University of Virginia Library

THITHER

Beyond Albania's headlands high
The misted sun rose, struggled free,
Outblanched the roses of the sky,
And flashed upon an opal sea;
Then, from their mythos-world of night,
The poet's islands swam in sight—
That link between the east and west,
Phæacia's pleasant land of rest;
The land of men that loved the oar,
Which, in the morning light of yore,
Poseidon to his kinsfolk gave,
And made them masters of the wave.
And many an isle less known to fame,
Like floating leaves and flowers came;
And many a shore by sea-nymphs ranged,
Ere gods and men became estranged;
Till, through the hush of afternoon,
We sailed between the sun and moon,
By Leucas and the lovers' leap,
Where still the amorous breezes weep
The echoes of a Lesbian air
And Sappho's purple-shadowed hair.
Then last, as bleak and barren still,
His home, the man of iron will,
Of many a wile and many a part,
Odysseus, of the stubborn heart;
Which never, never since he fared
On that mysterious voyage, dared
Explore the untried western deep,
Has broken through her trance of sleep.
The sunset flushed her capes and caves,
And lingered on the wine-red waves,
Till late beyond our eastward prow
The moonlight blanched a mountain brow,
And shadows of the violet seas
Closed o'er the isles Echinades.
Then, as it were a giant bay,
The hills closed in on either hand,
To north the rough Ætolia lay
And on the south was Pelops' land.