Part 2

While every river mothered daughters fair, And clouds conceived, and ancient trees enslaved Satyr and hama-dryad ... then the flare Of the Greek torch too happy-high was waved-- The jealous East was plotting, Persians lay In plundering splendor, with their blazing hosts, Till Marathon and grim Thermopylæ.... Then, envious cities, roused at Athens’ boasts Of glittering power, crushed the Golden Age. Under the Spartan and Bœotian rage; “Leagues” and sea-struggles, Macedonian terrors, Dragged to a desperate pass the Greek Wayfarers.

X

Yet after Byzantine and Ottoman Settled despotic heel upon the land, No cruel Venetian yoke nor Turkish ban Forced the brave Greeks’ unconquerable stand. Outsiders saw the Cause inviolate, Byron’s hot poet’s heart and cosmic brain Urged on the struggle, to once more create An independent Greece, unchained again. The whole world watched the piteous battle fought, And hailed small triumphs, passionately bought With faith, until, from wild, despairing errors, The struggling Greeks once more were Greek Wayfarers.

XI

Now on Greek highways, where the wagons roll, Piled high with wineskins, or with bags of flour, Past schools and churches and the fountain bowl, New hope springs in the peasants hour by hour. Greeks know that through their sordid modern strife They walk in poetry, believing well They are the children of enchanted life, That sends them forward messages to tell Of Greek restraint and hospitality, Greek love of beauty, and Greek dignity, Making them, in their toil, devoted carers For new and better goals for Greek Wayfarers.

XII

What are the goals to be, and what the gain? As soldiers camp in valley and on hill Do Spartan youths leap on the dusty plain? Does spirit of Leonidas keep still One death-defying purpose? Will the blood Leap of a sudden out of the Soros, And Marathon with bright phalanxes flood? Do all Greeks bear the title _agathos_? Ah, Greece! Ah, Greece! dare for the precious Past, And throw your lot with gallant men that cast Eternal die, to be the Spirit-Bearers For all the world and all the Greek Wayfarers.

THE THRESHING-FLOOR

“This mess of hard-kneaded barley-bread and a libation mixed in a little cup.”--_Greek Anthology._

There’s a white stone-paven floor Set in a jade-green field Where the spiked acacias yield A shadow, and the four Earthen pots on a round well-wheel Come up drippingly full and spill Where the white horse runs his circle round Drawing water for garden ground.

The white foundation here Has ne’er held temple-plinth, But mint and terebinth Perfume is in the air. And here, at the harvest-time the wains Rattle along the sunburnt plains, And the peasant’s arms are bared to thresh Food from the golden barley mesh.

Before the morning’s long Comes drowsy, sliding snatch Of primitive threshing-song; Down in the garden patch The murmurous sleepy drone of bees Blends with the stir of the poplar-trees, And the rustle of bundled grain Tossed from the wagon train.

Ah! the _Mavrodaphne_ wine Is fruity and sweet to taste, And the oranges are fine And the blocked Loukoúmi paste. But I long for a crust of peasant bread Eaten with honey from Parnes’ head, And I hunger the more and more At sight of the threshing-floor!

BY THE WALLACHIAN TENTS

THE BOY

Over dripping washing-trough Bends my mother busy drubbing, Father’s fustanella rubbing With the dark soap, smeary--rough. There my goats go, wild careering From the sound of wagons, nearing. Oootz--Ella--Whooff--! Out of there, you silly kid, By the old soup-kettle hid.

THE MOTHER

That boy, lying in the thyme, Sheepskinned loafer in the grasses, He is carelessness sublime, Sunned in yellow iris masses. Thinks he of the dead men sleeping Far away from flocks he’s keeping, Piled in bloody mountain-passes? With the brutal guns again Booming: “Give us men! More men!”

THE BOY

Baby hanging from the tree, Peeps from out his bright bag-hollows, While the white dog rolls and wallows Bitten by an angry bee. Forth for those sheep he must sally, Where they by the cold brook dally. Oootz--Ella--Deee!-- Now the fools, in silly mass, Scamper toward the mountain-pass.

THE MOTHER

Far off, on the dusty plain, Reels my drunk Wallachian, Coming up from town again. Drinking in the village khan, All our Balkan coin he’s spending; As his stupid way he’s wending I the future scan. Ugh! I hear those guns again Surly--growling: “Men! More men!”

