■I 
 
CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 3 1924 050 060 007 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/cletails/cu31924050060007 
 
KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 LIFE IMMOVABLE 
 
 FIRST PART 
 
 THANSLATED BY 
 
 ARISTIDES E. PHOUTRIDES 
 
 WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 
 BY THE TRANSLATOR 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 1919 
 
COPYMGHT, 1919 
 HARVAHD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
TO 
 MRS. EVELETH WINSLOW 
 
 THIS VOLUME OP 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 diflBcult and at times im- 
 possible. 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 short- 
 comings that were bound to result from the above diffi- 
 culties 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 in- 
 terested in my work it would have been impossible for 
 me to bring it at aU 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 dan- 
 gerous obstacle to a natiural 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 
 
VI PREFACE 
 
 is value in the theme; and if this value is made suffi- 
 ciently 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. Lam- 
 brakis 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 crit- 
 icisms; 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 Panamas, a New World-Poet 3 
 
 Life Immovable, Fibst Part 53 
 
 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 Life Immovable, — Introdtjctoht Poem . 73 
 
 FATHERLANDS 
 
 Fatherlands, I-XII 77 
 
 The Sonnets 90 
 
 Epiphany 91 
 
 Makabia 92 
 
 The Market Place 93 
 
 Loves 94 
 
 When Poltlas Died 95 
 
 To Petbos Basilikos 96 
 
 SOLDIEB AND MaKEB 97 
 
 The Athena Relief 98 
 
 The Huntbbss Relief 99 
 
 A Father's Song 100 
 
 To THE Poet L. Maviles 101 
 
 Imagination 102 
 
 Makaria's Death 103 
 
 To Pallis for his " Iliad " 104 
 
 Hail to the Rime 105 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 THE RETURN 
 
 Dedication 109 
 
 The Temple 113 
 
 The Hut 115 
 
 The Ring 117 
 
 The Cord Grass Festival 120 
 
 The Fairy 122 
 
 Out in the Open Light 124 
 
 First Love . . . . ^ 125 
 
 The Madman 126 
 
 OuB Home 128 
 
 The Dead 130 
 
 The Comrade 132 
 
 Rhapsody 134 
 
 Idyl 137 
 
 At the Windmill 140 
 
 What the Lagoon Says 142 
 
 Finks 143 
 
 Ruins 145 
 
 Penelope 146 
 
 A New Ode by the Old Alcaeus 147 
 
 FRAGMENTS FROM THE SONG TO THE SUN 
 
 Imagination 155 
 
 The Gods 157 
 
 My God 158 
 
 Helen 159 
 
 The Lyre 160 
 
 Giants' Shadows 161 
 
 The Holy Virgin in Hell 162 
 
 Sunrise 163 
 
 Double Song 164 
 
CONTENTS ix 
 
 The Sun-Born 165 
 
 On T5E Heights of Pabadise 166 
 
 The Stranoeb 167 
 
 An Obphic Hymn 168 
 
 The Poet 169 
 
 Khishna's Words 170 
 
 The Tower of the Sun 171 
 
 A Mouhning Song 174 
 
 Prater of the Fibst-Born Men 175 
 
 Thought of the Last-Born Men 176 
 
 Moloch 177 
 
 All the Stars 178 
 
 Arrows 179 
 
 VERSES OF A FAMILIAR TUNE 
 
 The Beginning 183 
 
 The Paralytic on the River's Bank 185 
 
 The Simple Song 189 
 
 Three Kisses 191 
 
 ISUENE 192 
 
 Thoughts of Early Dawn 193 
 
 To A Maiden Who Died 199 
 
 To the Sinner 200 
 
 A Talk with the Flowers 202 
 
 To Mt Wife 206 
 
 The Answer 208 
 
 Thought 211 
 
 The Sinner 214 
 
 The End 217 
 
 THE PALM TREE 
 
 The Palm Tree 221 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
KOSTES PALAMAS^ 
 
 A NEW WORLD-POET 
 
 And then I saw that I am the poet, surely a poet among many, a 
 mere soldier of the verse, bid 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 he a 
 worthy citizen; hut it cannot he that I am the poet of myself 
 alone. I am the poet 0/ my age and of my race. And what I 
 hold within me cannot he divided from the world unthout. 
 
 KosTES Palamas, Preface to The Twelve Words of 
 the Gypsy. 
 
 Kostes Palamas . . . is raised not only above other poets of 
 Modem Greece hvt above all the poets of contemporary Europe. 
 Though he is not the most known . . . he is incontestably the 
 greatest. 'EvQtNE Clement, Revue des Studes Grecques, 
 
 ' This essay is republished, with a few changes, from Poet Lore, 
 vol. zxviii, no. 1, pp. 78-104. 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 
 
 THE STRUGGLE 
 
 iVosTES 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 Gynmasion 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 Alexandres 
 Pallis, one of the great leaders of the literary renais- 
 sance of Modem 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 modem 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 MaXXiapol 
 
 " the hairy ones," were thought even by serious people 
 
 s 
 
6 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 
 Hiad and of the New Testament; and Kostes Palamas^ 
 secretary of the University of Athens, the poet of this 
 " anti-nationalistic " faction. Against them the bit- 
 terest 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 ap- 
 peared, and demanded in all earnestness of the Metro- 
 politan 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. 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 7 
 
 But the rioters became so violent that arms had to be 
 used against them, resulting in the death of eight stu- 
 dents 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 Metro- 
 politan 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 Aesr 
 chylus' Oresteia at the Royal Theatre in a popular 
 translation made by Mr. Soteriades and considered too 
 vulgajr 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 this rioters. It was the day after 
 the riot that I first saw Palamas himself. He was stand- 
 ing before one of the side entrances to the University 
 building when my companion showed him to me with a 
 hateful sneer: 
 
