From the Rommany or Gypsy Language.
The strength of the ox,
The wit of the fox,
And the leveret's speed,--
Full oft, to oppose
To their numerous foes,
The Rommany need.
Our horses they take,
Our waggons they break,
And ourselves they seize,
In their prisons to coop,
Where we pine and droop,
For want of breeze.
When the dead swallow
The fly shall follow
O'er Burra-panee,
Then we will forget
The wrongs we have met,
And forgiving be.
Footnotes:
{8} Gennet is a word of Arabic origin, and signifies paradise.
{10} No true Mussulman will receive any remuneration for communicating
instruction.
{13} Allusion is here made to metempsychosis or the transmigration of
souls.
{14} His relations.
{17} Goblins.
{18} Spaces of time.
{21} The principal banner.
{22} Wang Liyang and Siyan Ou were ancient kings of China, and mighty
hunters, of whose exploits many extravagant tales are related.
{26} Cossack village.
{32} The knights of the German Order, who eventually christianized the
pagan Lithuanians at the point of the lance and sword.
{33} Polish.
{38} The Mermaid.
{40} The war-goddess, according to the Northern Mythology.
{50} Wessel was the family name of Tordenskiold. Tordenskiold is an
epithet bestowed upon the Danish Admiral for his prowess and heroism. It
signifies: shield of thunder.
{51} This piece has already appeared in print, having been inserted some
years since in the Foreign Quarterly Review, in an article on Danish
poetry, of which the prose part proceeded from the pen of Doctor John
Bowring.
{54} The river-god.
{63} The Northern Venus.
{65} The personage, who figures in the splendid forgeries of MacPherson
under the name of Fingal.
{68} The Gaelic word for nobleman.
{72} Ancient bards, to whose mansion, in the clouds, the speaker hopes
that his spirit will be received.
{73a} Written in the fifth century.
{73b} The British, like many other nations, whose early history is
involved in obscurity, claim a Trojan descent.
{74} Awen, or poetic genius, which he is said to have imbibed in his
childhood, whilst employed in watching the cauldron of the sorceress
Cridwen.
{75} I was but a child, but am now Taliesin,--Taliesin signifies: brow
of brightness.
{79} Ale.
{94} They had, it seems, made an image of Varus, and besmeared it with
some high-smelling ointment, in the hope that Varus, by sympathy, would
bear about him the odour of the same, so that the dogs might bay at him in
his nocturnal excursions.