The New Monthly Magazine, Volume 13, Pages 395-396
THE PARTING SONG.*[1]
A youth went forth to exile, from a home
Such as to early thought gives images,
The longest treasured, and most oft recall'd,
And brightest kept, of Love. A mountain-home,
Which, with the murmur of the rocking pines,
And sounding waters, first in childhood's heart
Wakes the deep sense of Nature unto joy,
And half unconscious prayer. A Grecian home,
With the transparence of blue skies o'erhung,
And, through the dimness of its olive shades,
Catching the flash of fountains, and the gleam
Of shining pillars from the Fanes of old.
—And this was what he left!— Yet many leave
Far more:—the glistening eye that first from theirs
Call'd out the soul's bright smile; the gentle hand,
Which through the sunshine led forth infant steps
To where the violets lay; the tender voice,
That earliest taught them what deep melody
Lives in Affection's tones.—He left not these.
— Happy are they that weep fresh tears to part
With all a mother's love!—a bitterer grief
Was his—to part unloved!—of her unloved
That should have breathed upon his heart, like Spring
Fostering its young faint flowers.
——Yet had he friends,
And they went forth to cheer him on his way
Unto the parting spot;—and she too went,
That mother, tearless for her youngest-born!
The parting spot was reach'd:—a lone deep glen,
Holy, perchance, of yore, for Cave and Fount
Were there, and plaintive Echoes; and above,
The silence of the blue, clear, upper heaven,
Hung round the crags of Pindus, where they wore
Their crowning snows.—Upon a rock he sprung,
The unbeloved one, for his home to gaze,
Through the wild laurels, back. But then a light
Broke on the stern proud sadness of his eye,
A sudden quivering light, and from his lips
A burst of passionate song——
"Farewell, farewell!
Thou 'rt bearing thence a mournful sound, a murmur of Farewell!
And fare thee well—flow on, my stream!—flow on, thou bright and free!
I do but dream that in thy voice one tone laments for me.
But I have been a thing unloved, from childhood's loving years,
And therefore turns my soul to thee—for thou hast known my tears!
The mountains, and the caves, and thou, my secret tears have known;
The woods can tell where he hath wept, that ever wept alone!
"I see thee once again, my home!—thou 'rt there amidst thy vines,
And clear upon thy gleaming roof the light of summer shines.
It is a joyous hour when Eve breathes whispering through thy groves,
The hour that brings the son from toil, the hour the mother loves!
- ↑
* For the tale on which this piece is founded, as well as for some interesting particulars respecting the extempore parting songs, or songs of expatriation, of the Modern Greeks, see Fauriel's Chansons Populaires de la Grèce Moderne, pp. 30, 32, 33.
