Part III. The Treatment the Gipsies have received in this Country. (continued 2)

“I proffered my hand readily to the Gipsy, and crossed it with one of the two pieces of silver which constituted the whole of my worldly wealth. The Gipsy laughed, and began to prophesy in German. There are some events a child never forgets; and I remember every word she said as well as if it had been spoken yesterday.

“‘Over the sea, and again over the sea; thou shalt know grief and hardship and losses, and the dove shall be driven from its nest. And the dove’s heart shall become like the eagle’s, that flies alone, and fleshes her beak in the slain. Beat on, though the poor wings be bruised by the tempest, and the breast be sore, and the heart sink; beat on against the wind, and seek no shelter till thou find thy resting-place at last. The time will come—only beat on.’

“The woman laughed as she spoke; but there was a kindly tone in her voice and a pitying look in her bright eyes that went straight to my heart. Many a time since, in life, when the storm has indeed been boisterous and the wings so weary, have I thought of those words of encouragement, ‘The time will come—beat on.’ . . .

“‘Thou shalt be a “De Rohan,” my darling, and I can promise thee no brighter lot—broad acres, and blessings from the poor, and horses, and wealth, and honours. And the sword shall spare thee, and the battle turn aside to let thee pass. And thou shalt wed a fair bride with dark eyes and a queenly brow; but beware of St. Hubert’s Day. Birth and burial, birth and burial—beware of St. Hubert’s Day.’”

Disraeli, speaking of the Gipsies in his “Venetia,” says:—“As Cadurcis approached he observed some low tents, and in a few minutes he was in the centre of an encampment of Gipsies. He was for a moment somewhat dismayed, for he had been brought up with the usual terror of these wild people; nevertheless he was not unequal to the occasion. He was surrounded in an instant, but only with women and children, for Gipsy men never immediately appear. They smiled with their bright eyes, and the flashes of the watch-fire threw a lurid glare over their dark and flashing countenances; they held out their practised hands; they uttered unintelligible, but not unfriendly sounds.”

Matilda Betham Edwards, in her remarks upon Gipsies, says:—“Your pulses are quickened to Gipsy pitch, you are ready to make love or war, to heal and slay, to wander to the world’s end, to be outlawed and hunted down, to dare and do anything for the sake of the sweet, untramelled life of the tent, the bright blue sky, the mountain air, the free savagedom, the joyous dance, the passionate friendship, the fiery love.”

I come now to notice what a few of the poets have said about these ignorant, nomadic tribes, who have been skulking and flitting about in our midst, since the days of Borrow, Roberts, Hoyland, and Crabb—a period of over forty years.

“He grows, like the young oak, healthy and broad, With no home but the forest, no bed but the sward; Half-naked he wades in the limpid stream, Or dances about in the scorching beam. The dazzling glare of the banquet sheen Hath never fallen on him I ween, But fragments are spread, and the wood pine piled, And sweet is the meal of the Gipsy child.”—Eliza Cook.

“The Gipsy eye, bright as the star That sends its light from heaven afar, Wild with the strains of thy guitar, This heart with rapture fill. Then, maiden fair, beneath this star, Come, touch me with the light guitar. Thy brow unworked by lines of care, Decked with locks of raven hair, Seems ever beautiful and fair At moonlight’s stilly hour. What bliss! beside the leafy maze, Illumined by the moon’s pale rays, On thy sweet face to sit and gaze, Thou wild, uncultured flower. Then, maiden fair, beneath this star, Come, touch me with the light guitar.”

Hubert Smith: “Tent Life in Norway.”

“From every place condemned to roam, In every place we seek a home; These branches form our summer roof, By thick grown leaves made weather-proof; In shelt’ring nooks and hollow ways, We cheerily pass our winter days. Come circle round the Gipsy’s fire, Come circle round the Gipsy’s fire, Our songs, our stories never tire, Our songs, our stories never tire.”—Reeve.

“Where is the little Gipsy’s home? Under the spreading greenwood tree, Wherever she may roam, Wherever that tree may be. Roaming the world o’er, Crossing the deep blue sea, She finds on every shore, A home among the free, A home among the free, Ah, voilà la Gitana, voilà la Gitana.”—Halliday.

“He checked his steed, and sighed to mark Her coral lips, her eyes so dark, And stately bearing—as she had been Bred up in courts, and born a queen. Again he came, and again he came, Each day with a warmer, a wilder flame, And still again—till sleep by night For Judith’s sake fled his pillow quite.”—Delta.

“A race that lives on prey, as foxes do, With stealthy, petty rapine; so despised, It is not persecuted, only spurned, Crushed under foot, warred on by chance like rats, Or swarming flies, or reptiles of the sea, Dragged in the net unsought and flung far off, To perish as they may.”

George Eliot: “The Spanish Gipsies,” 1865.

“Help me wonder, here’s a booke, Where I would for ever looke. Never did a Gipsy trace Smoother lines in hands or face; Venus here doth Saturne move That you should be the Queene of Love.”

Ben Jonson.

“Fond dreamer, pause! why floats the silvery breath Of thin, light smoke from yonder bank of heath? What forms are those beneath the shaggy trees, In tattered tent, scarce sheltered from the breeze; The hoary father and the ancient dame, The squalid children, cowering o’er the flame? Those were not born by English hearths to dwell, Or heed the carols of the village bell; Those swarthy lineaments, that wild attire, Those stranger tones, bespeak an eastern sire; Bid us in home’s most favoured precincts trace The houseless children of a homeless race; And as in warning vision seem to show That man’s best joys are drowned by shades of woe.

“Pilgrims of Earth, who hath not owned the spell That ever seems around your tents to dwell; Solemn and thrilling as the nameless dread That guards the chambers of the silent dead! The sportive child, if near your camp he stray, Stands tranced with fear, and heeds no more his play; To gain your magic aid, the love-sick swain, With hasty footsteps threads the dusky lane; The passing traveller lingers, half in sport, And half in awe beside your savage court, While the weird hags explore his palm to spell What varied fates these mystic lines foretell.

“The murmuring streams your minstrel songs supply, The moss your couch, the oak your canopy; The sun awakes you as with trumpet-call, Lightly ye spring from slumber’s gentle thrall; Eve draws her curtain o’er the burning west, Like forest birds ye sink at once to rest.

“Free as the winds that through the forest rush, Wild as the flowers that by the wayside blush, Children of nature wandering to and fro, Man knows not whence ye came, nor where ye go; Like foreign weeds cast upon Western strands, Which stormy waves have borne from unknown lands; Like the murmuring shells to fancy’s ears that tell The mystic secrets of their ocean cell.

“Drear was the scene—a dark and troublous time— The Heaven all gloom, the wearied Earth all crime; Men deemed they saw the unshackled powers of ill Rage in that storm, and work their perfect will. Then like a traveller, when the wild wind blows, And black night flickers with the driving snows, A stranger people, ’mid that murky gloom, Knocked at the gates of awe-struck Christendom! No clang of arms, no din of battle roared Round the still march of that mysterious horde; Weary and sad arrayed in pilgrim’s guise, They stood and prayed, nor raised their suppliant eyes. At once to Europe’s hundred shores they came, In voice, in feature, and in garb the same. Mother and babe and youth, and hoary age, The haughty chieftain and the wizard sage; At once in every land went up the cry, ‘Oh! fear us not—receive us or we die!’”

Dean Stanley’s Prize Poem, 1837: “The Gipsies.”