day, little particles of the great world-struggle, wedding +guests at Life's strange festival! + + +5. THE PALM TREE + +In tenderness and delicacy of thought and expression, no part of _Life +Immovable_ can be compared with the smoothly flowing stanzas of "The +Palm Tree." There is no ruggedness in the meter, no violence in the +stream of images. We are led without knowing it into a modest garden. A +few flowers, a palm tree, some bushes, and the sky make our world, a +world, it seems, of things small and common and trivial. But the poet +passes by, listens to the humble flowers of dark and light blue, and +puts their talk into rhythms. + +At once, the flowers become a world of beauty, life, and thought. They +are our kin, sons of the same parent Earth, and dreamers of strangely +similar dreams. The Palm tree over them becomes a great mystery of +power and grace lifting it to the realm of gods. The flowers, like +little mortals, wonder at the things they see about them. Their own +existence beneath the palm tree's shade is full of riddles, and they +face the world with questionings. In the very midst of a clear sky's +festival that succeeds a rain, the little flowers suffer the first blows +of pain, dealt by the last drops that fall from the palm leaves, and +they feel the agony of sorrow until they come to realize that even pain +brings its reward, knowledge, which makes them glory, like victors, over +death. Their being expands and they sing a song which is the essence of +the world's humanity: + + 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! + +Thus their song continues carrying them from thought to thought, from +dream to dream, from joy to joy, and from sorrow to sorrow. Swept away +by the charms of life, they raise to their strange god a hymn of +exultation. At the sight of the thrice-fair rose, they sing a song of +love and admiration. Their experiences stimulate their minds, and they +seek to solve the dark problems that teem about them. With the eagerness +of living beings they listen to the tales of new worlds and miracles +brought to them by bees and lizards. Illness and night frighten them +with fearful images; and, at last, they pass away with a song of hope +and regret: + + We shall die, + 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! + +HARVARD UNIVERSITY, +June 3, 1917. + + + + +TRANSLATIONS + + + + +LIFE IMMOVABLE + +INTRODUCTORY POEM + + _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._ + + From the "Thoughts of Early Dawn." + + +_I labored long to create the statue for the Temple +On stone that I had found +And set it up in nakedness; and then to pass; +To pass but not to die. + +And I created it. But narrow men who bow +To worship shapeless wooden images, ill-clad, +With hostile glances and with shudderings of fear, +Looked down upon us, work and worker, angrily. + +My statue in the rubbish thrown! And I, an exile! +To foreign lands, I led my restless wanderings. +But ere I left, a sacrifice unheard I offered: +I dug a pit; and in the pit I laid my statue. + +And then I whispered: "Here lie low unseen and live +With things deep-rooted and among the ancient ruins +Until thine hour comes. Immortal flower thou art! +A Temple waits to clothe thy nakedness divine!" + +And with a mouth thrice-wide, and with the voice of prophets, +The pit spoke: "Temple, none! Nor pedestal! Nor light! +In vain! For nowhere is thy flower fit, O Maker! +Better forever lost in the unlighted depths! + +"Its hour may never come! and if it come, and if +Thy work be raised, the Temple will be radiant +With a great host of statues, statues of no blemish, +And works of thrice-great makers unapproachable! + +"Today, was soon for thee; tomorrow will be late! +Thy dream is vain! The dawn thou longest will not dawn; +Thus burning for eternities thou mayest not reach, +Remain cloud-hunter and Praxiteles of shadows! + +"Tomorrow and today for thee are snares and seas! +All are but traps for drowning thee and visions false! +Longer than thy glory is the violet's in thy garden! +And thou shalt pass away--hear this!