8 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 " Look at him! " 
 
 " Who is it ? " 
 
 " The worst of them all, Palamas! " 
 I paused for a moment to have a full view of this no- 
 torious criminal. Rather short and compact in frattie, 
 he stood with eyes directed towards the sunlight stream- 
 ing on the marble covered ground of the yard. He held 
 a cane with both his hands and seemed to be thinkiag. 
 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 remorse- 
 less inscription could not be true of this man, I thought, 
 and I hurried to the library to read some of his work for 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 
 
 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 under- 
 standing 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 pleas- 
 ant 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 his- 
 tory, 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. Grad- 
 ually, his greatness began to dawn on me, and, finally, 
 my admiration for him had grown so much that when on 
 April, 1914, 1 reached Greece as a travelling fellow from 
 
10 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 be- 
 fore. 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. 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 11 
 
 lie 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 ap- 
 preciated ? Is Walt Whitman still popular ? He ad- 
 mired 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 
 Hissus, 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 prom- 
 inent 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 q, 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. 
 
12 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 " 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 
 pubUshed 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 overshadow- 
 ing modesty and to the language he writes, which is 
 little read beyond the borders of Hellenism — he is in- 
 contestably 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 tem- 
 perament of an exceptional fulness that was bound to 
 give birth to great masterpieces." 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 13 
 
 II 
 LIFE INFLUENCES 
 
 Patras 
 
 Kostes Falamas 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 prom- 
 inent 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 miUtary 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 rem- 
 nants 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 Libera- 
 tion 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 sap- 
 phire spaces of the Corinthian Gulf and the purple 
 shadows of the mountains rising from its waters in all 
 
14 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 piu-ple-laden clififs of Xylene 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 thresh- 
 ing 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, Liakoura, young and for ever one, 
 thou Muse of a. future Rhythm and a Beauty still to be 
 bom. 
 
 To his birth place, the poet dedicates one of his col- 
 lection of sonnets entitled " Fatherlands " and con- 
 tained in the same volume. It is the first of the series: 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 15 
 
 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 hoiur's sail from it. Its shallow waters. 
 
16 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 which can be traversed only by small flat-bottomed 
 dories propelled with poles, extend between the mouths 
 of the Phidaris and the Achelobs, 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 resist- 
 ance 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 waUs 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 " HeroSn," where under 
 the shadows of eucalyptus and cypress trees, Marcos 
 Bozzaris, Mavromichalis, the philhellene General Core- 
 man, 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 imarmed per- 
 sons including women and children, imwUling to sur- 
 render, attempted to break through the Turkish lines. 
 But only one-sixth managed to escape. The rest were 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 17 
 
 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' " Father- 
 lands " 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 Uttle child thrice orphan. 
 
 'T is 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 &e — the spirit's spark. 
 
 Here then, " the spirit's spark " was first kindled, 
 and here, in the city of his ancestors, the poet was bom. 
 The swampy meadows overgrown with rushes and sur- 
 rounded with violet mountains, the city with its narrow 
 crooked streets and low-roofed houses, the lagoon with 
 
18 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 its still shallow waters and modest islets, the life of 
 townsmen and peasants with their humble occupations, 
 passions, and legends, above all, the picturesque dis- 
 tinctness 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 om-s the Heart remains and binds both life 
 And love with the native soil, nor seems to die. 
 
 Peaks, depths, I sought Eiuydice of old: 
 What longing moans within me now, new-bom ? 
 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 combread. 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 19 
 
 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-Ckowned 
 
 Missolonghi nurtured the poet in his youth and led 
 tiim to the threshold of manhood. But when he had 
 graduated from the provincial " gymnasion," he nat- 
 urally 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 
 
20 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 simshine laughter, 
 While to this beauty round about a crown you weave, 
 O naked rocks and painted mountain slopes of Athens. 
 
 Even the snow on Fames seems like fields in bloom; 
 A timid greenish glow caresses Uke a dream 
 The Heights of Corydallus; white Pentele smiles upon 
 The Sacred Rock of Pallas; and old Hymettxis stoops 
 To listen to the love-song of Phaleron's sea. 
 
 It is its scanty vegetation that makes the southwest- 
 ern region of Attica look like a mountain lake of light. 
 The nakedness of the mountain ranges and the whiter 
 ness of the plains are vaulted over by a brilliant sky and 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 21 
 
 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 
 Tovm 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 primi- 
 tive 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! 
 
22 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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. 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 
 
 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, Foimtains 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 pon^egranates in bloom. 
 
KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 imwrought. 
 His body is rough and gaunt. 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 25 
 
 Something that naked, bare, and nude 
 Roams in the thrice-wide spaces. 
 Something whose life is told in flames 
 That Ught 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-soimding, 
 
 I make the breezes languish. 
 
 I play and lo, all things are mated, 
 
 Love giving, love receiAong. 
 
 I play and lo, all things are dancing. 
 
 All: Men and beasts and spirits! 
 
