The poet of the Hortobágy

He was a large-eyed, Hunnish youth,
smitten with many a fair mirage,
and with his herd he struck into
the famous Magyar Hortobágy.
Woman and dreams have seized his soul
a thousand times with magic snare;
but when his heart would sprout a flower
the herds of cattle grazed it bare.
He often thought of wondrous things,
of wine and woman, death and birth;
he could have been a holy bard
in any other land on earth.
But he gazed upon the herds
and on the breeched, illiterate crowd,
straightway he buried all his songs;
he whistled or he swore aloud.