Still be possessed of thee.
We hardly notice the adventitious part of it—the ancient custom of tearing off the hair, the strange stone-casting at the youths who represent Charon; our attention is absorbed by what is the essence of the song: passion which has burned itself into pure fire. Greek folk-poetry shows a blending together of southern emotions with an imaginative fervour, a prophetic power that is rather of the East than of the South. No Tuscan ploughman, for instance, could seize the idea of the Greek folk-poet of possessing his living love in death. If the Tuscan thinks of a union in the grave, it can only be attained by the one who remains joining the one who is gone—
O friendly soil,
Soil that doth hold my love in thine embrace,
Soon as for me shall end life's war and toil
Beneath thy sod I too would have a place;
Where my love is, there do I long to be,
Where now my heart is buried far from me—
Yes, where my love is gone I long to go,
Robbed of my heart I bear too deep a woe.