GREEK FOLK SONGS.

IANNOULA.

ALL the maidens were merry and wed All to lovers so fair to see; The lover I took to my bridal bed He is not long for love and me.

I spoke to him and he noting said, I gave him bread of the wheat so fine, He did not eat of the bridal bread, He did not drink of the bridal wine. I made him a bed was soft and deep, I made him a bed to sleep with me; 'Look on me once before you sleep, And look on the flower of my fair

body.

'Flowers of April, and fresh May-dew, Dew of April and buds of May; Two white blossoms that bud for you, Buds that blossom before the day.'

THE TELL-TALES.

ALL in the mirk midnight when I was beside you, Who has seen, who has heard, what was said, what was done? 'Twas the night and the light of the stars that espied you, The fall of the moon, and the dawning begun.

'Tis a swift star has fallen, a star that discovers To the sea what the green sea has told to the oars, And the oars to the sailors, and they of us lovers Go singing this song at their mistress's doors.

AVE.

TWILIGHT ON TWEED.

THREE crests against the saffron sky, Beyond the purple plain, The dear remembered melody Of Tweed once more again.

Wan water from the border hills, Dear voice from the old years, Thy distant music lulls and stills, And moves to quiet tears.

Like a loved ghost thy fabled flood Fleets through the dusky land; Where Scott, come home to die, has stood, My feet returning stand.

A mist of memory broods and floats, The border waters flow; The air is full of ballad notes, Borne out of long ago.

Old songs that sung themselves to me, Sweet through a boy's day dream, While trout below the blossom'd tree Plashed in the golden stream.

* * * * * *

Twilight, and Tweed, and Eildon Hill, Fair and thrice fair you be; You tell me that the voice is still That should have welcomed me.

ONE FLOWER.

["Up there shot a lily red, With a patch of earth from the land of the dead, For she was strong in the land of the dead."]

WHEN autumn suns are soft, and sea winds moan, And golden fruits make sweet the golden air, In gardens where the apple blossoms were, In these old springs before I walked alone; I pass among the pathways overgrown, Of all the former flowers that kissed your feet Remains a poppy, pallid from the heat, A wild poppy that the wild winds have sown. Alas! the rose forgets your hands of rose; The lilies slumber in the lily bed; 'Tis only poppies in the dreamy close, The changeless, windless garden of the dead, You tend, with buds soft as your kiss that lies In over happy dreams, upon mine eyes.

METEMPSYCHOSIS.

I SHALL not see thee, nay, but I shall know Perchance, thy grey eyes

in another's eyes, Shall guess thy curls in gracious locks that flow On purest brows, yea, and the swift surmise Shall follow, and track, and find thee in disguise Of all sad things, and fair, where sunsets glow, When through the scent of heather, faint and low, The weak wind whispers to the day that dies.

From all sweet art, and out of all 'old rhyme,' Thine eyes and lips are light and song to me; The shadows of the beauty of all time, Carven and sung, are only shapes of thee; Alas, the shadowy shapes! ah, sweet my dear Shall life or death bring all thy being near?

LOST IN HADES.

I DREAMED that somewhere in the shadowy place, Grief of farewell unspoken was forgot In welcome, and regret remembered not; And hopeless prayer accomplished turned to praise On lips that had been songless many days; Hope had no more to hope for, and desire And dread were overpast, in white attire New born we walked among the new world's ways.

Then from the press of shades a spirit threw Towards me such apples as these gardens bear; And turning, I was 'ware of her, and knew And followed her fleet voice and flying hair, - Followed, and found her not, and seeking you I found you never, dearest, anywhere.

A STAR IN THE NIGHT.

THE perfect piteous beauty of thy face, Is like a star the dawning drives away; Mine eyes may never see in the bright day Thy pallid halo, thy supernal grace: But in the night from forth the silent place Thou comest, dim in dreams, as doth a stray Star of the starry flock that in the grey Is seen, and lost, and seen a moment's space.

And as the earth at night turns to a star, Loved long ago, and dearer

than the sun, So in the spiritual place afar, At night our souls are mingled and made one, And wait till one night fall, and one dawn rise, That brings no noon too splendid for your eyes.

A SUNSET ON YARROW.

THE wind and the day had lived together, They died together, and far away Spoke farewell in the sultry weather, Out of the sunset, over the heather, The dying wind and the dying day.