--and thou shalt die!" + +And then I answered: "Let me pass away and die! +Creator am I, too, with all my heart and mind! +Let pits devour my work! Of all eternal things, +My restless wandering may have the greatest worth!"_ + + + + +FATHERLANDS + + _To the blessed shade of Tigrane Yergate who loved my Fatherlands._ + + + + +FATHERLANDS + + +I[5] + +Where with its many ships the harbor moans, +The land spreads beaten by the billows wild, +Remembering not even as a dream +Her ancient silkworks, carriers of wealth. + +The vineyards, filled with fruit, now make her rich; +And on her brow, an aged crown she wears, +A castle that the strangers, Franks or Turks, +Thirst for, since Venice founded it with might. + +O'er her a mountain stands, a sleepless watch; +And white like dawn, Parnassus shimmers far +Aloft with midland Zygos at his side. + +Here I first opened to the day mine eyes; +And here my memory weaves a dream dream-born, +An image faint, half-vanished, fair--a mother. + + +II[6] + +Upon the lake, the island-studded, where +The breeze of May, grown strong with sea-brine, stirs +The seashore strewn with seaweed far away, +The Fates cast me a little child thrice orphan. + +'Tis there the northwind battles mightily +Upon the southwind; and the high tide on +The low; and far into the main's abyss +The dazzling coral of the sun is sinking. + +There stands Varassova, the triple-headed; +And from her heights, a lady from her tower, +The moon bends o'er the waters lying still. + +But innocent peace, the peace that is a child's, +Not even there I knew; but only sorrow +And, what is now a fire, the spirit's spark. + + +III + +Sky everywhere; and sunbeams on all sides; +Something about like honey from Hymettus; +The lilies grow of marble witherless; +Pentele shines, birthgiver of Olympus. + +The digging pick on Beauty stumbles still; +Cybele's womb bears gods instead of mortals; +And Athens bleeds with violet blood abundant +Each time the Afternoon's arrows pour on her. + +The sacred olive keeps its shrines and fields; +And in the midst of crowds that slowly move +Like caterpillars on a flower white, + +The people of the relics lives and reigns +Myriad-souled; and in the dust, the spirit +Glitters; I feel it battling in me with Darkness. + + +IV[7] + +Where the Homeric dwellers of Phaeacia +Still live, and with a kiss meet East and West; +Where with the olive tree the cypress blooms, +A dark robe in the azure infinite, + +E'en there my soul has longed to dwell in peace +With towering visions of the land of Pyrrhus; +There dream-born beauties pour their flood, Dawn's mother +Lighting the fountain of sweet Harmony. + +The rhapsodies of the Immortal Blind +In the new voice of Greece are echoed there;[8] +The shade of Solomos[9] in fields Elysian + +Breathes rose-born fragrance; and master of the lyre, +A new bard sings,[10] like old Demodocus, +The glories of the Fatherland and Crete. + + +V[11] + +Lo, dreams strange-born among my dreams are mingling; +A lake, the ancient Mareotis, where +The Goddess spreads with ever hidden face +Her wedding couch to greet Osiris Lord. + +As if from graves, from laughless depths, before me +Life brightly glitters with her gentle smile; +A Libyan thirst burns in my heart; and Ra, +The fiery archer, battles everywhere. + +Something sow-like before me gnashed its teeth, +The slavish soul and savage of the Arab; +World-nourishing the Nile rolled on its waters; + +And lotus-crowned, in the cool shade of palms, +I loved as beasts that dwell in wilderness +A Fellah lass full-breasted and sphinx-faced. + + +VI[12] + +A sinner hermit on the Holy Mountain, +I burn in Satan's fire and pine in hell; +My soul is ruins and woe; and in a stream +Deep-flowing, I sink, a traveller beguiled. + +The blue Aegean spreads a sapphire treasure; +Like Daphnis and his Chloe stand sky and earth; +Quivering, lo, the seed of life blooms forth; +In swarms, the living beings suck the sap + +Of all. Olympus, Ossa, Pelion, +And every lap of sea, and every tongue +Of land, lake-like Cassandra, Thrace's shores + +Are clad in wedding garb; and I? "O Lord, +Be my Redeemer!" and with floods of tears +I bathe the god-child Panselenus[13] wrought. + + +VII[14] + +Rumele is a royal crown of ruby; +Moreas is a glow of emerald; +The