 Athens, the Centre op 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 intel- 
 lectual currents moving the Greek nation of today 
 start from this city. Here politics, poetry, and philos- 
 ophy are still discussed in the old way at the various 
 shops, the coffee houses, and under the plane trees by 
 the banks of Hissus. The " boul6 " is the centre of the 
 
26 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 ventillated by current events 
 and political developments that the students often as- 
 sume the functions of the old Athenian Assembly. In 
 the riotous expression of their temporary feelings, the 
 students are not very different from the ancient demes- 
 men. In my days, at least, the most frequent greeting 
 among students was " How is politics today ? ", with 
 
 ■r 
 
 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 transla- 
 tion 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 con- 
 tinued even after the death of Solomos, the earliest great 
 poet of Modem Greece. The passing away of Vala- 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 27 
 
 orites 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 
 
28 KOSTES PAIAMAS 
 
 warmth, earnestness, and devotion that martyrs only 
 have shown to their cause. BeKeving that purism was 
 nothing but a blind attempt to drown the Hving tradi- 
 tions 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 foimd. 
 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, iU 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! " 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 29 
 
 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 imapproachable. 
 
 "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, 
 B«main, 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. 
 
so KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 The Gxhtar 
 
 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, soimds far away! 
 
 A distinct note of pessimism is fomid 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 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 31 
 
 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! 
 
32 KOSTES PAIAMAS 
 
 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-bom creed. 
 
 9 
 
 Aye! Break the tyrant's hated chains! 
 But with their breaking go not dnmk! 
 The world is always slaves and lords: 
 
 Though free, chain-boimd 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 yoiur 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. 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 33 
 
 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 wordly 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 
 
34 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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. . . . 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 35 
 
 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 oiu: 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, 
 Oiu" 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; 
 
36 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 Tranquilly, silently, 
 In spite of all our kisses. 
 Away you wandered 
 Tom 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 comers of the deserted home, in which the child, 
 dm-ing his life, had lingered to play, laugh, or weep, con- 
 verse with each other about their absent guest: 
 
 Things living weep for you. 
 And lifeless things are mourning; 
 The comers, too, forlorn. 
 Remember you with longing: 
 
 " One evening, angry here he sat. 
 
 And slept in bitterness." 
 " Here, often he sat Ustening 
 
 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! " 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 37 
 
 " 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 httle doings." 
 
 " His httle 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 bums 
 
 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 . . . 
 
38 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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. Fleet- 
 ing 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, 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 Uttle Island here I love that always lies before me. 
 
 We must not think, however, that the spirit of Pala- 
 mas 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 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 39 
 
 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 Pshychology 
 of Races he coimts 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 litera- 
 tures 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. 
 
40 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 literary, and artistic life are familiar sources of inspira- 
 tion 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 Rabe- 
 lais, 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 na- 
 tional 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 Trans- 
 vaal'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 frag- 
 ment 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 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 41 
 
 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 groaningi 
 
 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 KaflBr's flocks. 
 
 In your aged summers, 
 
 A new-bom 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. 
 
42 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 murmxu"ings 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 five free . . . 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 43 
 
 Within the Hmits 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 Mod- 
 ern Greeks have a splendid dwelling in the thought of 
 Falamas, who follows with restlessness his people's 
 woes and exults in their joys. A group of poems dedi- 
 cated 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 pub- 
 lished in the last volume of the poet's works, the Altars} 
 
 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 ! 
 
 ' My translation of it originally appeared in the Stratford Journal, from 
 which I quote it in its entirety. 
 
44 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 bom 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-bom Nymphs, are lashed and swept away 
 By monstrous hiuricanes. 
 
 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. 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 45 
 
 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 r^der 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! 
 
46 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 But lo, the Briton with sea-battUng sceptre 
 That binds the restless waves to his command — 
 What Caesars' fetters forges he anew 
 Upon the island rock ? 
 
 And there the Tm-k, who holds thee with dog's teeth 
 And makes of thee a valley of sad tears, 
 paradisial land of old Ionia; 
 And here, omr 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 THINKEH 
 
 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 imruffled haunts calm-wrapped 
 And meditates: 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 47 
 
 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, 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 bum, 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, foreteUest not: 
 An evolution unbelievable 
 To gazing worlds. 
 
48 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 m. 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 creatines beautiful for him to sing. 
 Whether they are. roses April-bom 
 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, 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; 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 49 
 
 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, 
 StiU thou wert later manna unto me. 
 Desert-bom, 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-bom 
 White liHes in lyric Paris blossoming. 
 With Hugo and with thee, O Lamartine, 
 Bevels and wings! 
 
 Dante and Nietzsche, Ibsen, Shakespere, all. 
 Poured wiae for me with their thrice-holy hands 
 Into thy gleaniing 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! 
 
50 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 himian spirit throughout 
 the ages with the history and land of Hellas as its nat- 
 ural 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 im- 
 agery 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, " um-olled itself, I saw that my 
 
A NEW WORLD-POET 61 
 
 heart was full of mind, that its pulses were of thought, 
 that my feeling had something musical and diflBcult to 
 measure, and that I accepted the rapture of contempla- 
 tion 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 fanat- 
 icism 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 whai I hold wUhin 
 me cannot he divided from the world vnihout." 
 
 Washington, D. C. 
 July 5, 1919. 
 
LIFE IMMOVABLE 
 
 FIRST PART 
 
 In Pcdamas, we have found every trait of the Greek character: He 
 is religious and superstitious; a skeptic, a pagan, and a pan- 
 theist. . . . He is a poet and a philosopher. . . . He abandons 
 himself to every impulse of the Greek soul. But he is always fond 
 of drawing hack, 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 dearly set forth. 
 
 TiGRANE Yergate, " Le Mouvement litteraire grec; 
 
 La Poesie." La Revue, June, 1903, vol. xlv, p. 717 f . 
 
