POETRY.
THE GYPSY TAINT.
FATHER is a townsman, mother from the far
Green southern uplands where wealthy pastures are : My kith and my kindred are prosperous and sleek, Who feed well and work well and thrive all the week.
But somewhere and sometime, many a year ago, There was a gipsy woman, that right well I know, A wild dark woman from the moor and wold, Who bare me an ancestor in days of old.
They hashed up her memory, hid her name away, Thought they had done with her for ever and a day,— Yet bath she left a heritage that none else shall win, Whereunto my wandering feet have entered in.
For surely when the dead leaves scutter down the street, With a rush and a rustle, like little flying feet,— When the sou'-west wakens, and with scared looks askance The townsfolk hasten from the storm's advance.
My whole soul sickens with a fierce desire, Stress of sudden longing sets my blood on fire, For the wind on the hill-top in a lonely place, And the cold, soft raindrops blowing on my face; For the steep-hung hedges of the winding road, And the forest pathway by the stream o'erflowed ; For the storm-swept heather where the bla.ckeock whirs, And the salt wind whistles through the stunted firs ; For the brown wood-water, and the brown field's smell, And the wide sea-marshes where the curlews dwell ; For the moorland black against the last red light. And the sunk reef's breakers brawling to the night.
Hide within your houses with your glaring gas !
Mine shall be the peat-smoke in the beech-roofed grass :
Count your sordid silver, tell your grimy gain,—
Mine shall be the treasures of the wind and rain !
MAY BYRON.
Previous page
