Classic Poem

I wandered far from my mother's tent;
Alone through the shade of the woods I went:
Where leaves grew greenest, where trees were high,
We met in the shadow, my love and I.
So kindly and fondly he gazed at me—
But he did not know I was Rommani.

He led me out where the sun shone down,
He looked at my face that was Gipsy-brown;
He looked in my eyes, and he took my hand;
He said, “You come from a distant land—
From a warmer country across the sea?”
I never told I was Rommani.

“Come, love!” he said. When I heard him call,
I left my mother and home and all:
I never turned to the tent again,
To bid goodbye to the Gipsy men.
My Gorgio married me faithfully,
But he never knew I was Rommani.

And now I live like a lady here,
But I'm never safe from a thought of fear:
They'll tell my husband some day, with scorn,
Of the Gipsy tent where his wife was born;
And the folk will cry when he passes, “See
The man that married a Rommani!”

If he knew me for one of the Gipsy race,
He could never look Gorgios in the face,
He'd be glad to hide in the house all day:
O husband! I'd soon go far away,
And death would be easier far to me
Than seeing you ashamed of your Rommani.

She rose, and soon to the stream she came;
But once she whispered her husband's name:
She stood awhile by the water-side,
Then cast herself in the flowing tide.
“'Tis for love of you, O dear heart!” said she;
“Now you'll never be shamed by the Rommani.”