bove all, the picturesque
distinctness of this somewhat isolated place, secluded, as it seems, in
an atmosphere laden with national lore--these were the incentives which
stirred Palamas in his quest of song. They have stamped their image on
all his work, but their most distinct reflection is found in _The
Lagoon's Regrets_, which is filled with memories of the poet's early
life in a world he always remembers with affection:

Imagination flies to hells and stars,
A witch beguiling, an enchantress strange;
But ours the Heart remains and binds both life
And love with the native soil, nor seems to die.

Peaks, depths, I sought Eurydice of old:
"What longing moans within me now, new-born?
Would that I were a fisherman at work,
Waking thy sleeping waters with my oar,
O Missolonghi!"

Humble but natural in feeling is the appeal to a friend of his childhood
days:

The peasant's huts in Midfield
For us, old friend, are waiting:
Come as of old to eat
The fresh-made cheese, and taste
The hard-made loaf of cornbread.

Come, and drink the milk drawn pure;
And filled with dew and gladness,
Stir up the hunger of the youth
Beside you, buxom lasses.

Here, too, he sings of the "crystal salt that is drawn snow-white from
the lake"; of the rain "that always weeps" and of the conquering tides.
Here he listens to the whispers of the waves while they murmur with each
other with restrained pride; and here over Byron's grave he dreams of
the great poet of Greece, who will come to ride on Byron's winged horse.
The poems of this collection are short but exquisitely wrought in verse
and language, full of life and of feeling. They are especially marked
with Palamas' attachment to the little and humble, which he loves to
raise into music and rhythm, and for which he always has sympathy and
even admiration.

ATHENS, THE VIOLET-CROWNED

Missolonghi nurtured the poet in his youth and led him to the threshold
of manhood. But when he had graduated from the provincial "gymnasion,"
he naturally came to Athens in order to complete his education in the
University of that city, the only University in Greece. This brought him
to the place which was destined to develop his greatness to its zenith.
The quiet, retired, and humble life of the Lagoon with its air filled
with legend was suddenly exchanged for the shining rocks of Attica and
its great city, flooded with dazzlin