Seven Isles,[15] a jasmine sevenfold; +And every Cyclad, a Nereid sea-born. + +Even the chains of rugged Epirus laugh; +And Thessaly spreads far her golden charms. +Hidden beneath her present waves of woe, +Methinks I look on Hellas, Queen of lands. + +For still the ancient fir of valor blooms; +And from the pangs and sighs of ages risen, +The breath of Digenes[16] fills all the land + +Breeding a race of heroes strong and new; +And in the depths of green and golden Night +Sings on Colonus Hill the nightingale. + + +VIII + +From Danube to the cape of Taenaron, +From Thunder Mountain's End to Chalcedon, +Thou passest now a mermaid of the sea +And now a statue of marble Parian. + +Now with the laurel bough from Helicon +And now with sword barbarian, thou sweepest; +And on the fields of thy great labarum, +I see a double headed image drawn. + +The sacred Rock gleams like a topaz here; +And virgins basket-bearing, clad in white, +March in a dance and shake Athena's veil; + +But far the sapphires shine of Bosporus; +And through the Golden Gate exulting pass +Victors Imperial triumphantly. + + +IX + +Like the Phaeacians' ship, Imagination +Without the help of sail or mariner +Rolls on; in my soul's depths loom many lands: +Thrice-ancient, motionless like Asia, + +And others five-minded and bold like Europe's realms; +Despair like Africa's black earth holds me; +Within me a savage Polynesia spreads; +And always I trail some path Columbian. + +All monstrous things of life, the fields aflame +Under a tropic sun, I knew; I wore +The shrouds of the poles; and on a thousand paths, + +I saw the world unfurled before my eyes. +And what am I? Grass on a clod of earth +Scorned even by the passing reaper's scythe. + + +X + +A traveller, I found in waveless seas +Calypso and Helena thrice-beautiful; +And on the Lotus Eaters' shores, I drank +The blissful waters of oblivion. + +In the sun-flooded land, I stood by him, +The god of the Hyperborean race; +One night--in strange and peerless radiance-- +The Magi showed to me the mystic star. + +I saw the Queen of Sheba on her throne, +O Soul, light flowing from her fingers' touch; +My eyes beheld Atlantis Isle, that seemed + +An Ocean flower beyond a mortal's dreams; +And now the care and memory of all +These things are rhythm to me and verse and song. + + +XI + +About the chariot of the Seven Stars, +Sky-racers numberless, whole worlds of giants +And beasts: Ocean of suns, the Milky Way, +Orion, and the monsters of the spheres-- + +The fearful Zodiac. The Lion roars +Amidst the wilderness ethereal; +The Lyre plays; and trophy-like, the Lock +Of Berenice gleams; and rhythms and laws + +Fade in the space of mysteries. Sun, Cronus, +Mars, Earth, and Venus sweep in swift pursuit +Towards the world magnet of great Hercules. + +Only my soul like polar star awaits +Immovable, yet filled with dreamful longings; +And knows not whence it comes nor where it goes. + + +XII + +Fatherlands! Air and earth and fire and water! +Elements indestructible, beginning +And end of life, first joy and last of mine! +You I shall find again when I pass on + +To the graves' calm. The people of the dreams +Within me, airlike, unto air shall pass; +My reason, fire-like, unto lasting fire; +My passions' craze unto the billows' madness; + +Even my dust-born body, unto dust; +And I shall be again air, earth, fire, water; +And from the air of dreams, and from the flames + +Of thought, and from the flesh that shall be dust, +And from the passions' sea, ever shall rise +A breath of sound like a soft lyre's complaint. + + + + +THE SONNETS + + +From their foreign land and precious, +From their nest in green, I took +Red-plumed birds; and then I closed them +In a cage of woven gold. + +And the cage of woven gold +Then became a second nest; +On our shores the birds have found +A new, precious fatherland. + +Softly here they shake their feathers; +Swiftly sing of worlds and souls +Deep and spacious; or they mingle + +Lightning-like their tears and smiles. +And though small and as of coral, +Yet they sing with accents loud. + + _1896._ + + + + +EPIPHANY + + +With chariot drawn by star-plumed peacocks, lo, +The goddess of desires before