THE BOY

Swift the smooth Peneios flows Smoky-white to sea’s blue gleaming. Where the battleships are steaming Ready for their foes, I should like to fight and bear me Fiercely. Nothing there would scare me. Ella--Ella--Pros! With this high-swung shepherd-stick That old bucking ram I’ll hit!

THE MOTHER

St. Spiridion! He beats That old ram as ’t were his woman! What a fine, big, brawny human Have I suckled at these teats! Ah! I have my mother-reasons To distrust Rumanian treasons, When our Council meets. Bah! those dirty guns again Booming: “Give us men! More men!”

When my man comes, o’er and o’er I will bluster--Not will hunger Nor your beatings make me monger Sons to angry war. That brown boy, in sunshine dreaming, I’ll not feed him to the teeming Snorting cannon-maw! Move we now our tents again, Far from guns that roar: “More men!”

THE VALE OF TEMPÉ

The river that winds through the Vale of Tempé is white, Smokily white, like water opaque with a charm, Olympus knows why. He towers there, frostily bright, And Ossa forth stretches a slaty, precipice arm,-- Deepening silvery pools into green-clouded light,-- So that Tempé is hidden and secret and free from alarm.

But the green Vale of Tempé leads forth to the stir of the Sea Where the battleships growl and where Salonica is held Fast in the grip of the Powers, who fight for the key Unlocking the Border-doors; if Tempé were shelled, Then the white Peneios, veiled as for bridal, would be Scarlet with blood of soldiers, like forests felled.

Pindar, Spenser, Shelley, Byron,--ye bards-- Lyric-tongued all! What if the fair Tempé glade, Where delicate flowers gleam on the virginal swards And the cuckoo pipes to the shy-footed dryad-maid And the trees hide Daphne,--What if the horror-mad hordes Trample this Pastoral, where old Mythology stayed?

They answer not and the soft Peneios is veiled, ’Mid the joy of the fauns and flowers and river-born shade. But an old Belief in the smoky-white water is trailed-- Who knows but Apollo, fierce for his pagan glade-- Will hasten, haughtily, in shining sun-armor mailed, And carry it off to the Greek gods’ ambuscade?

THE ENCOUNTER

’Twas there in Tempé that he lay Under a plane-tree, fast asleep, His pipes far-flung.--Pan! growing gray; Lines on his mocking face; his gay Scuffling hoofs forgot to leap.

The river pleaded, “Wake the God”; The birds sat by with soft aside; Up from the delicate spring-sod I saw the eager flowers nod, And little leaves my language tried.

I woke Pan. Bore the deep earth-gaze On my false being, false to life By all the dreary modern ways: “Pan,” I dared whisper--“long the days-- One needs thy music in the Strife.

“Full many a spring when poppies fired This brook-side, did I play for you.” Pan answered me: “My music tired, For colder music you desired; So be it--I am weary too!”

“Forgive me for my sad unworth, Oh, patient Pan,” I murmured low. “I know that I have failed the earth; Only, perhaps, by spirit-birth, My children thy wild pipes will know.”

Pan frowned: “Nay, all the world doth rave; Against the Pipe; they rant, like you! Go, people my deserted cave With theories and books. Zeus save That I should hinder what you do!”

Far back in Tempé’s leafy glade The dappled sunshine filtered through, And dewdrops opalled every blade. I was not of the god afraid.-- And still there was a thing to do.

“Ah, Pan, dear Pan,” I softly cried, “Who is it that shall save but thee? Thy music, god, the whole world wide, Is listened for on country-side, And every dreamer bows the knee!

“By musky grapes in rosy hands, And all the golden fruits that glow, A happy lover understands Thy fluting, hearts in sober lands Languish till they thy clear pipe know!

“Ah, Pan--play on! Forgive the souls Whom knowledge cheats of love; forgive That life exacts its bitter tolls And leads to artificial goals. Oh! Play! that we may surelier live!”

I bent, I touched the shaggy hoof, The horns; I looked into the eyes Clear as rock pools, and yet aloof Like wild bird’s, then I saw the proof That Pan is kind beyond surmise.

Tears! In Pan’s eyes!--I sprang away (Not even Pan should see me weep)-- Yet on through Tempé, all that day I heard wild, happy piping.--Yea, I wakened Pan!--He’s not asleep!

