Homer (fl. 850 B.C.). The Odyssey.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14. |
| |
| Concluding Sonnet |
| |
| |
| Homer, thy song men liken to the sea, | |
| With every note of music in his tone, | |
| With tides that wash the dim dominion | |
| Of Hades, and light waves that laugh in glee | |
| Around the isles enchanted: nay, to me | 5 |
| Thy verse seems as the River of source unknown | |
| That glasses Egypt’s temples overthrown, | |
| In his sky-nurtur’d stream, eternally. | |
| No wiser we than men of heretofore | |
| To find thy mystic fountains guarded fast; | 10 |
| Enough—thy flood makes green our human shore | |
| As Nilus, Egypt, rolling down his vast, | |
| His fertile waters, murmuring evermore | |
Of gods dethroned, and empires of the Past.
A. L. | |
| |
| |
