Classic and Contemporary Poetry
GIPSIES, by HORACE SMITH Poet's Biography First Line: Whether from india's burning plains Last Line: And both may laugh at fortune. Alternate Author Name(s): Smith, Horatio Subject(s): Gypsies; Life; Gipsies | ||||||||
WHETHER from India's burning plains, Or wild Bohemia's domains, Your steps were first directed; Or whether ye be Egypt's sons, Whose stream, like Nile's, for ever runs With sources undetected: Arabs of Europe! Gipsy race! Your Eastern manners, garb, and face, Appear a strange chimaera; None, none but you can now be styled Romantic, picturesque, and wild, In this prosaic aera. Ye sole freebooters of the wood, Since Adam Bell and Robin Hood: Kept everywhere asunder From other tribes -- King, Church, and State Spurning, and only dedicate To freedom, sloth, and plunder; Your forest-camp -- the forms one sees Banditti-like amid the trees, The ragged donkeys grazing, The Sybil's eye prophetic, bright With flashes of the fitful light Beneath the caldron blazing, -- O'er my young mind strange terrors threw: Thy History gave me, Moore Carew! A more exalted notion Of Gipsy life; nor can I yet Gaze on your tents, and quite forget My former deep emotion. For "auld lang syne" I'll not maltreat Yon pseudo-tinker, though the cheat, As sly as thievish Reynard, Instead of mending kettles, prowls, To make foul havoc of my fowls, And decimate my hen-yard. Come thou, too, black-eyed lass, and try That potent skill in palmistry, Which sixpences can wheedle; Mine is a friendly cottage -- here No snarling mastiff need you fear, No Constable or Beadle. 'Tis yours, I know, to draw at will Upon futurity a bill, And Plutus to importune; -- Discount the bill -- take half yourself, Give me the balance of the pelf, And both may laugh at fortune. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE ASSIMILATION OF THE GYPSIES by LARRY LEVIS THE SCHOLAR GIPSY by MATTHEW ARNOLD THE GYPSY by PHILIP EDWARD THOMAS TO A GIPSY CHILD BY THE SEA-SHORE by MATTHEW ARNOLD THE GYPSIES [OR, GIPSIES] by HENRY HOWARTH BASHFORD ADDRESS TO THE MUMMY AT BELZONI'S EXHIBITION by HORACE SMITH |
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