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40
Apollon Maikov
ART
Idly I cut me a reed by the shore where the sea heaves
and thunders,—
Dumb and forgotten it lay in my simple, my wind-beaten
cabin.
Once an old traveler passed who remained for the night
in our dwelling,—
(Foreign his dress and his tongue, an old man who was
strange to our region.)
Seeing the reed, he retrieved it, and lopping and piercing
the nodules,
Sweetly his lips he applied to the holes that he fashioned:
responding,
Swiftly the reed-voice awoke, till the noise of the sea
breathed within it;
Thus would wild Zephyros blow, were he suddenly
ruffling the waters,
Fingering lightly the reed-stems and flooding the banks
with the sea-sound.
