"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 pa.s.s away--hear this!--and thou shalt die!"

And then I answered: "Let me pa.s.s 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, Parna.s.sus 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 seash.o.r.e 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 Vara.s.sova, 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 G.o.ds 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 G.o.ddess 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 la.s.s full-breasted and sphinx-faced.

VI[12]

A sinner hermit on the Holy Mountain, I burn in Satan's fire and pine in h.e.l.l; 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 Ca.s.sandra, Thrace's sh.o.r.es

Are clad in wedding garb; and I? "O Lord, Be my Redeemer!" and with floods of tears I bathe the G.o.d-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 h.e.l.las, 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.