ORPHEUS AND THE SIRENS.

High on the poop, with many a godlike peer,

With heroes and with kings, the flower of Greece,

That gathered at his word from far and near,

To snatch the guarded fleece,

II.

Great Jason stood; nor ever from the soil

The anchor’s brazen tooth unfastenèd,

Till, auspicating so his glorious toil,

From golden cup he shed

III.

Libations to the Gods—to highest Jove—

To Waves and prospering Winds—to Night and Day—

To all, by whom befriended, they might prove

A favourable way.

IV.

With him the twins—one mortal, one divine—

Of Leda, and the Strength of Hercules;

And Tiphys, steersman through the perilous brine,

And many more with these:—

Great father, Peleus, of a greater son,

And Atalanta, martial queen, was here;

And that supreme Athenian, nobler none,

And Idmon, holy seer.

VI.

Nor Orpheus pass unnamed, though from the rest

Apart, he leaned upon that lyre divine,

Which once in heaven his glory should attest,

Set there a sacred sign.

VII.

But when auspicious thunders rolled on high,

Unto its chords and to his chant sublime

The joyful heroes, toiling manfully,

With measured strokes kept time.

VIII.

Then when that keel divided first the waves,

Them Chiron cheered from Pelion’s piny crown,

And wondering Sea-nymphs rose from ocean caves,

And all the Gods looked down.

IX.

The bark divine, itself instinct with life,

Went forth, and baffled Ocean’s rudest shocks,

Escaping, though with pain and arduous strife,

The huge encountering rocks;

And force and fraud o’ercome, and peril past,

Its hard-won trophy raised in open view,

Through prosperous floods was bringing home at last

Its high heroic crew;

XI.

Till now they cried, (Ææa left behind,

And the dead waters of the Cronian main,)

“No peril more upon our path we find,

Safe haven soon we gain.”

XII.

When, as they spake, sweet sounds upon the breeze

Came to them, melodies till now unknown,

And blended into one delight with these,

Sweet odours sweetly blown,—

XIII.

Sweet odours wafted from the flowery isle,

Sweet music breathèd by the Sirens three,

Who there lie wait, all passers to beguile,

Fair monsters of the sea—

XIV.

Fair monsters foul, that with their magic song

And beauty to the shipman wandering,

Worse peril than disastrous whirlpools strong,

Or fierce sea-robbers bring.

XV.

Sometimes upon the diamond rocks they leant,

Sometimes they sate upon the flowery lea

That sloped towàrd the wave, and ever sent

Shrill music o’er the sea.

XVI.

One piped, one sang, one struck the golden lyre;

And thus to forge and fling a threefold chain

Of linkèd harmony the three conspire,

O’er land and hoary main.

XVII.

The winds, suspended by the charmèd song,

Shed treacherous calm about that fatal isle;

The waves, as though the halcyon o’er its young

Were brooding, always smile;

XVIII.

And every one that listens, presently

Forgetteth home, and wife, and children dear,

All noble enterprise and purpose high,

And turns his pinnace here,—

XIX.

He turns his pinnace, warning taking none

From the plain doom of all who went before,

Whose bones lie bleaching in the wind and sun,

And whiten all the shore.

XX.

He cannot heed,—so sweet unto him seems

To reap the harvest of the promised joy;

The wave-worn man of such secure rest dreams,

So guiltless of annoy.

XXI.

The heroes and the kings, the wise, the strong,

That won the fleece with cunning and with might,

Their souls were taken in the net of song,

Entangled in delight;

XXII.

Till ever loathlier seemed all toil to be,

And that small space they yet must travel o’er,

Stretched an immeasurable breadth of sea

Their fainting hearts before.

XXIII.

“Let us turn hitherward our bark,” they cried,

“And, ’mid the blisses of this happy isle,

Past toil forgetting and to come, abide

In joyfulness awhile;

XXIV.

“And then, refreshed, our tasks resume again,

If other tasks we yet are bound unto,

Combing the hoary tresses of the main

With sharp swift keel anew.”

XXV.

O heroes, that had once a nobler aim,

O heroes, sprung from many a godlike line,

What will ye do, unmindful of your fame,

And of your race divine?

XXVI.

But they, by these prevailing voices now

Lured, evermore draw nearer to the land,

Nor saw the wrecks of many a goodly prow,

That strewed that fatal strand;

XXVII.

Or seeing, feared not—warning taking none

From the plain doom of all who went before,

Whose bones lay bleaching in the wind and sun,

And whitened all the shore.

XXVIII.

And some impel through foaming billows now

The hissing keel, and some tumultuous stand

Upon the deck, or crowd about the prow,

Waiting to leap to land.

XXIX.

And them had thus this lodestar of delight

Drawn to their ruin wholly, but for one

Of their own selves, who struck his lyre with might,

Calliope’s great son.

XXX.

He singing, (for mere words were now in vain,

That melody so led all souls at will,)

Singing he played, and matched that earth-born strain

With music sweeter still.

XXXI.

Of holier joy he sang, more true delight,

In other happier isles for them reserved,

Who, faithful here, from constancy, and right,

And truth have never swerved;

XXXII.

How evermore the tempered ocean gales

Breathe round those hidden islands of the blest,

Steeped in the glory spread when daylight fails

Far in the sacred West;

XXXIII.

How unto them, beyond our mortal night,

Shines evermore in strength the golden day;

And meadows with purpureal roses bright

Bloom round their feet alway;

XXXIV.

And plants of gold—some burn beneath the sea,

And some, for garlands apt, the land doth bear,

And lacks not many an incense-breathing tree,

Enriching all that air.

XXXV.

Nor need is more, with sullen strength of hand

To vex the stubborn earth, or plough the main;

They dwell apart, a calm heroic band,

Not tasting toil or pain.

XXXVI.

Nor sang he only of unfading bowers,

Where they a tearless, painless age fulfil,

In fields Elysian spending blissful hours,

Remote from every ill;

XXXVII.

But of pure gladness found in temperance high,

In duty owned, and reverenced in awe,

Of man’s true freedom, that may only lie

In servitude to law;

XXXVIII.

And how ’twas given through virtue to aspire

To golden seats in ever-calm abodes;

Of mortal men, admitted to the quire

Of high immortal Gods.

XXXIX.

He sang—a mighty melody divine,

That woke deep echoes in the heart of each—

Reminded whence they drew their royal line,

And to what heights might reach.

XL.

And all the while they listened, them the speed

Bore forward still of favouring wind and tide,

That, when their ears were open to give heed

To any sound beside,

XLI.

The feeble echoes of that other lay,

Which held awhile their senses thralled and bound,

Were in the distance fading quite away,

A dull, unheeded sound.