Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.

Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,
Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave
To each, but whoso did receive of them,
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave
Far far away did seem to mourn and rave,
On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,
His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;
And deep-asleep he seemed yet all awake,
And music in his ears his beating heart did make.
They sat them down upon the yellow sand
Between the sun and moon upon the shore;
And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,
Of child, and wife, and slave: but evermore
Most weary seemed the sea, weary the oar,
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.
Then some one said, "We will return no more";
And all at once they sang, "Our island home
Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam.”

The Lotos blooms below the barren peak:
The Lotos blows by every winding creek:

All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:
Through every hollow cave and alley lone

Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotosdust is blown.

We have had enough of action, and of motion we,

Rolled to starboard, rolled to larboard, when the surge

From Circe had departed, who concealed me
More than a year there near unto Gaëta,
Or ever yet Æneas named it so,
Nor fondness for my son, nor reverence

For my old father, nor the due affection
Which joyous should have made Penelope,
Could overcome within me the desire

I had to be experienced of the world,
And of the vice and virtue of mankind;

But I put forth on the high open sea

With one sole ship, and that small company

By which I never had deserted been.

Both of the shores I saw as far as Spain,

Far as Morocco, and the isle of Sardes,

And the others which that sea bathes round about.

I and my company were old and slow

When at that narrow passage we arrived

Where Hercules his landmarks set as signals,

That man no farther onward should adventure.
On the right hand behind me left I Seville,
And on the other already had left Ceuta.
"O brothers, who amid a hundred thousand
Perils," I said, "have come unto the West,
To this so inconsiderable vigil

Which is remaining of your senses still,

Be ye unwilling to deny the knowledge, Following the sun, of the unpeopled world. Consider ye the seed from which ye sprang;

Ye were not made to live like unto brutes, But for pursuit of virtue and of knowledge." So eager did I render my companions,

With this brief exhortation, for the voyage,

That then I hardly could have held them back. And having turned our stern unto the morning,

We of the oars made wings for our mad flight, Evermore gaining on the larboard side. Already all the stars of the other pole

The night beheld, and ours so very low
It did not rise above the ocean floor.
Five times rekindled and as many quenched
Had been the splendor underneath the moon,
Since we had entered into the deep pass,
When there appeared to us a mountain, dim
From distance, and it seemed to me so high
As I had never any one beheld.

Joyful were we, and soon it turned to weeping;
For out of the new land a whirlwind rose,
And smote upon the forepart of the ship.

Three times it made her whirl with all the waters,

At the fourth time it made the stern uplift,

And the prow downward go, as pleased Another, Until the sea above us closed again.

Dante Alighieri. Tr. H. W. Longfellow.

IT

ULYSSES.

little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honored of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
Forever and forever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnished, not to shine in use

As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me

:

Little remains but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge, like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle-
Well loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay

Meet adoration to my household gods

When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port: the vessel puffs her sail:

There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads - you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.