free download here - Michael Llewellyn-Smith

The Great Island
way into the Greek psyche, and permeates their literature, as a kind of
nostalgia which comes across most movingly in the poems of Sepheris.
Some songs of love:
– Mother, it is snowing on the mountains, it is raining in the foothills,
There’s a stranger passing our door, wet through from the snow;
Mother, let us open up and let the stranger in.
– Child, we have no bread, what do you want of the stranger then?
– Mother, they sell bread at the bakers; send me to fetch some.
– Daughter, we have no wine, what do you want of the stranger then?
– Mother, there is wine in the neighbourhood; I’ll go buy some.
– Daughter, we have no blankets for the stranger to lie down.
– Mother, my skirt covers the two of us ...
It was cold last night and the birds were in pain.
And I stayed on the seashore naked and was in no pain.
Why was I in no pain, why no pain?
I was holding a slender body in my embrace, and white breasts
Were in my hands, red lips were on my lips.
To a girl who drives men mad:
I’ve told you once, I’ve told you twice, I’ve told you three, five times,
haven’t I?
You mustn’t walk with that wiggle, shaking your breasts.
You’ve sent all the young men mad, you know, and all the heroes
AND . . . one priest!
Three years are gone today, the fourth is on its way,
And I am not of good heart, nor would I be.
A stranger kissed me, passed by and left me.
He said: *I shall come back in March with the swallows.’
I watch March and it passes, April and it is gone.
I pass and say nothing and the girl greets me.
– Where are you going, kiss-stealer, cheat-in-love ?
– If I am a kiss-stealer, a cheat in love,
Why did you give me your lips and I kissed them sweetly?
– If I gave you my lips and you kissed them sweetly,
It was night, who noticed us, it was dawn, who could have seen us?
– The Morning Star, the brilliant, he saw us
And came down low and told it to the sea;
The sea told the oar, the oar told the sailor,
And the sailor babbled the news to the wide world.
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