her people +Is revealed! She passes on, youth's joyful shout +And torture, dragging my eighteen years behind. + +Snowflakes became a world; and, taking life +As substance, made her body and her thought. +Upon her royal brow, birds strange and wild, +Scorn's breed, have built their nest and there abide. + +Upon her path, in vain I build the palace +Of virgin dreams with virgin gold for her, +Raising a throne of diamonds in its midst. + +She passes on her starlit chariot; +And as if filled with golden dreams divine, +She does not even look upon my palace! + + _1895._ + + + + +MAKARIA[17] + + +To you, who dawned before me, offspring of +The great abyss and flower of foaming billows! +To you, whom with their love all things embrace, +And who stir tempests in a statue's depths! + +To you, O woman and O virgin, myrrhs, +Fruit, frankincense, I offer recklessly! +To you, the music of the world! To you, +My songs' pure foam, songs that your vision fills! + +For you can love, remember, understand. +Before I saw you in the world's great night, +You shone upon my mother's lighted face. + +Your worshipper into the world I came; +Your name I knew not, and in love's sweet font +I called you with the name _Makaria_! + + _1895._ + + + + +THE MARKET PLACE + + +Just as dry summers pant for the first rain, +So thou art thirsty for a happy home +And for a life remote, like hermit's prayer, +A corner of forgetting and of love. + +And thirsty for the ship upon the sea +That ever onward sails with birds and sea-things, +Filling its life with our great planet's light. +But unto thee both ship and home said: "No! + +"Look neither for the happiness remote +That never moves, nor for the life that ever finds +In each new land and harbor a new soul! + +"Only the panting of a toiling slave +For thee! Drag in the market place thy body's +Nakedness, strange to the strangers and thine own!" + + _1896._ + + + + +LOVES + + +Some people love things modest and things small, +And like to feed in cages little birds; +They deck themselves with garden violets +And drink the singing waters of the brooks. + +Others delight in tales told by the embers +Of the home hearth or listen to the songs +Of the nightbirds with rapture; others, slaves +Of a great pain, burn incense to the stars + +Of beauty. And some thirst for the forest shades +And for a nacreous dawn, and for a sunset +Dipped in red blood, a barren wilderness + +Light-burned. But thee no love with nature binds; +And where the heavens mingle with the sea, +A path thou seekest for a sphere beyond. + + _1896._ + + + + +WHEN POLYLAS DIED[18] + + +With wings and hands ethereal, rhythms and thoughts +Lifted thy soul, redeemed from its dust frame, +And led it straightway to the stars; and there +The sacred escort halts and ends its journey. + +In summers paradisiac beyond, +Where on the Lyre's star the bards and makers, +Like doves with breath immortal, dwell in gleams, +The shade of Solomos like magnet draws thee, + +And leading thee before a double Tabor, +Thus speaks to thee: "Here is thy glory! Here +Dwell and behold the giant pair that stand + +Before thee never setting, with diamonds dark; +And like a breath of worship pass, embracing +Thy Homer and thy Shakespeare, blessed One!" + + _1896._ + + + + +TO PETROS BASILIKOS[19] + + +O bard, whose songs unto the vernal god +Of idyls rang from the same gladsome flute, +April's sweet-breathing air is mingled now +With martial sounds of savage trumpetings. + +A crown is woven for our motherland: +Is it life's laurels or the martyr's thorns? +Oh see beyond: the wild vine's flowers now +Are shaken on a lake of blood and tears! + +Has the war phantom blown upon thee too? +Or hast thou with the force of lightning winds +Flown where for ages sacred hatreds burn + +In flames? Or has an evil wound thrown thee +Upon the earth where now in vain the god +Of idyls tries to raise thee with his kisses? + + _1897._ + + + + +SOLDIER AND MAKER + + +Soldier and maker swiftly I +Seized with my hand the spear and spoke: +"Fall on the beast of the world beyond +And strike the eagle-winged lion!" + +Before me with God's grace, I saw +Soulless the griffin seven-souled, +Blood spurting