And in the ship, now entering the port,
The worse part won the day. The men untied
The leathern bags, and straight the winds out-whistled
Furious; the sail flung wide, and flapped as doth
A peplum by a woman left outspread
To dry i’ the sun upon some airy peak.
And lo! the labouring ship hath left the haven—
The haven where, upon the shore, there stood
A goodly youth propped on a spear bronze-pointed.
Under the grey-green olive stood the youth
Silent, with dreaming eyes: and a swift hound
Around him leaped, waving his plumy tail.
Now the dog checketh in his restless play
With straining eyes fixed on the infinite sea;
And, snuffing up the air o’ the briny tracks,
After the flying ship he howls aloud—
Argus his dog. Yet still nor heard nor saw
Odysseus’ heart, in balmy slumber bathed.
VI.
And now the ship coasted a lofty point
Of rocky Ithaca. And, twixt two hills
A garth there was, well-tilled, Laertes’ field,
The ancient king’s: therein an orchard rich
Where pear-trees stood, and apples, row on row,
That once Laertes gave to his dear son
Who thro’ the vineyard followed, begging this
And that, among the slim new-planted trees.
Here now, ten apple-trees and thirteen pears
Stood white with blossom in a close-set clump,
And in the shade of one—the fairest—stood
An old man, turning towards the boundless sea
Where roared the sudden squall—with up-raised hand
Lessening the light above his wearied eyes—
Strained his weak gaze after the flying ship.
This was his father: but Odysseus’ heart,
Floating profound in sleep, beheld him not.
VII.
And as the winds the black ship bore afar
Sudden the hero started from his sleep,
Swiftly unclosed his eyes, to see—perchance—
Smoke rise from his long-dreamed-of Ithaca—
Faithful Eumæus standing in the pen—
His white-haired father in the well-tilled field,
His father dear, who, on the mattock propped,
Stood gazing, gazing at the lessening ship—
His goodly son, who, leaning on his spear,
Stood gazing, gazing at the lessening ship—
And, leaping round his lord, with waving tail,
Argus his dog—Yea, and perchance his house,
His dear sweet home, wherein his faithful wife
Already laboured in the chattering loom.
He gazed again—a shapeless blot of black
He saw across the purpling waste of sea—
Cloud was’t or land?—It faded into air
E’en as Odysseus’ heart emerged from sleep.
Giovanni Pascoli’s sincerity of thought, truth of feeling, breadth of sympathy, temperateness and restraint, mark him out as a poet in the full sense of the word; and place him, artistically and morally, on a higher plane than the decadents who represent Italy to the foreign public.
THE MAKING OF RELIGION
(COME SI FORMA LA RELIGIONE)