LIFE IMMOVABLE 
 
 With Life Immovable, the poetic genius of Kostes Pala- 
 mas 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 weav- 
 ing the essence of purely national airs into his " light 
 sketches of sea and olive groves and the various sunlit 
 aspects of Greek life," ' continues to broaden his vision 
 and art through an unquenchable eagerness for knowl- 
 edge, 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." ^ 
 But in lAfe 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 
 
 1 Tigrane Yergate, op. cit., p. 710. 
 
 2 Jean MoWas, Voyage de Grice, 1898. 
 
 £5 
 
56 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 Time," and 
 " The Palm Tree." On the whole, a careful study of 
 these collections would furnish the key to an adequate 
 imderstanding 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 fol- 
 
LIFE IMMOVABLE 57 
 
 lows 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 democ- 
 racies 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 
 
58 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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, airUke, 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 soimd like a soft lyre's complaint. 
 
 2. The Retubn 
 
 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 dis- 
 astrously 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 
 
LIFE IMMOVABLE 59 
 
 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 re- 
 flecting 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! 
 
60 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 ruinSj 
 the beauty of which makes the night even darker. Tra- 
 dition, hke 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 mon- 
 strous 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 assiunption would be unjust. Falamas 
 may have a clear vision of the tragedy of life. But in the 
 light of this revelation, with his imfettered contempla- 
 tion, he builds, like Bertram Russell, a " shining citadel 
 in the very centre of the enemy's country, on the very 
 sunmait 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 con- 
 tinues while the legions of Death and Pain and Despair 
 and all the servile captains of tyrant Fate afford the 
 
LIFE IMMOVABLE 61 
 
 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 mu£0[ed 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 char- 
 acteristic 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 
 
62 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 custom of exposing the open coflSn 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 de- 
 parted. 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 mom-ning humanity, the 
 image of death against life. 
 
 3. Fhagments from the Song to the Sun 
 
 " The Fragments from the Song to the Sun " contain 
 some of the noblest lines of Palamas' poetry. We can- 
 not have a complete imderstanding of the symbolism 
 with which this part of lA^e 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 strik- 
 ing duality. The key to. these sunlit melodies is prob- 
 ably found in the " Giants' Shadows." Among the 
 shadows whose voices ascend from darkness " like moan- 
 ings of the sea," the poet discovers Telamonian Ajax, the 
 
LIFE IMMOVABLE 63 
 
 giant who is utterly absorbed in the world within him, 
 the source of his light and life, and Goethe, the Teu- 
 tonic 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 Falamas, 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, tiu-ned 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 Sim's tower 
 
 Gleamed forth as if the light 
 Of a new dawn embraced its walls! 
 
64 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 Falamas 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 sim 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 piu-e Olympus' heights to 
 play as a fountain of flowing harmonies or to smite as 
 " an archer of fiery arrows " all living things. 
 
 4. Vebses op a Familiar Tune 
 
 In the " Verses of a Familiar Tune " the poet con- 
 ceives 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 
 
LIFE IMMOVABLE 65 
 
 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 hiin 
 Old sounds familiar, low whisperings 
 Of women's beauties and of home-bom shadows . . . 
 The flames that bum within the heart, the kisses 
 That the waves squander on the sandy beach. 
 And the sweet birds that sing on children's hps! 
 
 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 xmtil, at last, waking into the new world, 
 he weaves the whole day long with master hand all kinds 
 of lam-el crowns and pours into the unaccustomed air a 
 flute's soft-flown complaint. But again from his bed 
 
66 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 comiter- 
 acted 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 fiU his basket, Life rebukes him by facing 
 them unmoved " a life agleam! " With like whole- 
 someness 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 
 
LIFE IMMOVABLE 67 
 
 verse ? Who knows if vice is wiser than virtue ? Is 
 Fair Art, War's Triumphs, and great Thoughts ex- 
 pressed 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 ! 
 
68 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 
 smaU 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 fuU 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 pam, dealt by the last drops that fall from the 
 pahn leaves, and they feel the agony of sorrow until 
 they come to realize that even pain brings its reward. 
 
LIFE IMMOVABLE 69 
 
 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 Kving 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! 
 
70 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 Uke a gold-green new star; 
 Yet neither thou nor others will know of us! 
 
 Hasvabo Univebsitt, 
 June 3, 1917. 
 
KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 LIFE IMMOVABLE 
 
 FIRST PART 
 
 Arid now the columns stand a forest speechless 
 And motiordess; 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 Davni." 
 
/ LABORED long to create the statue for the Temple 
 On stone that I had found 
 And set ii 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 u^, 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 status. 
 
 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 mmith thrice-ivide, and with the voice of 
 
 prophets. 
 The pit spoke: " Temple, none! Nor pedestal! Nor light! 
 In vain! For nmvhere is thy flower fit, Maker! 
 Better forever lost in the unlighted depths! 
 
 78 
 
" Its hour may never cornel 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 he late! 
 Thy dream is vain! The dawn thou longest will not dawn; 
 Thv^ 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 shaU pass away — hear this! — and them shall 
 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! " 
 
 74 
 
FATHERLANDS 
 
 To the bleated shade of Tigrane Yergate who hoed 
 my Fatherlands. 
 
FATHERLANDS 
 
 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-bom, 
 
 An image faint, half- vanished, fair — a mother. 
 
 ^ On Fatras, the birth-place of the poet. See Introduction, p. 13. 
 
 77 
 
78 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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. 
 
 'T is 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. 
 
 ^ On Missolongbi, the place of the poet's childhood. See Introduo* 
 Uon, p. 15. 
 
FATHERLANDS 79 
 
 III 
 
 OKT everjTwhere; and sunbeams on all sides; 
 Something about like boney 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. 
 