Far in the south, the summer levin Flushed, a flame in the grey soft air: We seemed to look on the hills of heaven; You saw within, but to me 'twas given To see your face, as an angel's, there.

Never again, ah surely never Shall we wait and watch, where of old we stood, The low good-night of the hill and the river, The faint light fade, and the wan stars quiver, Twain grown one in the solitude.

HESPEROTHEN.

BY the example of certain Grecian mariners, who, being safely returned from the war about Troy, leave yet again their old lands and gods, seeking they know not what, and choosing neither to abide in the fair Phaeacian island, nor to dwell and die with the Sirens, at length end miserably in a desert country by the sea, is set forth the VANITY OF MELANCHOLY. And by the land of Phaeacia is to be understood the place of Art and of fair Pleasures; and by Circe's Isle, the places of bodily delights, whereof men, falling aweary, attain to Eld, and to the darkness of that age. Which thing Master Francoys Rabelais feigned, under the similitude of the Isle of the Macraeones.

THE SEEKERS FOR PHAEACIA.

THERE is a land in the remotest day, Where the soft night is born, and sunset dies; The eastern shores see faint tides fade away, That wash the lands where laughter, tears, and sighs, Make life, - the lands beneath the blue of common skies.

But in the west is a mysterious sea, (What sails have seen it, or what shipmen known?) With coasts enchanted where the Sirens be, With islands where a Goddess walks alone, And in the cedar trees the magic winds make moan

Eastward the human cares of house and home, Cities, and ships, and unknown Gods, and loves; Westward, strange maidens fairer than the foam, And lawless lives of men, and haunted groves, Wherein a God may dwell, and where the Dryad roves.

The Gods are careless of the days and death Of toilsome men, beyond the western seas; The Gods are heedless of their painful breath, And love them not, for they are not as these; But in the golden west they live and lie at ease.

Yet the Phaeacians well they love, who live At the light's limit, passing careless hours, Most like the Gods; and they have gifts to give, Even wine, and fountains musical, and flowers, And song, and if they will, swift ships, and magic powers.

It is a quiet midland; in the cool Of twilight comes the God, though no man prayed, To watch the maids and young men beautiful Dance, and they see him, and are not afraid, For they are near of kin to Gods, and undismayed.

Ah, would the bright red prows might bring us nigh The dreamy isles that the Immortals keep! But with a mist they hide them wondrously, And far the path and dim to where they sleep, - The loved, the shadowy lands along the shadowy deep.

A SONG OF PHAEACIA.

THE languid sunset, mother of roses, Lingers, a light on the magic seas, The wide fire flames, as a flower uncloses, Heavy with odour, and loose to the breeze.

The red rose clouds, without law or leader, Gather and float in the airy plain; The nightingale sings to the dewy cedar, The cedar scatters his scent to the main.

The strange flowers' perfume turns to singing, Heard afar over moonlit seas; The Siren's song, grown faint in winging, Falls in scent on the cedar trees.

As waifs blown out of the sunset, flying, Purple, and rosy, and grey, the birds Brighten the air with their wings; their crying Wakens a moment the weary herds.

Butterflies flit from the fairy garden, Living blossoms of flying flowers; Never the nights with winter harden, Nor moons wax keen in this land of ours.

Great fruits, fragrant, green and golden, Gleam in the green, and droop and fall; Blossom, and bud, and flower unfolden, Swing, and cling to the garden wall.

Deep in the woods as twilight darkens, Glades are red with the scented fire; Far in the dells the white maid hearkens, Song and sigh of the heart's desire.

Ah, and as moonlight fades in morning, Maiden's song in the matin grey, Faints as the first bird's note, a warning, Wakes and wails to the new- born day.

The waking song and the dying measure Meet, and the waxing and waning light Meet, and faint with the hours of pleasure, The rose of the sea and the sky is white.

THE DEPARTURE FROM PHAEACIA.

THE PHAEACIANS.

WHY from the dreamy meadows, More fair than any dream, Why will you seek the shadows Beyond the ocean stream?

Through straits of storm and peril, Through firths unsailed before, Why make you for the sterile, The dark Kimmerian shore?

