The Christian Scholar By the Author of "The Cathedral" [i.e. Isaac Williams] |
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 | The Christian Scholar |  |
“Guests, this pinnace which ye see,
“Swiftest of the swift was he,
“There was not a swimming raft,
“None, says he, of all the craft,
“But alike, although he try
“Oars or sail, I pass him by.
“Not unknown to me, I trow,
“Is old Adria's threatening brow;
“Nor the flowing of the seas
“Round the island Cyclades;
“Noble Rhodes, nor horrid Thrace,
“Nor Propontis; or thy base,
“Pontus, with its savage shore.
“Pontus, where in times of yore
“He that's now a sea-worn skiff
“Waved his branches on thy cliff.
“There upon Cytorus high
“Once his whispering boughs would sigh.
“Amastris, thou Pontic town,
“Box-bearing Cytorus, known
“Unto thee from first to last
“Is, he says, his story past.
“How at first a leafy wood
“On thine highest top he stood;
“In thy bay then dipped his oar;
“Thence on seas from shore to shore
“Bore his master, if the gale
“Right or left hath woo'd his sail;
“Or with full-sail'd power to move
“Favouring came the breathing Jove.
“Ne'er had he for dangers o'er
“Vows to pay to Gods on shore,
“Till, his wanderings o'er, at last
“To this limpid lake he pass'd.
“Swiftest of the swift was he,
“There was not a swimming raft,
“None, says he, of all the craft,
“But alike, although he try
“Oars or sail, I pass him by.
“Not unknown to me, I trow,
“Is old Adria's threatening brow;
“Nor the flowing of the seas
“Round the island Cyclades;
“Noble Rhodes, nor horrid Thrace,
“Nor Propontis; or thy base,
“Pontus, with its savage shore.
“Pontus, where in times of yore
“He that's now a sea-worn skiff
“Waved his branches on thy cliff.
259
“Once his whispering boughs would sigh.
“Amastris, thou Pontic town,
“Box-bearing Cytorus, known
“Unto thee from first to last
“Is, he says, his story past.
“How at first a leafy wood
“On thine highest top he stood;
“In thy bay then dipped his oar;
“Thence on seas from shore to shore
“Bore his master, if the gale
“Right or left hath woo'd his sail;
“Or with full-sail'd power to move
“Favouring came the breathing Jove.
“Ne'er had he for dangers o'er
“Vows to pay to Gods on shore,
“Till, his wanderings o'er, at last
“To this limpid lake he pass'd.
“These are things which erst have been;
“Castor, with thy brother twin,
“Here he in tranquillity
“Dedicates his age to thee.”
“Castor, with thy brother twin,
“Here he in tranquillity
“Dedicates his age to thee.”
| The Christian Scholar | |