by Torsten Schwanke
Upon the isle where foam-born beauty rose,
Where myrtles bloom and sacred cypress grows,
There Venus once in marble temples reigned,
While incense curled and lovers' hearts were chained.
Now British flags above her hills unfurled,
Proclaim new queens to rule the ancient world.
Where once young dancers crowned with roses spun,
Now rugged sailors curse the blistering sun.
Oh Cyprus! Jewel cast in azure sea,
Thy fate a scroll of shifting sovereignty.
From Phoenician ships to Rome’s imperial pride,
A thousand empires claimed thee as their bride.
Thy copper bled to forge the swords of kings,
Thy trees once shaped the fleets of mighty wings.
Yet not in gold nor war does splendor dwell,
But in the myths thy haunted breezes tell.
Adonis wept beneath the myrtle's shade,
By Aphrodite’s kiss in stone he stayed.
And Pygmalion, with his sculptor's art,
Awoke cold marble with a beating heart.
The Virgin's name, in whispers still adored,
Recasts the goddess once by Rome implored.
From Astarte to Mary, altar flames
Have burned beneath divinely borrowed names.
Now let the poet mourn the days long past—
When joy and jasmine through the meadows cast.
But still the living voice declares its claim:
The hour is ours, though gods forget their name.
In iron age, when steam and empire stirred,
The lion’s flag on Aphrodite whirred.
June’s breath had barely touched the cedar’s bough,
When Albion claimed the olive for her brow.
Not with a trireme nor with bronze arrayed,
But treaties signed and Eastern debts repaid.
A torch exchanged beneath diplomacy,
To guard the path from Suez to the sea.
The dance of gods gave way to drills and lines,
To cannon wheels and British steep inclines.
Though Venus weeps where rose and myrtle grew,
The Queen commands the winds the goddess knew.
Yet faith, like water, carves through stone and name—
The old and new in sacred rites the same.
Where once the doves of Aphrodite flew,
Now Virgin icons watch the morning dew.
She walks in silence through the temple's grace,
A star-crowned maiden in the goddess’ place.
And still, the people with a childlike trust,
Kiss marble feet now cleared of pagan dust.
O Cyprus, isle where myth and gospel blend,
Where love and light in single flame ascend—
Astarte's gaze now veiled in Mary's eyes,
Still blesses fields beneath the shifting skies.
When Richard’s sails cut through the salted blue,
He stormed the isle and claimed it bold and true.
A flash of swords, a humbled Isaak fell—
And Lusignan rose, crowned by holy spell.
Where once the Paphian incense curled on air,
Now monks intoned the warrior’s fervent prayer.
A throne was built on chivalry and dust,
Its coat of arms a cross, its law a trust.
Yet still beneath the chapel’s Gothic face,
The myrtle sighed of an older grace.
For gods may sleep, and kings may rise and reign,
But Cyprus dreams in jasmine, wine, and pain.
Then Venice came with merchant pride and art,
To bind the isle with gold and cunning heart.
Sweet Cornaro, the widow crowned with grief,
Gave Cyprus up like petals to a thief.
The Doge received the jewel with delight,
But shadows grew where once there bloomed the light.
Though Famagusta bustled, rich and wide,
The lion's roar could not the tide outride.
For Selim’s thirst, in drunken dread he swore,
Brought Ottoman blood to Cyprus’ door.
And Bragadino, saint of dying breath,
Met fire and steel and honor dressed as death.
Then silence fell, and with it crescent steel,
A thousand cries beneath the scimitar’s keel.
The minarets rose where the belfries stood,
And Famagusta wept in Christian blood.
The vineyards wilted under foreign laws,
The saints grew silent, choked by newer cause.
Yet still the pines on Troodos whispered low,
Of love and loss, of snow that kissed the glow.
Three hundred years the half-moon dimmed the day,
Yet Cyprus dreamed the invaders away.
For islands hold what sword and time forget—
The scent of fig, the song of silhouettes.
Today, the world moves fast and cold and wide,
But Cyprus waits where time and myth abide.
Not all is gone—her cypress still remains,
Her myrtles grow despite the monarchs' chains.
The sea is hers, the olive tree, the vine,
The dusk that tastes of salt and turpentine.
