Show THE GYPSY TAINT Father a townsman mother from the far Green southern uplands where wealthy pastures are My kith and my kindred are prosperous and sleek Who feed well and work well and thrive all the week But somewhere and some time many a year ago There was a gypsy woman that right well I know A wild dark woman from the moor and weld Who bare me an ancestor in days of old They hushed up her memory hid het name away Thought they had done with her forever and a day Yet hath she left a heritage that nona else shall win a Whereunto my wandering feet have entered en-tered in For surely when the dead leaves scatter down tile street With a rush and a rustle like little flying feet When the souwest wakens and with scared looks askance The townsfolk hasten from the storms advance My whole soul sickens with a fierce do sire Stress of sudden longing sets my blood on fire For the wind on the hilltop in a lonely place And the cold soft raindrops blowing on my face For the steep hung hedges of the winding road And the forest pathway by the stream oerflowed For the stormswept heather where the blackcock whirs And the salt wind whistles through the stunted firs For the brown wood water and the brown fields smell And the wide sea marshes where the cudlews dwell For the moorland black against the last red light And the sunk reefs breakers brawling to the night j Hide within your houses with your staring star-ing gas Mine shall be the peat smoke ia the beechroofed grass Count your sordid silver tell your grimy gain Mine shall be the treasures of the wind and rain San Francisco Argonaut |