And now I'll wrap my blanket o'er me,
And on the tavern floor I'll lie,
A double spirit-flask before me,
And watch my pipe clouds, melting, die.
They melt and die, but ever darken
As night comes on and hides the day,
Till all is black; then, brothers, hearken,
And if ye can write down my lay.
In yon long loaf my knife is gleaming,
Like one black sail above the boat;
As once at Pesth I saw it beaming,
Half through a dark Croatian throat.
Now faster, faster, whirls the ceiling,
And wilder, wilder, turns my brain;
And still I'll drink, till, past all feeling,
My soul leaps forth to light again.
Whence come these white girls wreathing round me?
Barushka!--long I thought thee dead;
Katchenka!--when these arms last bound thee
Thou laid'st by Rajrad, cold as lead.
And faster, faster, whirls the ceiling,
And wilder, wilder, turns my brain;
And from afar a star comes stealing
Straight at me o'er the death-black plain.
Alas! I sink. My spirits miss me.
I swim, I shoot from shore to shore!
Klara! thou golden sister--kiss me!
I rise--I'm safe--I'm strong once more.
And faster, faster, whirls the ceiling,
And wilder, wilder, whirls my brain;
The star!--it strikes my soul, revealing
All life and light to me again.
* * * * *
Against the waves fresh waves are dashing,
Above the breeze fresh breezes blow;
Through seas of light new light is flashing,
And with them all I float and flow.
Yet round me rings of fire are gleaning,--
Pale rings of fire, wild eyes of death!
Why haunt me thus, awake or dreaming?
Methought I left ye with my breath!
Ay, glare and stare, with life increasing,
And leech-like eyebrows, arching in;
Be, if ye must, my fate unceasing,
But never hope a fear to win.
He who knows all may haunt the haunter,
He who fears naught hath conquered fate;
Who bears in silence quells the daunter,
And makes his spoiler desolate.
O wondrous eyes, of star-like lustre,
How have ye changed to guardian love!
Alas! where stars in myriads cluster,
Ye vanish in the heaven above.
* * * * *
I hear two bells so softly ringing;
How sweet their silver voices roll!
The one on distant hills is ringing,
The other peals within my soul.
I hear two maidens gently talking,
Bohemian maids, and fair to see:
The one on distant hills is walking,
The other maiden,--where is she?
Where is she? When the moonlight glistens
O'er silent lake or murmuring stream,
I hear her call my soul, which listens,
"Oh, wake no more! Come, love, and dream!"
She came to earth, earth's loveliest creature;
She died, and then was born once more;
Changed was her race, and changed each feature,
But yet I loved her as before.
We live, but still, when night has bound me
In golden dreams too sweet to last,
A wondrous light-blue world around me,
She comes,--the loved one of the past.
I know not which I love the dearest,
For both the loves are still the same:
The living to my life is nearest,
The dead one feeds the living flame.
And when the sun, its rose-wine quaffing,
Which flows across the Eastern deep,
Awakes us, Klara chides me, laughing,
And says we love too well in sleep.
And though no more a Voivode's daughter,
As when she lived on earth before,
The love is still the same which sought her,
And I am true, and ask no more.
* * * * *
Bright moonbeams on the sea are playing,
And starlight shines upon the hill,
And I should wake, but still delaying
In our old life I linger still.
For as the wind clouds flit above me,
And as the stars above them shine,
My higher life's in those who love me,
And higher still, our life's divine.
And thus I raise my soul by drinking,
As on the tavern floor I lie;
It heeds not whence begins our thinking
If to the end its flight is high.
E'en outcasts may have heart and feeling,
The blackest wild Tsigan be true,
And love, like light in dungeons stealing,
Though bars be there, will still burst through.
It is the reecho of more than one song of those strange lands, of more
than one voice, and of many a melody; and those who have heard them,
though not more distinctly than Francois Villon when he spoke of flinging
the question back by silent lake and streamlet lone, will understand me,
and say it is true to nature.