EASTER DANCE AT MEGARA

FIRST PICTURE

Green lizards flash along the walls Curd-white against the fire-blue bay; The pepper-trees’ fern branches sway Their delicate, hot, scarlet balls.

The linkèd maidens wreathe the square, Blazing with festal coinage, hung On brown necks; yellow kerchiefs, flung O’er dusky, long, twin braids of hair.

The Attic maids, with Attic mirth Subdued and shy, from hill and plain, On Easter holiday, at birth Of spring, weave altar-pacèd chain.

And sing a song, to shepherd flute, Its shifting, three-toned lilt is cold, Only--it is so very old, The wonder is it is not mute.

But so, they say, did maidens dance In dim Eleusis, near the shrine. And that is why these dark eyes shine With classic-cultured ignorance.

And that is why, from near and far, Greek peasants come with stately pride, They know that Past from which they glide Into the dance at Megara!

SECOND PICTURE

In his long smock, and farmer’s cotton cap, Demetri dances. The old crones smile, the little children clap, The young girls’ glances Follow him, tall and grave, and deep of eye, Marvelling at him, yet aloof and shy; His fellow-dancers jostle roughly by With rude askances.

The piper plays his reediest, shrillest tune, And at his leisure Demetri, as though pacing in a rune, Treads out a measure. The elders laugh: “Dance there, fantastic fellow! Tread down the grapes, while harvest moon is mellow, Give thy feet wings, fly o’er the sunset billow At thy good pleasure!”

The little glasses of brown resin-wine Are quaffed; beads slipping Through the Greek fingers, slender, brown, and fine, Accent his skipping. They nudge, to see his hand curve on his shoulder, They marvel as his dark eyes burn and smoulder, And note his step less vague, his bearing bolder, And go on sipping.

Around him dance the peasants, pacing slow With rhythmic swinging, But in and out he threads their simple show ’Midst childish singing. Reels past old bearded Greeks, their grave tales weaving, And fierce Wallachians come for Easter thieving; Albanian women with bold bosoms heaving To children clinging.

Spell-bound, all watch him reel, and swerve, and bend; His dizzy spinning Dazzles their eyes. Word goes from friend to friend: “He is beginning!” For now with somber eyes, unveiled and burning, From peasant dance they see Demetri turning To an old trance of rapturous discerning-- Loud plaudits winning.

The sun shines paler on the kerchief’s gold, The church-bell’s tolling; The sea grows purple, and the distance cold, With dark waves rolling. The long lines break, the black-haired maidens wrangle; With exclamation all the dusty tangle Comes to a halt, ’mid glint of peasant spangle And soft song trolling.

But tall Demetri lost in dreaming pace In solemn swaying, Keeps on alone, with tense and mystic face As he were praying. With hand upraised, as holding the caduceus, He looks away to old far-off Eleusis, Devising Dionysiac curves and nooses, Old Laws obeying.

Why, in his face that mystic peering gaze Like a faun, waiting? Why does he pace his lonely, occult ways His eyes dilating? “Demetri!” “Mitchu!” tease the girls. Their screaming He does not hear, lost in far other seeming, In strange dance-spell, in old blood-tutored dreaming, Old rhythms creating.

PEACE, 1914

Why do the women walk so free and strong In Thessaly? It is because the Turks wreak no more wrong; The Balkans ended, sunburnt soldiers throng, In Thessaly.

Why do the old monks pray so hard for rain In Thessaly? It is because the mountain slopes again Roll in green terraces of silver grain, In Thessaly.

Why does the shepherd wear a broidered shirt In Thessaly? Because ’tis peace; clean is the goat-herd’s skirt, The women spin; the needles are alert, In Thessaly.

And why the young kids, white as snowy curds, In Thessaly? The farmers are successful with their herds; The highway’s loud with guttural teamster-words, In Thessaly.

Why are the threshing-floors so thickly set In Thessaly? Because, when harvest comes, and youth is met, Comes the old will of Nature, sturdy yet, In Thessaly.

And these deserted hovels that we see In Thessaly, Where the Peneios winds about the tree? The villagers have gone across the sea From Thessaly.

And this trim town of plaster and of thatch In Thessaly? America hangs fortune on the latch, Our sons come back, then blooms the garden patch, In Thessaly!