80 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 IV 1 
 
 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; ^ 
 
 The shade of Solomos ' in fields Elysian 
 
 1 On the Island of Corfu, one of the mokt important centers of the literary 
 renaissance of modem Greece. 
 
 ' lacobos 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 Shakespere's plays. 
 
 ' 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 modem Greek national 
 hymn to Liberty. 
 
FATHERLANDS 81 
 
 Breathes rose-bom fragrance; and master of the lyre, 
 A new bard sings,* like old Demodocus, 
 The glories of the Fatherland and Crete. 
 
 ' Gerasimos Markoras, bom in Cephalonia, 1826, died in Corfu, 1911. a 
 lyric and epic poet. His poem " Oath " was inspired by the Cietan struggle 
 for freedom. 
 
82 KOSTES PAIAMAS 
 
 v» 
 
 Lo, dreams strange-born among my dreams are min- 
 gling; 
 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 bums 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. 
 
 > On Egypt, whence the first lights of civilization dawned on Greece. 
 
FATHERLANDS 83 
 
 VI' 
 
 A SINNER hermit on the Holy Mountain, 
 I bum 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 treasiure; 
 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 ^ wrought. 
 
 ' On Mt. Athos, the Holy Mountain of the modem Greeks, inhabited by 
 about ten thousand monks. Although called by its hennits " the virgin's 
 garden " no female creature is allowed to enter its ground. 
 
 ' 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. 
 
84 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 VII 1 
 
 RuMEi-B is a royal crown of ruby; 
 Moreas is a glow of emerald; 
 The Seven Isles,'' a jasmine sevenfold; 
 And every Cyclad, a Nereid sea-bom. 
 
 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 * fills all the land 
 
 Breeding a race of heroes strong and new; 
 And in the depths of green and golden Night 
 Sings on Colonus HiU the nightingale. 
 
 '■ On classic Greece, in contrast with the following sonnet which refers to the 
 spirit of Greece thro'ughout the ages, from the classic period to the time of 
 the Byzantine Empire. 
 
 2 The Islands ol the Ionian Sea. 
 
 ' The hero of medieval Greece, Digenes Akritas, who is supposed to have 
 lived on the slopes of the Taurus moimtains 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. 
 
FATHERLANDS 85 
 
 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 HeUcon 
 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. 
 
KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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. 
 
 AJl 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. 
 
FATHERLANDS 87 
 
 X 
 
 A TRAVELLER, I f ound in waveless seas 
 Calypso and Helena tkrice-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, hght 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. 
 
88 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 XI 
 
 Aboxtt the chariot of the Seven Stars, 
 Sky-racers numberless, whole worlds of giants 
 And beasts: Ocean of sims, the Milky Way, 
 Orion, and the monsters of the spheres — 
 
 The fearful Zodiac. The Lion roars 
 Amidst the wilderness etherial; 
 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. 
 
FATHERLANDS 
 
 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, airhke, unto air shall pass; 
 
 My reason, fire-like, unto lasting fire; 
 
 My passions' craze unto the billows' madness; 
 
 Even my dust-bom body, imto 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 soimd like a soft lyre's complaint. 
 
90 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 THE SONNETS 
 
 Fbom 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. 
 
FATHERLANDS 91 
 
 EPIPHANY 
 
 VV ITH 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 ia 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. 
 
92 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 MAKARIA^ 
 
 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, 
 Pniit, franldncense, 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 Makarial 
 
 1895. 
 
 ' The word, meaning " blessed one," is here applied to ideal womanhood 
 and must not be confused with Mokaria of p. 103, the mythical Theban 
 princess. 
 
FATHERLANDS 93 
 
 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. 
 
94 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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, bmm 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. 
 
FATHERLANDS 95 
 
 WHEN POLYLAS DIED » 
 
 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 Shakespere, blessed One! " 
 
 1896. 
 * The translator of Homer and Shakespere. See notes 2 and 3, p. 80. 
 
96 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 TO PETROS BASILIKOS ^ 
 
 O BABD, 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 biu:n 
 
 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. 
 
 ^ A pseudonym for Constantine Chatzopoulos, one ojt 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 Gsthe's Faust and of Hof- 
 mannsthal's Electra. This poem dedicated to him was written during the 
 unfortunate Greco-Turkish war of 1897. 
 
FATHERLANDS 97 
 
 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 
 SouUess the griflSn 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. 
 
KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 THE ATHENA RELIEF 
 
 >Vhy 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. 
 
FATHERLANDS 99 
 
 THE HUNTRESS RELIEF 
 
 Whither so light of garb and swift of foot, O Hunt- 
 ress ? 
 
 Is it the sacred gifts of pure Hippolytus 
 
 That make thee leave Arcadia's forest land behind, 
 
 shelter of the pure, and slayer of the wild ? 
 
 Wild lily of virginity raised on the fields 
 Olympian, O mountain Queen of gleaming bow, 
 
 1 envy him who in a careless hour did face 
 
 Thy beauty's lightning with thy heartless vengefulness. 
 
 And yet white like the mom, 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. 
 
100 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 A FATHER'S SONG 
 
 FiEST-BORN pride and joy of my own home, 
 
 1 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. 
 
FATHERLANDS 101 
 
 TO THE POET L. MAVILES » 
 
 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 
 FiUed 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. 
 
 ^ Maviles was botn in Ithaca, 1860, and fell in the battle of Driscos, Novem- 
 ber 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. 
 
102 KOSTES PAIAMAS 
 
 IMAGINATION 
 
 Time's spider lurks and lies iq 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. 
 
FATHERLANDS 103 
 
 MAKARIA'S DEATH 
 
 To die Jar these, my brothers, and myself; 
 For by not loving my own life too much, 
 1 found the best of finds, a glorious death. 
 