In a late work on Magyarland, by a lady Fellow of the Carpathian Society,
I find more on Hungarian gypsy music, which is so well written that I
quote fully from it, being of the opinion that one ought, when setting
forth any subject, to give quite as good an opportunity to others who are
in our business as to ourselves. And truly this lady has felt the charm
of the Tsigan music and describes it so well that one wishes she were a
Romany in language and by adoption, like unto a dozen dames and damsels
whom I know.
"The Magyars have a perfect passion for this gypsy music, and there
is nothing that appeals so powerfully to their emotions, whether of
joy or sorrow. These singular musicians are, as a rule, well taught,
and can play almost any music, greatly preferring, however, their own
compositions. Their music, consequently, is highly characteristic.
It is the language of their lives and strange surroundings, a wild,
weird banshee music: now all joy and sparkle, like sunshine on the
plains; now sullen, sad, and pathetic by turns, like the wail of a
crushed and oppressed people,--an echo, it is said, of the minstrelsy
of the _hegedosok_ or Hungarian bards, but sounding to our ears like
the more distant echo of that exceeding bitter cry, uttered long
centuries ago by their forefathers under Egyptian bondage, and borne
over the time-waves of thousands of years, breaking forth in their
music of to-day."
Here I interrupt the lady--with all due courtesy--to remark that I cannot
agree with her, nor with her probable authority, Walter Simson, in
believing that the gypsies are the descendants of the mixed races who
followed Moses out of Egypt. The Rom in Egypt is a Hindoo stranger now,
as he ever was. But that the echo of centuries of outlawry and
wretchedness and wildness rises and falls, like the ineffable discord in
a wind-harp, in Romany airs is true enough, whatever its origin may have
been. But I beg pardon, madam,--I interrupted you.
"The soul-stirring, madly exciting, and martial strains of the
Racoczys--one of the Revolutionary airs--has just died upon the ear.
A brief interval of rest has passed. Now listen with bated breath to
that recitative in the minor key,--that passionate wail, that
touching story, the gypsies' own music, which rises and falls on the
air. Knives and forks are set down, hands and arms hang listless,
all the seeming necessities of the moment being either suspended or
forgotten,--merged in the memories which those vibrations, so akin to
human language, reawaken in each heart. Eyes involuntarily fill with
tears, as those pathetic strains echo back and make present some
sorrow of long ago, or rouse from slumber that of recent time. . . .
"And now, the recitative being ended, and the last chord struck, the
melody begins, of which the former was the prelude. Watch the
movements of the supple figure of the first violin, standing in the
centre of the other musicians, who accompany him softly. How every
nerve is _en rapport_ with his instrument, and how his very soul is
speaking through it! See how gently he draws the bow across the
trembling strings, and how lovingly he lays his cheek upon it, as if
listening to some responsive echo of his heart's inmost feeling, for
it is his mystic language! How the instrument lives and answers to
his every touch, sending forth in turn utterances tender, sad, wild,
and joyous! The audience once more hold their breath to catch the
dying tones, as the melody, so rich, so beautiful, so full of pathos,
is drawing to a close. The tension is absolutely painful as the
gypsy dwells on the last lingering note, and it is a relief when,
with a loud and general burst of sound, every performer starts into
life and motion. _Then_ what crude and wild dissonances are made to
resolve themselves into delicious harmony! What rapturous and fervid
phrases, and what energy and impetuosity, are there in every motion
of the gypsies' figures, as their dark eyes glisten and emit flashes
in unison with the tones!"
The writer is gifted in giving words to gypsy music. One cannot say, as
the inexhaustible Cad writes of Niagara ten times on a page in the
Visitors' Book, that it is indescribable. I think that if language means
anything this music has been very well described by the writers whom I
have cited. When I am told that the gypsies' impetuous and passionate
natures make them enter into musical action with heart and soul, I feel
not only the strains played long ago, but also hear therein the horns of
Elfland blowing,--which he who has not heard, of summer days, in the
drone of the bee, by reedy rustling stream, will never know on earth in
any wise. But once heard it comes ever, as I, though in the city, heard
it last night in the winter wind, with Romany words mingled in wild
refrain:--
"_Kamava tute_, _miri chelladi_!"