Then, this is no decadent race I see In Thessaly? Oh, stranger, who can tell? Hard things must be. Only, the “Greeks were Greeks,” and Greeks are we In Thessaly.

DELPHI

Matrixed ’mid purple mountain steeps, An ancient Grecian city sleeps. Where rock-hewn fountains spill Down scarlet-poppied hill; Long time ago its temples fair Rose, Doric-columned, on the air, And voices told of riddles strange That echoed down the mountain range; And men and cities brought their all To Delphi and the priestess’ thrall. While in the mountain-pass a pipe Played on and on and on-- A pipe played on.

Now up the aisles of olive-trees Come wistful souls from over-seas, From the Itean shore, Past rose-hung cottage door, And in the sacred fount they dip, Or tell the lore with alien lip; Or, dreaming, scan far snow-crowned heights, Lit, as of old, with pagan lights. While through the thyme, ’mid rock and pool, The sheep-bells tinkle, water cool,-- And in the mountain pass, a pipe Plays on and on and on-- A pipe plays on.

While glowworms blur the dewy gorse, And stars float from their tidal source, And Grecian peasants steal By creaking wagon-wheel, We ponder on this Life and Death Within the taking of our breath; So old, these ruined fanes that lie, Beneath the temple of the sky! So old these sacred stones that gleam With the strange shining Delphic dream. While in the mountain-pass the pipe Plays on and on and on-- A pipe plays on.

So old, this silence trembles, brought To solemn tension with our thought-- Deep as the mystic strain Born in Apollo’s fane: “Dear God, ’tis well no Pythoness For us may prophesy or bless! Well, that no riddle-verse controls The will that slumbers in our souls! Well, that we choose, calm, clear-eyed, free To live and learn our truth from Thee!”-- Still in the mountain-pass the pipe Plays on and on and on-- The pipe plays on.

THE DESCENT FROM DELPHI

Dawn, pallid and cold, Parnassos, grave in the mist Like the shrouded form of a priest; No light in the East, Save thin stars, worn and old.

Under the “Shining Ones” The temple-steps, in white, Chromatic, gleaming, light, Mount to the stadion’s Oval of crumbling stones.

Dawn, stealthy and still, Frostily fills the fields, Dew sprinkles the maize; Where ranging cattle graze, His pipe a shepherd plays.

Sun, striking the snow On far off mountain height,-- Day, solemn and slow, Rises from Long Ago Clothed in pure samite.

A scarlet rug in a field; A man and a woman asleep-- Around them, dogs and sheep, Where the maize is quivering gold, As the broad day is unrolled.

The man and the woman asleep-- Alone in the Delphian field! And the world, once more revealed Young, and all time is healed The Oracle unsealed!

TWILIGHT ON ACRO-CORINTH

From the Venetian arch, the doubting owl Sends forth his whimper; where the sheep-dogs lope Sounds donkey’s thirsty octave, call of fowl, And near green-silver maize and poppied slope, Goat-bells ring jangling on the tether-rope As, truant from some hooded shepherd’s scowl, Dim, hornèd shapes in black thyme-bushes grope.

I look four ways down all the rich descents To mountain, cliff, and sea. First to the South Where Argolis in purple permanence Gives sumptuous breast to dark sea’s hungry mouth. Enthroned in mountain fastness, warm, immense, Or, lying prone by misty olive-fence Losing herself in languid, dusty drouth.

Far Eastward, islanded Ægina keeps Her tree-girt shrine, and Sunion the prow Of white sea-temple lifts on Laurion steeps Where mines are hid, and silver quarries show. Then, like a bee, the eager eye upsweeps To Athens, where the Acros-flowers grow And the dim road to far Eleusis creeps.

I look toward Athens, over golden gorse, Purple anemones, Saronic seas, Powerful, kingly blue. I see the source Of all Mind ever was, and then the trees Blurring, I turn me West, perforce Sweeping Arcadian ridges, as light flees And over paling skies cloud-horses course.

Bœotia, Phocis, Lokris ranges tread Vast gorges ’round the Gulf’s imperial shores; Like citadels, their summits, thunder-bred, And at their feet are sacred river-floors, And many a mountain stream its crystal bed Has hidden beyond those labyrinthine doors From whence down winds the clue-like glancing thread.