 EuBiPiDEs, 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 vidtim's sword 
 And diest a thrice-free death, Makaria. 
 
 1896. 
 
104 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 TO PALLIS 1 FOR HIS " ILIAD " 
 
 From cups that are both ours and strange. 
 
 Enameled, and adorned with leaves 
 
 Of lam-el 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. 
 
 ' Alexandros Pallis is one of the greatest literary figures of contemporary 
 Greece, who, like Fsicharis, has Uved 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 publicatiota of the latter caused 
 the student riots of 1901. 
 
FATHERLANDS 105 
 
 HAIL TO THE RIME 
 
 Ctprus'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 nightin- 
 gale! 
 Thy song wafts me upon the tranquil fields of cahn 
 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 68.) 
 
DEDICATION 
 
 Mother thrice reverend, vndowed 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 
 Upcm my countenance and storm in mind. 
 Far from the panic-stricken market place. 
 Beneath the plane trees' shade, and far away 
 
 109 
 
By the blood-tinctured settings of the suns. 
 Unruffled, in another land I travelled. 
 And deep I dug in distant treasure mines. 
 And vnth my hand, that knows no rifle's tou^h. 
 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, 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, 
 
 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. 
 
 110 
 
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 
 lAfe-summxms, 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, 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. 
 
 Ill 
 
THE RETURN 
 
 THE TEMPLE 
 
 JMt knees, bent on thy marble pavement, bleed, 
 
 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. 
 
 1 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, 
 lis 
 
114 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 o£F 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 biurdng 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 retiu-n 
 To the small hut of the first bloom of time. 
 
THE RETURN 115 
 
 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 Ughtning-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. 
 
116 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 RETURN 117 
 
 THE RING 
 
 The ring is lost I The wedding ring is gone! 
 
 A folk song. 
 
 JVlT 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, 
 
 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! — 
 
 1 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. 
 
118 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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, illiunined. 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 speU is rent! 
 
THE RETURN 119 
 
 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! 
 
120 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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. 
 
THE RETURN 121 
 
 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 simsets 
 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! 
 
122 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 THE FAIRY 
 
 VV HEN 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 
 
THE RETURN 123 
 
 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 Ups, 
 
 A language made of odd, discordant rhythms. 
 
 To nothing, either hers or strange, her eyes 
 
 Are like; deep, as abyss imtrod, 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! 
 
124 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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. 
 
THE RETURN 125 
 
 FIRST LOVE 
 
 >Vhen 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! 
 
126 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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! 
 
THE RETURN 127 
 
 Oh, for my life's cold quiverings of pain! 
 Oh, for the goading — not like the divine 
 Goading that drove the maid of Inachus, 
 lo, 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! 
 
128 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 OUR HOME 
 
 OuB 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 xmborn; 
 And in oiu- 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. 
 
THE RETURN 129 
 
 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 stiU 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 soimds 
 Of David's harp and Pindar's lyre conversing 
 In the star-spangled darkness of the night. 
 
130 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 THE DEAD 
 
 >ViTHiN 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 coflSn! 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, 
 
THE RETURN 131 
 
 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 
 
 Lito a taper's hght 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? 
 
132 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 muUen, 
 
 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; 
 
THE RETURN 133 
 
 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! 
 
134 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 binning cedar beats with pleasant warmth. 
 
 Calypso of the shining hair spins not 
 
 Her web with golden shuttle; nor sings she 
 
THE RETURN 135 
 
 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 iomiortal 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 
 
136 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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! 
 
THE RETURN 137 
 
 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 a,ir, 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. 
 
138 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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. 
 
THE RETURN 139 
 
 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! " 
 
140 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 reahn of dew; 
 
 The calm lagoon about is all agleam, 
 
 A shield of silver, plaited with pure gold. 
 
 Far by the windmiU, the old rmn, when 
 The sun is setting, decked in all his glory. 
 
THE RETURN 141 
 
 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 windnull, 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. 
 
142 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 yoimg 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! 
 
THE RETURN 143 
 
 PINKS 
 
 r AIR 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! 
 
144 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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! 
 
THE RETURN 145 
 
 Rums 
 
 I TUENED 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 lizzards, pains and hatreds dwell now here 
 In constant loathful brotherhood with me. 
 An earthquake brought the wonder palace low! 
 
146 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 PENELOPE 
 
 AVars 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 imweavest 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! 
 
THE RETURN 147 
 
 A NEW ODE BY THE OLD ALCAEUS 
 
 1 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 flght 
 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. 
 
148 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 vaiu 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 
 
THE RETURN 149 
 
 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, Hke maddened bulls 
 
 Goad-driven, rushed upon each other's death. 
 
 And stem Alecto spread about the flames 
 
 Of Tartarus, I saw before mine eyes 
 
 — O sight enchanting! — Lesbos' luring shores! 
 
150 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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. 
 
THE RETURN 1«1 
 
 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! 
 CoTne thou leading master, mind! 
 And you, 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 kisting flowers 
 Wrought on marble and on gold! 
 Bring me words of splendid sound! 
 Build wUh them the palace high! 
 And rjoiihin it raise aloft 
 The Sun's image all-transcending. 
 Wrought of sunlight gleaming bright! 
 
 lU 
 
FRAGMENTS FROM THE SONG 
 
 TO THE SUN 
 
 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! 
 
 167 
 
158 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 MY GOD 
 
 W^oxJNDED 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! 
 
FROM THE SONG TO THE SUN 159 
 
 HELEN 
 
 . . . She gave not me, but rnade a breathing image 
 Of the light air of heaven and gave that 
 To royal Priam's son! And yet he thought 
 Thai he had me — a vain imagining! . . . 
 
