WHERE RUPERT BROOKE IS BURIED
IT is carnival-time in Skyros ; the narrow stone-paved streets that lead tortuously up and down the hill, (spangled with gleaming white houses, are thronged with 'the masqueraders and their following. Youths attired as girls croon songs and dance mincingly ; men dressed ?in the skins of beasts, their faces covered with furry masks, move clumsily and with a deafening din, for dozens of copper sheep-bells encircle their waists. To all they meet they dance, leaping in ways invented when the world was young ; for it is a masquerade that was old, maybe, when Aristophanes wedded the antique choruses of beasts to the finer growth of Attic comedy.
Faster and faster grows the dance, till the noise of the ∎ bells culminates in a last terrific crash, and the dancers lean exhausted against the nearest wall, to be rewarded with draughts of resined wine poured through the openings in their masks. All, even foreigners, may be candidates for the skins and bells ; but it is a point of honour to last out the day. Wine flows in all too generous. a stream ; as 'night comes-on we save ourselves and walk over the `hills, leaving the noise to follow us on the breeze.
Over the hills, to Linaria, Skyros' only port : a fishing village boasting an hotel, a post-office and a school, all under one roof and one management. Our host ,divides his time between cooking our meals, teaching his ;pupils, and attending to the telegraphic apparatus.
As we eat our evening meal, our room is invaded by a 'crowd of revellers ; for here, too, in Linaria the carnival is celebrated, although not with the skins of beasts and clanging sheep-bells, but with a less pretentious masque- rade. Some six persons come down upon us, demanding wine. One—a burly big-voiced fellow home from Canada —is sober and amused ; as for the rest of them, the wine in their heads has turned to politics ; for they are Greeks. The customs-officer, his eyeglasses—portentous symbols of lynx-eyed perspicacity—all awry upon his nose, leans across the table at us and screams : " Tell England from us that we are her friends ; but we want no Venizelos, no Pappanastassiou—no, no Parrot (pappagalos)—but only the King ! " ; and the rest thunder in chorus, " The King ! " For it is the time of the plebiscite, when Greece is to decide between a king who has already gone abroad and a de facto republic ; and our islanders are removed from innovation and mistrustful.
At last they are shepherded out of the door by their sober companion, and go reeling and shouting down the street, vinous champions of a hopeless cause. With a sigh of relief we retire to our beds, while Linaria keeps revel outside, making the most of the last few hours before the severities of. an Orthodox lenten fast begin.
In the morning we rise early, for we have O. journey before us : away from the tumult of carnival, the revelry, and the declamations of political partisanship, to the peace and beauteous melancholy of the resting-place of him whom the islanders call " The Dead Poet," a stranger given into their keeping by the chances of war ; who found in this time-honoured Aegean isle, where Achilles roamed in disconsolate inaction, and Theseus' bones reposed awhile, a grave worthy of the Great Lover.
- The way to the tomb is over the cliffs and along the shore, scattered with the wave-washed relics of a forgotten town ; pieces of brick and tile and pot, drawn to and fro by the tide, slowly wearing down to mere rounded discs. There is a solitary house by the shore, and a man working in the garden ; close by is a puppy and its mother, which we approach with misgiving ; for Greek dogs are of a well-known temper. But the mother plays with her pup, and lets us pass in peace ; and the man points out our path to us : past the springs of Niphe, with their clear sweet water, and strange traceries, like volutes, in the rock ; Nature's artistry in this spot which is wholly hers. So we go on, by rocky paths among thorny shrubs, over Mount Konkhilia and down to the sea again ; along the shore of the bay where the ships used to anchor in the days when Rupert Brooke served in these seas ; a bay with deep waters inside, but having a barren islet set at its mouth, whose feet, planted in the sea, touch the shores of Skyros, leaving only one narrow channel navigable to ships of a modern fleet.
Up from the shore there runs a glen, rocky and difficult of passage : along it one day they bore the poet ; and again along it, when the war was done, they laboriously carried the marble for his tomb, making a pathway for the bringing of the blocks. We walk along it through thorny bushes, and enter an olive-grove ; and suddenly in front of us appears a level spot, bright green below with grass, and above greyish with olives ; while the centre is gleaming white marble. It is the place : nor, for the Poet's tomb, could any other place have been chosen. Here all is peace ; only goats wander round the tomb and crop the grass ; a solitary goatherd watches them, left behind when the others departed to the carnival. He regards the tomb, with its engraven words of classical Greek, with a dull curiosity, and soon, having eaten from his simple scrip, falls asleep. The sun strikes through the branches of the olives and lights upon the tomb. Planted in the ground at the foot of the marble monument is the rude wooden cross that first marked the grave. All round are anemones of varied hues, drooping their heads among the grass : ever multiplying their ranks and forming a fair carpet round the grave :-
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We found you pale and quiet, and strangely crowned with flowers,
Lovely and secret as a child . • ."
W. L. CormE.
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