PEACE, 1914

Why do the women walk so free and strong In Thessaly? It is because the Turks wreak no more wrong; The Balkans ended, sunburnt soldiers throng, In Thessaly. Why do the old monks pray so hard for rain In Thessaly? It is because the mountain slopes again Roll in green terraces of silver grain, In Thessaly. Why does the shepherd wear a broidered shirt In Thessaly? Because ’tis peace; clean is the goat-herd’s skirt, The women spin; the needles are alert, In Thessaly. And why the young kids, white as snowy curds, In Thessaly? The farmers are successful with their herds; The highway’s loud with guttural teamster-words, In Thessaly. Why are the threshing-floors so thickly set In Thessaly? Because, when harvest comes, and youth is met, Comes the old will of Nature, sturdy yet, In Thessaly. And these deserted hovels that we see In Thessaly, Where the Peneios winds about the tree? The villagers have gone across the sea From Thessaly. And this trim town of plaster and of thatch In Thessaly? America hangs fortune on the latch, Our sons come back, then blooms the garden patch, In Thessaly! Then, this is no decadent race I see In Thessaly? Oh, stranger, who can tell? Hard things must be. Only, the “Greeks were Greeks,” and Greeks are we In Thessaly.