 EuBiPiDES, 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, Kfe'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 Ufe 
 
 From Night's embrace in an 
 
 Enchanted land and hour. I am 
 
 The bride intangible. 
 
 Inviolable, beyond all reach! 
 
 Helen am I! 
 
160 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 soimd 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! 
 
FROM THE SONG TO THE SUN 161 
 
 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! 
 
162 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 ? " 
 
FROM THE SONG TO THE SUN 163 
 
 SUNRISE 
 
 The white swans gently drag their boats 
 
 Of ivory; bright beams 
 
 GKmmer 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! 
 
164 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 DOUBLE SONG 
 
 The lithesome maiden stood thrice-fair, 
 
 Her eyes Uke 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 sxms 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 aU the suns ? " 
 
FROM THE SONG TO THE SUN 165 
 
 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! 
 
166 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 ! 
 
FROM THE SONG TO THE SUN 167 
 
 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. 
 
168 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 AN ORPHIC HYMN 
 
 Far from the footpaths of the thoughtless, 
 
 An Orphic priest and bard, 
 
 I bring to Ught 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 difiBcult; 
 
 I wish alone and first to greet 
 
 Light Apollonian 
 
 While among mortal men below 
 
 Darkness and sleep shall reign. 
 
FROM THE SONG TO THE SUN 169 
 
 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 shinmiers. 
 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. 
 
170 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 ! 
 
FROM THE SONG TO THE SUN 171 
 
 THE TOWER OF THE SUN 
 
 AwAT 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 tiu-ned 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. 
 
172 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 foimtain tower-guarded where 
 
 Life's water flows. And lo, 
 
 Taming the watchful dragon's fangs. 
 
 Thou drawest from the foimtain 
 
FROM THE SONG TO THE SUN 173 
 
 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 Sim ! 
 
174 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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! 
 
FROM THE SONG TO THE SUN 175 
 
 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 shiaest. 
 
 Father and God blood-revelling! 
 
 A bath in blood immortalizes 
 
 .Thine unf athomed 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! 
 
176 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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! 
 
FROM THE SONG TO THE SUN 177 
 
 MOLOCH 
 
 Barbabians 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, ami!" 
 
178 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 ALL THE STARS 
 
 When I &st 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! 
 
FROM THE SONG TO THE SUN 179 
 
 ARROWS 
 
 1 HOXJ earnest, Phoebus, lower down 
 From pure Olympus' heights 
 Towards the land where idle men 
 And sluggards worthless dwell; 
 And on thy lyre thou playedst, Foimtain 
 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 
 
TEE 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 thai, like sweet longings, wake in me, 
 
 Old sounds familiar, low-whispering 
 
 Of women's beauties and of home-bom shadows. 
 
 Then flowers pour their fragrances for me; 
 
 And blossoms vnth no scent have their own speech. 
 
 The speech of voiceless eyes that open wide; 
 
 Unconsciously I speak my words in rimes 
 
 Thai with uncommon measure echo forth 
 
 The flames that bum within the heart, the kisses 
 
 That the waves squander on the sandy beach. 
 
 And the sweet birds that sing on children's lips! 
 
 183 
 
VERSES OF A FAMILIAR TUNE 
 
 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 nay hands shook feather-like with fever; 
 Methought my feet were nailed upon the ground; 
 The river, wide and wUd; 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 mireaped and glades untrod were there. 
 And floods of green and tempests of new blossoms! 
 About the tree-tops gUttered crowns of Ught; 
 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! 
 
186 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 evU-born had touched me; 
 And within me, with wings of impotence, 
 My wounded mind fluttered on hopelessly! 
 
 And then thou earnest 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. 
 
VERSES OF A FAMILIAR TUNE 187 
 
 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 laiu-el 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. 
 
188 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 But from my bed, I lifted up mine eyes 
 To the window's light and saw again, aJas, 
 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! 
 
VERSES OF A FAMILIAR TUNE 189 
 
 THE SIMPLE SONG 
 
 Thou earnest 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 
 
190 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 And gathered all my hands could reach: wall-flowers, 
 
 Hyacinths, violets, and daflFodils; 
 
 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! 
 
VERSES OF A FAMILIAR TUNE 191 
 
 THREE KISSES 
 
 A Dbeam 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. 
 
192 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 ISMENE 
 
 To N. G. Polites, her father. 
 
 VV HERE 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 yoiu" 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 ? " 
 
VERSES OF A FAMILIAR TUNE 193 
 
 THOUGHTS OF EARLY DAWN 
 
 W HO 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 ? 
 
 * o. * 
 * 
 
 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. 
 
194 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 heU, methinks 
 I hear breast-beatings and dark blasphemies. 
 And suddenly, I mingle speech with rime. 
 The rime that above human things and woes. 
 
VERSES OF A FAMILIAR TUNE 195 
 
 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, Ught-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; 
 
196 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 And yet the soul of the ruins perished not! 
 It dimbed 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 wiae; 
 Bring to our fountain thy white-foaming cup, 
 And brighten into red thy black strong wine 
 With the fresh water of oiu* 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. 
 
VERSES OF A FAMILIAR TUNE 197 
 
 A hundred years! A hundred years are gone 
 Of Grecian mornings and of Grecian simsets ! 
 Make them a coffin wide, O carpenter, 
 And biu-y 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 sim. 
 And swans that wait the coming of deep sleep! 
 
198 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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! 
 
VERSES OF A FAMILIAR TUNE 199 
 
 TO A MAIDEN WHO DIED 
 
 UTTUB life, quenched by the blow of death 
 Amidst the tender dreams of rosy dawn, 
 
 1 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 imsung. 
 
