Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) Read Online Free PDF Page B

equal to the direful deed;
So may the man of blood be doomed to bleed!
But grief and rage alternate wound my breast
For brave Ulysses, still by fate oppress’d.
Amidst an isle, around whose rocky shore
The forests murmur, and the surges roar,
The blameless hero from his wish’d-for home
A goddess guards in her enchanted dome;
(Atlas her sire, to whose far-piercing eye
The wonders of the deep expanded lie;
The eternal columns which on earth he rears
End in the starry vault, and prop the spheres).
By his fair daughter is the chief confined,
Who soothes to dear delight his anxious mind;
Successless all her soft caresses prove,
To banish from his breast his country’s love;
To see the smoke from his loved palace rise,
While the dear isle in distant prospect lies,
With what contentment could he close his eyes!
And will Omnipotence neglect to save
The suffering virtue of the wise and brave?
Must he, whose altars on the Phrygian shore
With frequent rites, and pure, avow’d thy power,
Be doom’d the worst of human ills to prove,
Unbless’d, abandon’d to the wrath of Jove?”
     
    “Daughter! what words have pass’d thy lips unweigh’d!
(Replied the Thunderer to the martial maid;)
Deem not unjustly by my doom oppress’d,
Of human race the wisest and the best.
Neptune, by prayer repentant rarely won,
Afflicts the chief, to avenge his giant son,
Whose visual orb Ulysses robb’d of light;
Great Polypheme, of more than mortal might?
Him young Thousa bore (the bright increase
Of Phorcys, dreaded in the sounds and seas);
Whom Neptune eyed with bloom of beauty bless’d,
And in his cave the yielding nymph compress’d
For this the god constrains the Greek to roam,
A hopeless exile from his native home,
From death alone exempt — but cease to mourn;
Let all combine to achieve his wish’d return;
Neptune atoned, his wrath shall now refrain,
Or thwart the synod of the gods in vain.”
     
    “Father and king adored!” Minerva cried,
“Since all who in the Olympian bower reside
Now make the wandering Greek their public care,
Let Hermes to the Atlantic isle repair;
Bid him, arrived in bright Calypso’s court,
The sanction of the assembled powers report:
That wise Ulysses to his native land
Must speed, obedient to their high command.
Meantime Telemachus, the blooming heir
Of sea-girt Ithaca, demands my care;
’Tis mine to form his green, unpractised years
In sage debates; surrounded with his peers,
To save the state, and timely to restrain
The bold intrusion of the suitor-train;
Who crowd his palace, and with lawless power
His herds and flocks in feastful rites devour.
To distant Sparta, and the spacious waste
Of Sandy Pyle, the royal youth shall haste.
There, warm with filial love, the cause inquire
That from his realm retards his god-like sire;
Delivering early to the voice of fame
The promise of a green immortal name.”
     
    List of Poems in Alphabetical Order
     
    List of Poets in Alphabetical Order
     

Odysseus’ Visit to the Underworld: Book VI
     
    Arriving on the shore, and launching, first,Our bark into the sacred Deep, we setOur mast and sails, and stow’d secure on boardThe ram and ewe, then, weeping, and with heartsSad and disconsolate, embark’d ourselves.And now, melodious Circe, nymph divine,Sent after us a canvas-stretching breeze,Pleasant companion of our course, and we(The decks and benches clear’d) untoiling sat,While managed gales sped swift the bark along.    10 All day, with sails distended, e’er the DeepShe flew, and when the sun, at length, declined,And twilight dim had shadow’d all the ways,Approach’d the bourn of Ocean’s vast profound.The city, there, of the Cimmerians standsWith clouds and darkness veil’d, on whom the sunDeigns not to look with his beam-darting eye,Or when he climbs the starry arch, or whenEarthward he slopes again his west’ring wheels,But sad night canopies the woeful race.    20 We haled the bark aground, and, landing thereThe ram and sable ewe, journey’d