[10] Pundjel, the Eagle Hawk, gave Australians their marriage laws.
[11] Lubra, a woman; kobong, "totem"; or, to please Mr. Max Müller, "otem."
[12] The Crow was the Hawk's rival.
[POST HOMERICA.]
By the example of certain Grecian mariners, who, being safely returned from the war about Troy, leave yet again their old lands and gods, seeking they know not what, and choosing neither to abide in the fair Phæacian island, nor to dwell and die with the Sirens, at length end miserably in a desert country by the sea, is set forth the Vanity of Melancholy. And by the land of Phæacia is to be understood the place of Art and of fair Pleasures; and by Circe's Isle, the places of bodily delights, whereof men, falling aweary attain to Eld, and to the darkness of that age. Which thing Master Françoys Rabelais feigned, under the similitude of the Isle of the Macræones.
THE SEEKERS FOR PHÆACIA.
There is a land in the remotest day,
Where the soft night is born, and sunset dies;
The eastern shores see faint tides fade away,
That wash the lands where laughter, tears, and sighs,
Make life,—the lands beneath the blue of common, skies.
But in the west is a mysterious sea,
(What sails have seen it, or what shipmen known?)
With coasts enchanted where the Sirens be,
With islands where a Goddess walks alone,
And in the cedar trees the magic winds make moan.
Eastward the human cares of house and home,
Cities, and ships, and unknown Gods, and loves;
Westward, strange maidens fairer than the foam,
And lawless lives of men, and haunted groves,
Wherein a God may dwell, and where the Dryad roves.
The Gods are careless of the days and death
Of toilsome men, beyond the western seas;
The Gods are heedless of their painful breath,
And love them not, for they are not as these;
But in the golden west they live and lie at ease.
Yet the Phæacians well they love, who live
At the light's limit, passing careless hours,
Most like the Gods; and they have gifts to give,
Even wine, and fountains musical, and flowers,
And song, and if they will, swift ships, and magic powers.
It is a quiet midland; in the cool
Of twilight comes the God, though no man prayed,
To watch the maids and young men beautiful
Dance, and they see him, and are not afraid,
For they are near of kin to Gods, and undismayed.
Ah, would the bright red prows might bring us nigh
The dreamy isles that the Immortals keep!
But with a mist they hide them wondrously,
And far the path and dim to where they sleep,—
The loved, the shadowy lands along the shadowy deep.
THE DEPARTURE FROM PHÆACIA.
THE PHÆACIANS.
Why from the dreamy meadows,
More fair than any dream,
Why will you seek the shadows
Beyond the ocean stream?
Through straits of storm and peril,
Through firths unsailed before,
Why make you for the sterile,
The dark Kimmerian shore?
There no bright streams are flowing,
There day and night are one,
No harvest time, no sowing,
No sight of any sun;
No sound of song or tabor,
No dance shall greet you there;
No noise of mortal labour,
Breaks on the blind chill air.
Are ours not happy places,
Where Gods with mortals trod?
Saw not our sires the faces
Of many a present God?
THE SEEKERS.
Nay, now no God comes hither,
In shape that men may see;
They fare we know not whither,
We know not what they be.
Yea, though the sunset lingers
Far in your fairy glades,
Though yours the sweetest singers,
Though yours the kindest maids,
Yet here be the true shadows,
Here in the doubtful light;
Amid the dreamy meadows
No shadow haunts the night.
We seek a city splendid,
With light beyond the sun;
Or lands where dreams are ended,
And works and days are done.