 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. 
 
200 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 travelUng, 
 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 piind; and as thy hands 
 Struggled to clasp her, down the image fell, 
 The sacred image, in the ditch's filth! 
 
VERSES OF A FAMILIAR TUNE 201 
 
 And forthwith even there, the plague began 
 To visit thee! And crumbKng 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 ! 
 
202 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 jasmiae; 
 
 And thy gleam, lily, like the eyes' Hght-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 
 
VERSES OP A FAMILIAR TUNE 203 
 
 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 ? 
 
204 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 ? " * 
 
 How often when he turned away his lips 
 So beautiful in careless weariness 
 From nodne embrace, I felt the torturings 
 Of a disease and drank the bitter draughts 
 
 1 The poet had in mind the following lines of Sully Frudhomme from his 
 StaiKes et Poimes, L' S.me: 
 
 Tons les corps offrent des contours, 
 Mais d' ou vienne la forme qui touche? 
 Comment fais-tu les grands amours. 
 Petite ligne de la bouche? 
 
VERSES OF A FAMILIAR TUNE 205 
 
 « 
 
 Of Jealousy! How often, when he lay 
 Reclining on mine arms and breathing gently, 
 I thought I held the graspless image of 
 Beauty light-bom, 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! 
 
206 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 TO MY WIFE 
 
 Herb bloomed our home; the yomig 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 I 
 
 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 ! 
 
VERSES OF A FAMILIAB TUNE 207 
 
 Here was thy youth, even when care oppressed thee, 
 A fair Venetian painting, the blithe work 
 Of a Ught-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 imfit and graceless! 
 
208 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 ! 
 
 God of the golden crown, the three fair Graces 
 And the Nine Sisters of the Song gave me 
 
 The gift of tranquil visions beautiful! 
 
 1 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-bom ! Face to face with me, as swift 
 As glance, green-dad Atlantides rise forth 
 From the abyss and sink in it again. 
 
VERSES OF A FAMILIAR TUNE 209 
 
 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 yom* 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." 
 
210 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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! 
 
VERSES OF A FAMILIAR TUNE 211 
 
 THOUGHT 
 
 More than the godUke 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 Adce 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; 
 
212 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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-bom 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 
 
VERSES OF A FAMILIAR TUNE 213 
 
 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 ! 
 
214 KOSTES PAIAMAS 
 
 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 trembUng! 
 
 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 
 
VERSES OP A FAMILIAR TUNE 215 
 
 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 biurst 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. 
 
216 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 Thy death shall be laden with graspless horror 
 Such as one feels who sinned in secrecy 
 And dreads each hoiu- 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 teU 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! 
 
VERSES OF A FAMILIAR TUNE 217 
 
 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 HBAKD 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: 
 
 \J 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. 
 
 in 
 
222 ^ KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 Hve; 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! 
 
THE PALM TREE 223 
 
 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 Uve sunless beneath the earth 
 That a new butterfly of silken wings 
 May live an hour of perfect life and die. 
 The wound's gash tiu'ns into a living fountain ! 
 
 * , * 
 
 Things gray, things crystal, myriad hues of green, 
 Gushings of fountains clear, and caterpillars. 
 Earth's things immovable, air-saUing ships. 
 And httle 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 liHes 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! 
 
224 KOSTES PALAMAS • 
 
 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 dandeHons 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, 
 
THE PALM TREE 225 
 
 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 yoiu" own ! 
 Fading like gods' pale images, you seem ! 
 Even the bird sometimes bows to yoiu" 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 Hght 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! 
 
226 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 imto our little brothers: " Make 
 Robes of the heaven's rainbow for your raiment! " 
 And to ourselves we said: " Soul, I 
 Shall let aside all brUliance! 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 Ughtnings and with thunders! Rise, a lark, 
 And sing and soar towards a new starry garden ! 
 
THE PALM TREE 227 
 
 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 Uve to be thy slaves 
 And trimming ornaments, O palm ! How high 
 Skyward thou raisest thy grace-moulded body! 
 
 * o. * 
 * 
 
 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-bom and silver-born shines bright 
 
228 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 tranquU 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 oiu- thought! 
 
THE PALM TREE 229 
 
 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 evei: 
 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 
 
230 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 Struggling to flow into the light about; 
 And now thou risest like the column last 
 Of an old temple that once stood in Hellas. 
 Eveniag 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; 
 
THE PALM TREE 231 
 
 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 moimt exultant to the stars. 
 The eating moth's faint voice, the restless cricket's. 
 Perfumes and breezes, creatures lone and mated, 
 AU 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 moimtest tranquil to the stars. 
 
232 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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 tortm-ed us, 
 O palm, and we saw thee bend secretly! 
 
THE PALM TREE 233 
 
 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 vuJture 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 
 
234 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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! 
 
 * ^ * 
 
 He 
 
 O Sun, assail and strangle all black dreams, 
 Our life's dim vapors and ill-working demons! 
 But nourish aU 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. 
 
THE PALM TREE 235 
 
 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 imfulfiUed 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 unroU to you the tale of blackness. 
 
 Come, let us mingle the two elements, 
 
236 KOSTES PALAMAS 
 
 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! 
 
 * ^ * 
 * 
 
 Un wedded, 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! 
 
THE PALM TREE 237 
 
 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 hght 
 
 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! 
 
 1900. 
 
PRINTED AT 
 
 THE HABVABD UNITEBSITT PBES8 
 
 CAUBBIDQE, MASS., TT.S.A. 
 
-Ilillllliiliiitil!!