III

 

Eskillaran azpigarri urdin argia

Eta non-nai luze, gazte mutileria,

Gazte, luze, ingeles aurpegiekin,

Beren lekuetan zutik tinko,

Errenka ta errenkan, zutik eta men,

Illerantsi ta galtza ta xingola urreztatuekin;

Eta beren gain, orma gañean

Beste ingeles aurpegia zintzilik—

Guztia ingeles bizimoduaren zatia—

Gudaburu Sir Charles eta bere emazte polita,

Amiral, Jauntxo, Shires’en Ordekoak,

Mutil auen nagusiak morroi egin zizkioten gizonak,

Beren billera aundietan— iñork jakin gabe

Laister edo berandu guztiak joango ote ziranak

Jantzi oiturazkoekin borroka zorrotzagora—

Ingeles bizimoduaren beste eredua.

 

Guztien artean eskillarak igo,

Arrotz eta ikarati ta beldurti ta txikia,

Eta dantza-gelan sartzean

Iñoiz artean ez ikusia, zerbait begiztatu nun

Ez ezik irudietan —indartsu ta zaar gomitatu bat

Bere bular gañean xingola zabal urdiñarekin,

Ego aldeko itsasoen urdin sakonena bezelakoa,

Zeru sapaiak izan ditezken baño urdiñagoa—

Salisbury’ko Kondesa—Eduardo Irugarrena—

Ori bai merezia! — Dukea — Entzun nuen

Nere aots berak ziola: “Ala xede,

Galtza-Korda!” ta aur bezela txalo egin.

 

Nere aldamenean norbait atzeratu ta irripar egin

Eta beeratuaz esan: “Nere ustez

Nancy zera, Bertie’en australiar lengusua.

Foreign Office’tik berandu etorriko dala esateko,

Apariketarako ez itxaroteko, aparira nerekin joateko,

Bera izango banitz bezela jarduteko”.

 

Bereala esan bear nion

Lengusurik ez neukala— ez nintzala

Australiar Nancy —nere izena

Susan Dunne zala, ta iri txiki ta zuri

Itsas-bazter sakonean

U.S.A.’ko laterri txikienetik etorria.

Esateko asmoa, bai, bañan uste-aldatuz egin—

Adiskidea bear nun, ta laztana zirudin;

Orrela ba, bere esku-larruan nerea jarri,

Eta dantza egin —eta maite-mindu.

 

 

 

III

A light blue carpet on the stair / And tall young footmen everywhere, / Tall young men with English faces / Standing rigidly in their places, / Rows and rows of them stiff and staid / In powder and breeches and bright gold braid; / And high above them on the wall / Hung other English faces—all / Part of the pattern of English life— / General Sir Charles, and his pretty wife, / Admirals, Lords-Lieutenant of Shires, / Men who were served by these footmen’s sires / At their great parties none of them knowing / How soon or late they would all be going / In plainer dress to a sterner strife— / Another pattern of English life. // I went up the stairs between them all, / Strange and frightened and shy and small / And as I entered the ballroom door, / Saw something I never had seen before / Except in portraits—a stout old guest / With a broad blue ribbon across his breast— / That blue as deep as the southern sea, / Bluer than skies can ever be— / The Countess of Salisbury—Edward the Third— / No damn merit—the Duke— I heard / My own voice saying: ‘Upon my word, / The garter!’ and clapped my hands like a child. // Some one beside me turned and smiled, / And looking down at me said: ‘I fancy, / You’re Bertie’s Australian cousin Nancy. / He told me to tell you that he’d be late / At the Foreign Office and not to wait / Supper for him, but to go with me, / And try to behave as if I were he.’ // I should have told him on the spot / That I had no cousin—that I was not / Australian Nancy—that my name / Was Susan Dunne, and that I came / From a small white town on a deep-cut bay / In the smallest state in the U.S.A. / I meant to tell him, but changed my mind— / I needed a friend, and he seemed kind; / So I put my gloved hand into his glove, / And we danced together—and fell in love.