There no bright streams are flowing, There day and night are one, No harvest time, no sowing, No sight of any sun;

No sound of song or tabor, No dance shall greet you there; No noise of mortal labour, Breaks on the blind chill air.

Are ours not happy places, Where Gods with mortals trod? Saw not our sires the faces Of many a present God?

THE SEEKERS.

NAY, now no God comes hither, In shape that men may see; They fare we know not whither, We know not what they be.

Yea, though the sunset lingers Far in your fairy glades, Though yours the sweetest singers, Though yours the kindest maids,

Yet here be the true shadows, Here in the doubtful light; Amid the dreamy meadows No shadow haunts the night.

We seek a city splendid, With light beyond the sun; Or lands where dreams are ended, And works and days are done.

A BALLAD OF DEPARTURE. (2)

FAIR white bird, what song art thou singing In wintry weather of lands o'er sea? Dear white bird, what way art thou winging, Where no grass grows, and no green tree?

I looked at the far off fields and grey, There grew no tree but the cypress tree, That bears sad fruits with the flowers of May, And whoso looks on it, woe is he.

And whoso eats of the fruit thereof Has no more sorrow, and no more love; And who sets the same in his garden stead, In a little space he is waste and dead.

THEY HEAR THE SIRENS FOR THE SECOND

TIME.

THE weary sails a moment slept, The oars were silent for a space, As past Hesperian shores we swept, That were as a remembered face Seen after lapse of hopeless years, In Hades, when the shadows meet, Dim through the mist of many tears, And strange, and though a shadow, sweet.

So seemed the half-remembered shore, That slumbered, mirrored in the blue, With havens where we touched of yore, And ports that over well we knew. Then broke the calm before a breeze That sought the secret of the west; And listless all we swept the seas Towards the Islands of the Blest.

Beside a golden sanded bay We saw the Sirens, very fair The flowery hill whereon they lay, The flowers set upon their hair. Their old sweet song came down the wind, Remembered music waxing strong, Ah now no need of cords to bind, No need had we of Orphic song.

It once had seemed a little thing, To lay our lives down at their feet, That dying we might hear them sing, And dying see their faces sweet; But now, we glanced, and passing by, No care had we to tarry long; Faint hope, and rest, and memory Were more than any Siren's song.

CIRCE'S ISLE REVISITED.

AH, Circe, Circe! in the wood we cried; Ah, Circe, Circe! but no voice replied; No voice from bowers o'ergrown and ruinous As fallen rocks upon the mountain side.

There was no sound of singing in the air; Failed or fled the maidens that were fair, No more for sorrow or joy were seen of us, No light of laughing eyes, or floating hair.

The perfume, and the music, and the flame Had passed away; the memory of shame Alone abode, and stings of faint desire, And pulses of vague quiet went and came.

Ah, Circe! in thy sad changed fairy place, Our dead Youth came and looked on us a space, With drooping wings, and eyes of faded fire, And wasted hair about a weary face.

Why had we ever sought the magic isle That seemed so happy in the days erewhile? Why did we ever leave it, where we met A world of happy wonders in one smile?

Back to the westward and the waning light We turned, we fled; the solitude of night Was better than the infinite regret, In fallen places of our dead delight.

THE LIMIT OF LANDS.

BETWEEN the circling ocean sea And the poplars of Persephone There lies a strip of barren sand, Flecked with the sea's last spray, and strown With waste leaves of the poplars, blown From gardens of the shadow land.

With altars of old sacrifice The shore is set, in mournful wise The mists upon the ocean brood; Between the water and the air The clouds are born that float and fare Between the water and the wood.

Upon the grey sea never sail Of mortals passed within our hail, Where the last weak waves faint and flow; We heard within the poplar pale The murmur of a doubtful wail Of voices loved so long ago.

We scarce had care to die or live, We had no honey cake to give, No wine of sacrifice to shed; There lies no new path over sea, And now we

know how faint they be, The feasts and voices of the Dead.

Ah, flowers and dance! ah, sun and snow! Glad life, sad life we did forego To dream of quietness and rest; Ah, would the fleet sweet roses here Poured light and perfume through the drear Pale year, and wan land of the west.

Sad youth, that let the spring go by Because the spring is swift to fly, Sad youth, that feared to mourn or love, Behold how sadder far is this, To know that rest is nowise bliss, And darkness is the end thereof.