And in the chapel near a temple's bone,
The Virgin smiles in Aphrodite’s tone.
O Isle of Light, whose shadows gently burn,
To you in verse our weary hearts return.
No age can claim you wholly or possess—
You live in beauty, sorrow, and excess.
Four hundred years the Western cross held sway,
O’er Cyprus bathed in Mediterranean day.
What now remains of knightly realms of yore?
The flood of conquest swept and claimed the shore.
The barons’ names are lost in dusty air,
Their towers crumbled, vanished into prayer.
Few Catholics remain, like ancient ghosts,
On scattered isles, on Naxos’ faded coasts.
Three centuries the Sultan’s shadow grew,
His rule corrupting all it wandered through.
“The isle,” said Löher, “like a beast lies lame,
Its back once broken, nevermore the same.”
The Turks held blood-feasts grim upon its land,
Where death, not justice, bore the ruling hand.
The spirits crushed, the minds in silence bound,
No moral spark, no pulse beneath the ground.
But lo! A fact accomplished, bold and vast:
Great Britain’s flag on Cyprus flew at last.
Though none may praise her hunger for domain,
This act, they say, may yield a broader gain.
No dreams of mercy led her to this shore—
But deeper plans, of empire at the core.
With Malta and with Gibraltar she aligns,
To hold the sea with stratagems and signs.
For Cyprus, vast, a base for war’s demand,
Commands the East with swift, controlling hand.
From Famagusta’s port to Larnaca’s gate,
She guides her troops with engines of the state.
The Euphrates may soon with steel be spanned,
A lifeline drawn across the desert sand.
To India’s heart the island gives its key,
A bulwark ‘gainst the bear’s dark tyranny.
Nor is the Suez safe from Cyprus' gaze,
Its watchful eye surveys all eastern ways.
A thousand miles from Bombay’s crowded shore,
But quicker paths may halve that stretch and more.
This gain may win the hearts of Islam's sons,
Whose faith still honors old Ottoman ones.
For England now protects the Sultan’s throne,
And thus, perhaps, secures her rule at home.
The fields lie fallow, yet the flowers rise,
In untamed bloom beneath the open skies.
Hyacinths blaze where olives once were sown,
And laurel tangles where the wheat was grown.
In garden ruins pines and palm trees sway,
While shepherd boys beneath the shadows play.
The goat herds climb where roses once had grown,
Devouring saplings ‘fore they reach their own.
Yet high in hills where winds of freedom sing,
The golden gorse unfolds a second spring.
And though the land still bears a tyrant’s mark,
Its soul, unchained, awaits a future spark.
Now northward where Kyrenia's ramparts lie,
The hills rise golden 'neath a cobalt sky.
Lapithos' slopes in gorse and bloom are dressed,
Where partridge calls and linnet builds her nest.
The gorse, like flame, adorns the mountain's side,
A sea of gold where wandering beasts may hide.
The brush is deep—man's hand no longer steers,
And wild birds thrive where once were plows and shears.
Look southward now! The green Messaria plain,
With city ruins scattered like a chain.
Beyond, Olympus rears his crown of white,
Still touched by winter's breath, still robed in light.
The sea extends, a cloak of sapphire hue,
Its waves like lace the silent shoreline strew.
And far beyond where sky and water kiss,
The Taurus peaks rise ghostlike in the mist.
Though stats are scarce, six hundred towns remain,
Their names preserved through ruin, war, and strain.
In Levkosia, ancient echoes sound,
Where Venice’ arches crumble to the ground.
A thousand crafts the island once had known:
Soft silks, gold-threaded cloths, and leather sewn.
They dyed with madder, wove with gentle care—
Now scarce a weaver’s song floats through the air.
For who would toil when harvests bring no gain,
When taxes fall like unrelenting rain?
A tenth is claimed, and oft the greater part,
By greedy hands that tear out Cyprus’ heart.
The Sultan’s men, the middlemen, the thieves—
All strip the land like autumn-stricken leaves.
And what is sent beyond the ocean's bound
Returns not fair in goods, but lost, unfound.
Yet though the fields lie bare of man’s advance,
The Earth herself begins a slow romance.
