PILLAGE
They will trample our gardens to mire, they will bury our city in fire;
Our women await their desire, our children the clang of the chain.
Our grave-eyed judges and lords they will bind by the neck with cords,
And harry with whips and swords till they perish of shame or pain,
And the great lapis lazuli dome where the gods of our race had a home
Will break like a wave from the foam, and shred into fiery rain.
No more on the long summer days shall we walk in the meadow-sweet ways
With the teachers of music and phrase, and the masters of dance and
design.
No more when the trumpeter calls shall we feast in the white-light halls;
For stayed are the soft footfalls of the moon-browed bearers of wine,
And lost are the statues of Kings and of Gods with great glorious wings,
And an empire of beautiful things, and the lips of the love who was mine.
We have vanished, but not into night, though our manhood we sold to
delight,
Neglecting the chances of fight, unfit for the spear and the bow.
We are dead, but our living was great: we are dumb, but a song of our
State
Will roam in the desert and wait, with its burden of long, long ago,
Till a scholar from sea-bright lands unearth from the years and the sands
Some image with beautiful hands, and know what we want him to know.
THE BALLAD OF ZACHO (a Greek Legend.)
Zacho the King rode out of old
(And truth is what I tell)
With saddle and spurs and a rein of gold
To find the door of Hell.
And round around him surged the dead
With soft and lustrous eyes.
"Why came you here, old friend?" they said:
"Unwise . . . unwise . . . unwise!
"You should have left to the prince your son
Spurs and saddle and rein:
Your bright and morning days are done;
You ride not out again."
"I came to greet my friends who fell
Sword-scattered from my side;
And when I've drunk the wine of Hell
I'll out again and ride!"
But Charon rose and caught his hair
In fingers sharp and long.
"Loose me, old ferryman: play fair:
Try if my arm be strong."
Thrice drave he hard on Charon's breast,
And struck him thrice to ground,
Till stranger ghosts came out o' the west
And sat like stars around.
And thrice old Charon rose up high
And seized him as before.
"Loose me! a broken man am I,
And fight with you no more.''
"Zacho, arise, my home is near;
I pray you walk with me:
I've hung my tent so full of fear
You well may shake to see.
"Home to my home come they who fight,
Who fight but not to win:
Without, my tent is black as night,
And red as fire within.
"Though winds blow cold and I grow old,
My tent is fast and fair:
The pegs are dead men's stout right arms,
The cords, their golden hair."