from a hole hell-like +And scorching with its heat the grass! + +And then restored with calm, I saw +The savage strife like a day's dawn; +And the destroyer, I, became + +A maker; and with this same hand, +I carve on ivory the man +Who slew the beast and make him deathless. + + _1896._ + + + + +THE ATHENA RELIEF + + +Why leanest thou on idle spear? +Why is thy dreadful helmet bent +Heavy upon thy breast, O virgin? +What sorrow is so great, O thought, + +As to touch thee? Are there no more +Of thunder-bearing enemies +To yield thee trophies new? No pomp +Athenian to guide thy ship + +On to the sacred Rock? I see +Some pain holds Pallas fixed upon +A gravestone. Some great blow moves her: + +Is it thy sacred city's loss, +Or seest thou all Greece--alas-- +Of now and yesterday entombed? + + _1896._ + + + + +THE HUNTRESS RELIEF + + +Whither so light of garb and swift of foot, O Huntress? +Is it the sacred gifts of pure Hippolytus +That make thee leave Arcadia's forest land behind, +O shelter of the pure, and slayer of the wild? + +Wild lily of virginity raised on the fields +Olympian, O mountain Queen of gleaming bow, +I envy him who in a careless hour did face +Thy beauty's lightning with thy heartless vengefulness. + +And yet white like the morn, thou openest in secret +Thy lips thrice fragrant with divine ambrosia +And sayest: "Latona's deathless grace has moulded me + +Under the sacred tree upon Ortygia; +But now once more upon the noble stone, the new +Maker has moulded me with a new deathlessness." + + _1895._ + + + + +A FATHER'S SONG + + +O first-born pride and joy of my own home, +I still remember thy coming's sacred day: +The early dawn was breaking as from pearls, +Whitening the sky that spread star-spangled still; + +Thou wert not like the fresh and budding rose +In its green mother's clasp before it opens; +Thou camest like a victim pitiful +And feeble cast by a rude hand among us. + +And as if thou wert seeking help, thy wail +Rose sadder than the sound of a death knell; +And thus the last of thy own mother's groans + +Was mingled with thy first lament. Life's great +Drama began. I watch it, and I feel +Within me Fear's and Pity's mystic wail! + + _1894._ + + + + +TO THE POET L. MAVILES[20] + + +Thy soul is seeking tranquil paths +Alone; thou hatest barking mouths; +And yet thy country's love enflames thee, +O maker of the noble sonnet. + +In the white alabaster vase +Filled with pure native earth, a flower +Of dream that only few can see +Trembles and scatters fragrances. + +Thy verse, the vase; thy mind, the flower. +But a hand broke the vase, and now +The azure beauty of the flower + +Has found a mate in the powder's smoke +Upon Crete's Isle, the blue sea's crown, +Mother of bards and tyrant slayers. + + _1896._ + + + + +IMAGINATION + + +Time's spider lurks and lies in wait; +And on its poisoned claws, the beast +All watchful glides, assails, and grasps +The ruin. O thrice-holy beauties! + +In vain all props and wisdom's arts! +In vain a tribe of sages seek +To save it! Time's remaining crumbs +Are scattered far and melt like frost. + +Then from the lofty land of Thought, +Imagination came, a goddess +Among the gods, and made again, + +Even where until now the ruin +Crumbled, what only its hands can make-- +Deathless the first-born Parthenon. + + _1896._ + + + + +MAKARIA'S DEATH + + _To die for these, my brothers, and myself; + For by not loving my own life too much, + I found the best of finds, a glorious death._ + + EURIPIDES, _Herakleidae_, 532-534. + + +On Athens' earth, Zeus of the Market place +Sees Hercules's children kneeling down +On his pure altar, strange, forlorn, thrice-orphan. +Fearful the Argive sweeps on; duty's hand + +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. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Life Immovable, by Kostes Palamas + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE IMMOVABLE *** + +***** This file should be named 24191.txt or 24191.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/1/9/24191/ + +Produced by David Starner, katsuya and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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