Where olives once were pruned by practiced hand,
Now blossoms spring, unbidden by command.
A crimson carpet—poppy, rose, and thyme—
Spreads freely now, untamed, in silent rhyme.
The myrtle climbs, the laurel stretches wide,
The oleander paints the mountain’s side.
Tall plane-trees guard the springs with arms outspread,
Their whispering leaves like hymns to spirits dead.
And near the stream, beneath a rocky shelf,
A boy reclines, half-goatherd, half an elf.
His flock ascends the hill with hoof and bleat,
Devouring saplings with relentless feat.
Thus nature fights herself in sad unrest,
Where growth is stunted, though the land is blessed.
Yet beauty lingers, strong though bruised by years,
A patient grace that even ruin cheers.
O Cyprus! land where gods and empires trod,
Still watched in silence by the gaze of God.
No fairer sight than Levkosia's face,
A dreamlike gem in time’s enchanted space.
Encircled deep by groves in rich array,
Its laughing fields in sunlit splendor lay.
Tall gates and walls the noble town embrace,
Within, green gardens interlace each place.
A sea of roofs beneath the palms appears,
Where cypress, oak, and fig their heads uprear.
White minarets in slender beauty shine,
And Gothic domes among their peaks align.
When evening rings its Ave through the skies,
And sunset’s gold on domes and rooftops lies,
One feels, as light and silence softly grow,
Transported where the thousand stories flow.
But venture in—how stark the change of scene!
The streets are narrow, squalid, and unclean.
From shadowed doors, grim poverty will peer,
While maidens dream on balconies austere.
Veiled women fetch cool water from the well,
And bearded men in silence smoke and dwell.
The air is rich with orange-scented grace,
While fig trees stretch their gifts across the place.
Barefooted children, wild, in ragged bands,
With staring eyes reach out their pleading hands.
This is the East, both wondrous and austere—
So strange, so packed, so vividly sincere.
The city's past, though once so proud and wide,
Now clings in ruin to its shattered pride.
The Venetians, fearing Turkish might,
Contracted walls to hold the foe in fight.
Now gardens bloom where once the mansions stood,
Each home half-hid in leafy brotherhood.
Yet broken stones alone can still attest
To grandeur lost, now sunken in its rest.
To southern hills, where Dali’s shadow lies,
Idalion sleeps beneath the burning skies.
Its temple once to Aphrodite rose,
Now scattered stones its sacred tale disclose.
Salamis, too, in ruined splendor sleeps,
Where time a silent, solemn vigil keeps.
Its Gothic towers to distant ages cling,
While Lusignan ghosts through its cloisters sing.
Along the coast where Famagusta fades,
Larnaka rests among its salt-white shades.
Its shimmering lake, in heat, begins to dry,
And leaves behind the crust from summer sky.
Austrian steamers glide into its port,
While merchants find in salt their main export.
Still farther south, where Venus once held sway,
Amathus dreams of long-lost festal day.
Her ancient stones, in modern homes reused,
By hands in Port Said are now infused.
From Paphos—all its glory turned to dust—
No shrine remains, no relic left to trust.
Save flocks of doves, in airy homage free,
Still circling o'er the birthplace of the sea.
And Limassol, where modern hands engage,
With trade and wine revives a newer age.
Here Richard wed, with Berengaria fair,
A lion’s heart and queen beyond compare.
In tombs unearthed by digging foreign hands,
Lay golden scepters from forgotten lands.
Cyprian signs the bracelets yet maintain,
A whisper from the gods' forgotten reign.
Perchance, as Troy its Schliemann once did find,
So Cyprus may another seeker bind.
Though now it sleeps in dust and slow decay,
Its voice through ruined stones still finds a way:
“A world so fair beneath the stars was cast,
Now only dreams and fragments of the past.
Yet from these shards, like heaven’s golden flame,
Our visions rise, and beauty speaks its name.”
Let England not in dreams its purpose lose—
It holds a charge the watching world must choose.
With cables drawn from Cyprus to the Nile,
And banks that grow where gardens used to smile,
May from these ruins, faithful and serene,
A nobler Cyprus from the dust be seen.
And echoing the poet’s hopeful line:
“New life shall bloom where ruins still define.”