University of Virginia Library

Was it in very deed, or but in dream,
I, King Odysseus, girt with brazen spears,
Princes, and long-haired warriors of the Isles,
Sailed with the dawn from weeping Ithaca,
To battle round the god-built walls of Troy
For that fair, faithless Pest—so long ago?
So long ago! It seems as many lives
Had waxed and waned, since, bending to our oars,
And singing to our singing sails, we swept
From high Aëtos, down the echoing gulf
Towards the sunrise; while from many a fane
Rose the white smoke of sacrificial fires,
And the wild wail of women:—for they knew
We should return no more. Long years have past:
Long, weary years;—yet still, when daylight fades,
And Hesper from the purple heaven looks down,
And the dim wave moans on the shadowy shore,—
From out the awful darkness of the woods,
From out the silence of the twilight air,
In unforgotten accents fond and low,
The voices of the dead seem calling me;
And through the mist of slowly gathering tears
The faces of the loved revisit me:
Thine, my Penelope, and his, our child,
Our fair Telemachus—wearing the dear home-smiles
They wore of old, ere yet the Atridæ came,
Breathing of Eris, to our peaceful shores,
And our bold hearts blazed up in quenchless fire
And irrepressible lust of glorious war.
Ai me! what recked we then the streaming tears
Of wife or virgin, and their clinging hands!
Exulting in our strength we scorned the lures
Of Aphroditè—scorned the ignoble ease
Of grey ancestral honours. Deathless names
We, too, the sons of Heroes, should achieve
Among the brass-mailed Greeks! A thousand deaths
Too slight a price for immortality!

O golden dreams! O god-like rage of youth!
Quenched in black blood, or the remorseless brine,
Alas, so soon. Yet ere They sorrowing went,
All-beauteous, to the shadowy realms of Death
And unsubstantial Hades, their young souls,
Amid the clang of shields and rush of spears,
Beneath the deep eyes of the watchful Gods,
Drank the delirious wine of Victory!
Thrice happy they, by whom the agony
Of withered hopes, of wasted life, of long
And vain endeavour after noble ends,
Was all unproved. What different doom is mine!
On barren seas a wanderer, growing old,
And full of bitter knowledge, best unknown.
Ah, comrades, would that in the exultant hour
Of triumph, when, our mighty travail o'er,
The towers of Ilion sank in roaring flame,
I, too, had perished;—or in that wild flash
Of vengeance for the herds of Phoibos slain,
When the black ship went down, and I alone
Of all was left. But the high Gods are just,
The Fates inscrutable; and I will bear
My portion unsubdued until the end.
Greatly to do is great, but greater still
Greatly to suffer. So with steadfast mind
I wait the issues. But the doom is hard:
Far from the councils of illustrious men,
Far from my sea-girt realm, and god-like toils
Of governance,—from noble uses far,
And wife, and child, and honourable rest,
To waste inglorious all these golden years;
Nursing one sickly hope—more like despair—
That the blest Gods will hear me, and restore
My life, thus dead to duty.—As he told,
The eyeless phantom, on that night of fear
In Orcus, when around the bloody trench,
From out the Stygian gloom, with shriek and groan,
Crowded the dim eidolons of the dead,
And with my naked sword I held them back,
Till each pale mouth, drinking the reeking gore,
Answered my quest, and vanished.

Shall it be?—
Or now, while yet my arm is strong to wield
The kingly sceptre and avenge its wrongs?
Or when, bowed down with years and many woes,
My deeds forgotten and my dear ones dead,
The children of my slaves shall jeer at me,
Mocking my powerless limbs, and strangers ask,
Is this the Great Odysseus?—But I wait.

Man is the puppet of the Gods: they mould
His destiny, and mete him good or ill—
Lords of his fate, from whom, alas, in vain
He seeks escape. But he to whom nor good
Brings insolence, nor ill abasement, stands
Whole in himself—lord of his own firm heart.
The sword may drink his blood; the irascible sea
May whelm him; life bitterer than many deaths
May lead his steps to Hades; still his soul
Unconquered stands; and even among the Shades
Shall win the reverence haply here denied.

Hark! from the myrtle thickets on the height
Divine Calypso calls me; to her lute
Singing the low, sweet song I made for her—
A low, sweet song of passionate content—
When weary from the inexorable deep,
Weary and lone, I touched this woody isle,
And found a haven in her circling arms,
And all Elysium on her bounteous breast.
Cease, cease, Divine One! in my yearning ear
Another song is echoing: one more meet
For me to hearken. Out beneath the stars—
The old companions of my wanderings—
Far out at sea, amid the deepening dark
The winds are shouting, as a gathering host
Shouts on the eve of battle; and the gulls—
Lovers of tempest and my mates of old!
Flit, dive, and, screaming, summon me once more
To plough the unfruitful wastes of weltering brine—
The mid-sea's moaning solitudes,—to where,
Somewhere beyond the trackless waters, lie
The bights and bluffs and blue peaks of my home.—
For my heart tells me that the hour draws near!