To her farm, to my farm,
Loathing we returned;
Pale beneath a gallow’s arm
The planet Saturn burned.
III. DERELICTION
O’er the tears that we shed, dear
The bitter vines twist,
And the hawk and the red deer
They keep where we kiss’d:
All broken lies the shieling
That sheltered from rain,
With a star to pierce the ceiling,
And the dawn an empty pane.
Thro’ the mist, up the moorway,
Fade hunters and pack;
From the ridge to thy doorway
Happy voices float back ...
O, between the threads o’ mist, love,
Reach your hands from the house.
Only mind that we kiss’d, love,
And forget the broken vows!
TWO FOLK SONGS
I. THE SOLDIER
(Roumanian)
When winter trees bestrew the path,
Still to the twig a leaf or twain
Will cling and weep, not Winter’s wrath,
But that foreknown forlorner pain—
To fall when green leaves come again.
I watch’d him sleep by the furrow—
The first that fell in the fight.
His grave they would dig to-morrow:
The battle called them to-night.
They bore him aside to the trees, there,
By his undigg’d grave content
To lie on his back at ease there,
And hark how the battle went.
The battle went by the village,
And back through the night were borne
Far cries of murder and pillage,
With smoke from the standing corn.
But when they came on the morrow,
They talk’d not over their task,
As he listen’d there by the furrow;
For the dead mouth could not ask—
How went the battle, my brothers?
But that he will never know:
For his mouth the red earth smothers
As they shoulder their spades and go.
Yet he cannot sleep thereunder,
But ever must toss and turn.
How went the battle, I wonder?
—And that he will never learn!
When winter trees bestrew the path,
Still to the twig a leaf or twain
Will cling and weep, not Winter’s wrath,
But that foreknown, forlorner pain—
To fall when green leaves come again!
II. THE MARINE
(Poitevin)
The bold Marine comes back from war,
So
kind:
The bold Marine comes back from war,
So
kind:
With a raggety coat and a worn-out shoe.
“Now, poor Marine, say, whence come you,
All
so kind?”
I travel back from the war, madame,
So
kind:
I travel back from the war, madame,
So
kind:
For a glass of wine and a bowl of whey,
’Tis I will sing you a ballad gay,
All
so kind.