And as the night surrounds me and the stars Climb up the clouds like mountain-pastured flocks, I muse on Progress, that which hurts and scars Nature with blood, machines, and battle-shocks. But, as I gaze, the whole wild sky unbars War’s end portending; the new time unlocks Ultimate peace no human passion mars.

ROMANCE

The “wine-dark” sea menaces as of old, When young Odysseus dared; and all our ship Shudders against the midnight mountain-waves Hurrying to crush the steamer, in her plunge On black path, under wind-blown scattered stars. Strange is the contrast! Strange it is to lie Cabined and berthed, feeling like crystal, hid In a night-moving mountain; thence to see At port-hole’s glimmer, land, solemn and strange! Old as all prayers, all vigils, and all hope! As the ship stops at Patras, and bells ring, To look out on the mole-lights, red and white, And see the black, unreadable night-shore. And then, to lie back, ponder the mystery Of that one man--that little ugly man-- Reviled, unknown, and unbelieved, who burned So fiercely with his message, that he sailed From port to port, to give it. My age boasts Its Christian ethics cool expedience. That age, simply knew a man named “Paul,” Who fought with beasts, endured the stripes, to give His flaming, tender, strong epistles; wrote To the people, as ’twixt starvings and shipwrecks He sailed these waters, from the “upper coasts.”

NIGHT IN OLD CORINTH

A hill trembling with grain And a winding path. Shadowy sheep on the slopes; The sound of bells and sea, The sound of a peasant song, The sound of pipe and drum ... And in the twilight grey Apollo’s temple.

Wide doors and the cottage fire, Bright coffee-coppers; plates Of white curds and of fish; A man in a scarlet cap, Turning a roasting spit; A woman by the fount ... And in the twilight grey Apollo’s temple.

How was it when Paul came? Corinth was blazing white, Walled and rich and corrupt. They “sat to eat and drink And rose up but to play!” The Purple Sellers knew ... But in the twilight gleamed Apollo’s temple!

The fountain’s hung with moss But the cypress-trees are tall, And little wingèd shapes Say “Níke” in the ground. The Jews “requiring signs,” And the Greeks “looking for wisdom,” Still in the twilight, see Apollo’s temple!

AQUAMARINE

I think, when I grow tired of the world, I shall go back to Greece (in spring, of course), By forest trail, and oleander source, Past snow-peaks on green mountain lawns impearled.

To Trypi: where, from saddle I shall slide, And hear my donkey’s bell jerk as he feeds On herbs and simples--growing to his needs-- By rosy roofs set in the green glenside.

Far down the valleys I shall hear the call Of white-garbed peasants; throaty cattle-cry; The little Trypi brook will rustle by Among the poplars, silver-green and tall.

I shall watch Greek girls, toiling up the height, Laden with brush and whorls of scented thyme, And see their youthful climbing pantomime, Ere I lie down to ponder with my might

On three sweet subjects, simple village themes, And yet so strange, so subtle, I have met No man, nor woman, who can tell me yet The answers, nor have found them in my dreams.

First: The Greek plane-trees, cool ancestral trees, Biblical-strong, like mighty tents of Saul, What earth power spreads their green ethereal Canopied gloom, their soft immensities?

Next, the Greek fruits and flowers; what godlike soil Nourishes orange, fig, and olive stretch, So that no child goes forth the goats to fetch But fills his cap with colored orchard spoil?

Last, I shall ponder (never sure, quite, Imaging richly, merged in miracle) Wondering what source conceals the mystic shell Staining with blue the Ægean’s mica-light.

Lies in it some great Pool, that slow distils Azure of flowers and skies to pigment bold? Or do the encircling mountain-chains enfold A vat of purple, whence wine-color spills?

Ægean Blue, that crimson-orchil tide Bold, deep, intensest, incandescent flame, Pure well of Azure, fitly has no name But Greece in her inimitable pride

Of worship on strange occult secret planes The hidden sponsors of her visual life May, long ago, ’neath sacrificial knife Have loosed the gods’ blue blood from Dacian veins.

One can see Spartan blood flow down Greek shores, In crimson poppy-tide, in scarlet waves; But it is “wine-dark” energy, that laves Gold-bronzèd rocks and hidden sea-cave floors.