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To you, O woman and O virgin, myrrhs, Fruit, frankincense, I offer recklessly!
To you, the music of the world! To you, My songs' pure foam, songs that your vision fills!
For you can love, remember, understand.
Before I saw you in the world's great night, You shone upon my mother's lighted face.
Your wors.h.i.+pper into the world I came; Your name I knew not, and in love's sweet font I called you with the name _Makaria_!
_1895._
THE MARKET PLACE
Just as dry summers pant for the first rain, So thou art thirsty for a happy home And for a life remote, like hermit's prayer, A corner of forgetting and of love.
And thirsty for the s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+p and home said: "No!
"Look neither for the happiness remote That never moves, nor for the life that ever finds In each new land and harbor a new soul!
"Only the panting of a toiling slave For thee! Drag in the market place thy body's Nakedness, strange to the strangers and thine own!"
_1896._
LOVES
Some people love things modest and things small, And like to feed in cages little birds; They deck themselves with garden violets And drink the singing waters of the brooks.
Others delight in tales told by the embers Of the home hearth or listen to the songs Of the nightbirds with rapture; others, slaves Of a great pain, burn incense to the stars
Of beauty. And some thirst for the forest shades And for a nacreous dawn, and for a sunset Dipped in red blood, a barren wilderness
Light-burned. But thee no love with nature binds; And where the heavens mingle with the sea, A path thou seekest for a sphere beyond.
_1896._
WHEN POLYLAS DIED[18]
With wings and hands ethereal, rhythms and thoughts Lifted thy soul, redeemed from its dust frame, And led it straightway to the stars; and there The sacred escort halts and ends its journey.
In summers paradisiac beyond, Where on the Lyre's star the bards and makers, Like doves with breath immortal, dwell in gleams, The shade of Solomos like magnet draws thee,
And leading thee before a double Tabor, Thus speaks to thee: "Here is thy glory! Here Dwell and behold the giant pair that stand
Before thee never setting, with diamonds dark; And like a breath of wors.h.i.+p pa.s.s, embracing Thy Homer and thy Shakespeare, blessed One!"
_1896._
TO PETROS BASILIKOS[19]
O bard, whose songs unto the vernal G.o.d Of idyls rang from the same gladsome flute, April's sweet-breathing air is mingled now With martial sounds of savage trumpetings.
A crown is woven for our motherland: Is it life's laurels or the martyr's thorns?
Oh see beyond: the wild vine's flowers now Are shaken on a lake of blood and tears!
Has the war phantom blown upon thee too?
Or hast thou with the force of lightning winds Flown where for ages sacred hatreds burn
In flames? Or has an evil wound thrown thee Upon the earth where now in vain the G.o.d Of idyls tries to raise thee with his kisses?
_1897._
SOLDIER AND MAKER
Soldier and maker swiftly I Seized with my hand the spear and spoke: "Fall on the beast of the world beyond And strike the eagle-winged lion!"
Before me with G.o.d's grace, I saw Soulless the griffin seven-souled, Blood spurting from a hole h.e.l.l-like And scorching with its heat the gra.s.s!
And then restored with calm, I saw The savage strife like a day's dawn; And the destroyer, I, became
A maker; and with this same hand, I carve on ivory the man Who slew the beast and make him deathless.
_1896._
THE ATHENA RELIEF
