Vengeance

Aischa was mine,     My tender cousin,     My blond lover;     And you knew our love,     Uncle without bowels,     Foul old man.     For a few weights of gold     You sold her to the blacks,     And they will drive a stinking trade     At the dark market;     Your slender daughter,     The free child of our hills.     She will go to serve the bed     Of a fat man with no God,     A guts that cannot walk,     A belly hiding his own feet,     A rolling paunch     Between itself and love.     She was slim and quick     Like the antelope of our hills     When he comes down in the summer-time     To bathe in the pools of Tereck,     Her stainless flesh     Was all moonlight.     Her long silk hair     Was of so fine a gold     And of so honey-like a brown     That bees flew there,     And her red lips     Were flowers in sunlight.     She was fair, alas, she was fair,     So that her beauty goes     To a garden of dying flowers,     Made one with the girls that mourn     And wither for light and love     Behind the harem bars.     And you have dirty dreams     That she will be Sultane,     And you will drink and boast     And roll about,     The grinning ancestor     Of little kings.     Hugging your very wicked gold     Within a greasy belt,     You paddle exulting like a bald ape     That glories to defile,     Unmindful of two hot young streams     Of tears.     You stole this dirty gold,     For this gold means     Your daughter's freedom     And your nephew's love,     Two fresh and lovely things     Groaning within your belt.     The sunny playing of our childhood     At the green foot of Elbours,     The starry playing of our youth     Beyond the flowery fences,     These sigh their lost delights     Within your belt.     Give me the gold;     Damn you, give me the gold....     You kill my mercy     When you kill my love....     Hold up your trembling sword;     For this is death.                  *             *             *             *             *     I take the belt from the dead loins     That put away my love,     And turn my sweet white horse     After the caravan....     With dirty gold and clean steel     I'll set Aischa free.     Ballad of the Caucasus.