 | The violet crown by Sir Rennell Rodd |  |
70
THE SONG OF THE KLEPHT
The red fire flickered through the sea-bound cave,
A lamb was roasting on the spit—the wave
Broke low and soothing round the sandy bay,
And on the sky-line hung the ghost of day.
Ringed round the fire we sat, the wine-cup passed
From each to other—no one spoke at last.
A lamb was roasting on the spit—the wave
Broke low and soothing round the sandy bay,
And on the sky-line hung the ghost of day.
Ringed round the fire we sat, the wine-cup passed
From each to other—no one spoke at last.
Old Janni in the linen kilt, with red
Rough-knotted kerchief round his grizzled head,
And mighty cloak of goat's frieze, mused and rolled
The paper round Agrinion's weed of gold,
Then snatched an ember from the thyme-root fire,
And blew the smoke in cloudy wreaths.
Rough-knotted kerchief round his grizzled head,
And mighty cloak of goat's frieze, mused and rolled
The paper round Agrinion's weed of gold,
Then snatched an ember from the thyme-root fire,
And blew the smoke in cloudy wreaths.
His Sire
Was with Odysseus on the mountain-side
In the wild days before the land was free;
Such war-songs rocked his cradle, when the bride
Would sling beneath the dark vallonea tree
Her infant's leather hammock:—
Was with Odysseus on the mountain-side
In the wild days before the land was free;
Such war-songs rocked his cradle, when the bride
Would sling beneath the dark vallonea tree
Her infant's leather hammock:—
So sang he.
71
Who never missed the mark he aimed, whose blade was keen and true,
Who wore the silver pistols, the shoulder-bits of gold,
The golden braided jacket, and the kilt of treble fold?
He left our high liméri, he drew the lot and went
To tell the rest in Agrapha our powder stores were spent.
He was not gone an hour, an hour by the sun,
When a distant shot rang up the hills, and then another one;
We sprang to foot and listened, held breath and dropped the lyre,
We heard a hundred echoes take up the running fire;
And through the thymy boulders, in cover of the trees,
We slid along the broken ledge, and crawled upon our knees,
Until we saw the vultures come sailing up the blue,
And circle round the rocky gorge, his way went winding through.
72
The first was stark and not quite cold, with a bullet through his heart;
And one had fallen headlong, from out the torrent bed
His rigid eyes stared grimly, and he was not quite dead;
The silent curse was on his lips, and round his matted hair
A purple stain ran down the stones—but Dimos was not there.
The earth was dry, the rocks were bare, and track was none to find,
Did they bear the living with them, and leave their dead behind?
His mother from the village comes like a thing bereft,
And wanders round the hollow hills through the eyries of the Klepht,
And ‘Have you seen my Dimos, have you seen my bonny son,
Who wore the Aga's pistols and the silver-mounted gun?
73
You took my Dimos living, and you hide him from me dead!’
There's an eagle lit on Pindus with dripping beak and red,
Between his crimson talons, he holds a severed head,
He feasts upon the olive eyes that lack their lustre-light,
And keener grows a hundredfold the orbit of his sight.
He cracks the skull in pieces and picks the scattered brain,
And fiercer grows his courage and more his might and main,
He feels his pinions stronger and longer many spans,
With the strength and youth and hardihood that were the murdered man's.
O Ali, dog of Jannina, the headsman of the east,
Chimári well remembers who makes the eagles' feast!
| The violet crown by Sir Rennell Rodd | |