s gambol of thy fire, Dawn's smile
Upon my night.
Thine eyes, O 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;
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,
Still thou wert later manna unto me,
Desert-born, 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-born
White lilies in lyric Paris blossoming,
With Hugo and with thee, O Lamartine,
Revels and wings!
Dante and Nietzsche, Ibsen, Shakespeare, all,
Poured wine for me with their thrice-holy hands
Into thy gleaming 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!
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 human spirit throughout the
ages with the history and land of Hellas as its natural background.
Consequently, its message is both subjective and objective. Although
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