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“Now safe from the Sirenian Isle, behold,
Smoke and a billow huge with distant roar!
Their hands let fall the oars—a bellowing roll'd
Along the deep, the ship moved on no more;—
Then I each comrade labour'd to restore,
‘O friends, in dangers we are not untried,
And may remember this like those of yore;
Be we obedient all, and I will guide,
Ply ye the stedfast oars,—and Jove may help provide.

“‘And, Pilot, hear thou well, and keep in mind,
Bear out from yonder wave and smoking spray,
Steer toward the rock, lest unawares we find
The ship within the whirl-pool borne away!’
I spake, they instantly my words obey;
Scylla I mention'd not, lest at the sound
Trembling they should be chill'd by dire dismay;
Then Circe's warning I forgot, and bound
My shining arms about and anxious look'd around;—

“Station'd upon the deck, two spears in hand,
Expecting rocky Scylla to appear

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To seize her destin'd prey; long there I stand,
And gazing watch the gloomy rocks draw near,
But her I saw not:—then we trembling steer
The desperate strait between, and onward toil,
Scylla on this side, and Charybdis there;
Dreadful they roar and rush, and then recoil,
Till all the raving floods as in a cauldron boil.

“The white spray dash'd on loftiest crags on high;
With the engulphing tide and the rebound
Within appear'd a dreadful revelry,
With thundering roar the rock rebellow'd round,
And deep beneath was seen blue sandy ground.
Aghast were all, with terror petrified;
But while on this we gaze, with awe profound,
Six bravest champions from our vessel's side
The ravenous Scylla seiz'd, and buried in the tide.”

ON THE FOREGOING.

Such is the chart whereby Philosophy
Would point her course, this is the tale she tells
To steer aright upon life's dangerous sea,
Where upon either side destruction dwells,
And with the tides of Passion ebbs and swells;

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While Virtue 'tween two Vices has her course;
Shunning Charybdis most with foaming cells.
And there is wisdom too in his remorse
Who vainly seized his arms and met such foes with force.

It is the wise-man's lesson,—for e'en so
In rude impatience oft stirr'd to alarms
Too roughly and too rashly we forego
The gentler wisdom, and rush forth to arms,
O'erleaping caution to fraternal harms;
Then on a sudden find companions gone;
Such violence, vain braving all, hath charms
'Mid rising of rude passions; but alone
The better part of peace too late in tears we own.

And thou whose track is on the pictur'd page,
Thou Chief of many counsels, many foes,
Weaving the web of thy long pilgrimage,
Ever begun anew, still 'mid thy woes
Mock'd by the unreal phantom of repose,
Which like a cloud-built vision seems before
Upon the horizon's verge just to disclose
Ithaca's home, lost Ithaca's loved shore,
Ithaca fair at eve—all cloud and nothing more.

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But other ills await thee, other forms
Of danger round thy homeward course are strown,
And the disquietude of coming storms;
Faith in that distant home remains alone,
E'en as a shield around thee; all are gone;—
Bear on, brave heart, still bear on to the end!
Thy comrades lost, thy ships wreck'd and o'erthrown,
Tempest-wrought ills thy soul and body rend,
Thou art by Wisdom loved, thou art of Gods the friend.

Arist. Ethics, b. ii. c. 9.

B. xii, 1. 226.