And the Romany lass to the Romany lad
This poem echoes, albeit without the direct voice of speaking from one’s own experience, the feeling of ‘The Long Trail’: the excitement of discovering new places, of voyaging like a gypsy to the four corners of the earth – “north where the blue bergs sail”, “sheer to the Austral Light”, “west to the sinking sun, / till … the east and the west are one”.
Travel can make you leave behind “the grime and the grey” of routine, give you that sensation of becoming clean and renewed. “And the world is all at our feet!”
The Gypsy Trail
The white moth to the closing bine,(1) The bee to the opened clover, And the gipsy blood to the gipsy blood Ever the wide world over. Ever the wide world over, lass, Ever the trail held true, Over the world and under the world, And back at the last to you. Out of the dark of the gorgio camp, (2) Out of the grime and the gray (Morning waits at the end of the world), Gipsy, come away! The wild boar to the sun-dried swamp, The red crane to her reed, And the Romany lass to the Romany lad (3) By the tie of a roving breed. The pied snake to the rifted rock, The buck to the stony plain, And the Romany lass to the Romany lad, And both to the road again. Both to the road again, again! Out on a clean sea-track - Follow the cross of the gipsy trail Over the world and back! Follow the Romany patteran (4) North where the blue bergs sail, And the bows are gray with the frozen spray, And the masts are shod with mail. Follow the Romany patteran Sheer to the Austral Light, Where the besom of God is the wild South Wind (5) Sweeping the sea-floors white. Follow the Romany patteran West to the sinking sun, Till the junk-sails lift through the houseless drift And the east and the west are one. Follow the Romany patteran East where the silence broods By a purple wave on an opal beach In the hush of the Mahim woods.(6) "The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky The deer to the wholesome wold,(7) And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid, As it was in the days of old." The heart of a man to the heart of a maid - Light of my tents, be fleet. Morning waits at the end of the world, And the world is all at our feet!
Notes
[1] ‘Bine’ – the stem of a climbing plant.
[2] ‘Gorgio’ is how the Gypsies call anyone who is not a Gypsy.
[3] ‘Roma’ or ‘Romany’ is how the gypsies call themselves.
[4] ‘Patteran’ – leaves or grass placed on the road by Gypsies to point the way they traveled.
[5] ‘Besom’ – a broom made of twigs.
[6] The Mahim Woods are coconut groves by the seaside outside Mumbai (Kipling’s birthplace), where as a young child he used to be taken on evening walks.
[7] ‘Wold’ – open upland country.