The Youth Ulysses Who speaks! Ah, who comes forth Ah, and I see too His sailor's bonnet, His short coat, travel-tarnished, With one arm bare! Art thou not he, whom fame This long time rumors The favored guest of Circe, brought by the waves? The wise Ulysses, I am Ulysses. And thou, too, sleeper? Thy voice is sweet. It may be thou hast followed Through the islands some divine bard, By age taught many things, Age and the Muses; And heard him delighting The chiefs and people In the banquet, and learned his songs, Of Gods and Heroes, Of war and arts, And peopled cities, If so, then hail! I honor and welcome thee. The Gods are happy. They turn on all sides His robe drawn over The doom of Thebes. They see the Centaurs In the upper glens Of Pelion, in the streams, The clear-brown shallow pools, With streaming flanks, and heads. The mountain wind. They see the Indian His frail boat moored to A floating isle thick-matted With large-leaved, low-creeping melon plants, They see the Scythian On the wide stepp, unharnessing His wheeled house at noon. He tethers his beast down, and makes his meal Mares' milk, and bread Baked on the embers; all around The boundless, waving grass plains stretch, thick-starred With saffron and the yellow hollyhock And flag-leaved iris flowers. Sitting in his cart He makes his meal; before him, for long miles, Alive with bright green lizards, And the springing bustard fowl, The track, a straight black line, Furrows the rich soil; here and there Clusters of lonely mounds Topped with rough-hewn, Gray, rain-bleared statues, overpeer The sunny waste. They see the ferry On the broad, clay-laden Lone Chorasmian stream; - thereon, With snort and strain, Two horses, strongly swimming, tow The ferryboat, with woven ropes To either bow Firm-harnessed by the mane; a chief, With shout and shaken spear, Stands at the prow, and guides them; but astern The cowering merchants in long robes Sit pale beside their wealth Of silk bales and of balsam drops, Of gold and ivory, Of turquoise earth and amethyst, And milk-barred onyx stones. The Gods behold them. They see the Centaurs On Pelion; then they feel, They too, the maddening wine Swell their large veins to bursting; in wild pain They feel the biting spears Of the grim Lapithæ, and Theseus, drive, Drive crashing through their bones; they feel High on a jutting rock in the red stream Alcmena's dreadful son Ply his bow; such a price The Gods exact for song: To become what we sing. They see the Indian On his mountain lake;- but squalls Their melon harvest to the heart-They see The Scythian;- but long frosts Parch them in winter time on the bare stepp, Till they too fade like grass; they crawl Like shadows forth in spring. They see the merchants. On the Oxus stream; - but care Must visit first them too, and make them pale. Whether, through whirling sand, A cloud of desert robber horse have burst Upon their caravan; or greedy kings, In the walled cities the way passes through, Crushed them with tolls; or fever airs, On some great river's marge, Mown them down, far from home. They see the Heroes Near harbor; but they share Their lives, and former violent toil in Thebes, Seven-gated Thebes, or Troy; Or where the echoing oars Of Argo first Startled the unknown sea. The old Silenus Came, lolling in the sunshine, From the dewy forest coverts, This way, at noon. Sitting by me, while his Fauns |