It might have been in this pictured dream-region that Hercules came to rest.
“When Heracles, the twelve great labors done,
To Calpe came, and there his journey stayed,
He raised two pillars toward the evening sun,
And carved them by a goddess’ subtle aid.
Upon their shafts were sacred legends traced,
And round the twain a serpent cincture placed:
’T was at this bound the primal world stood still,
And of Atlantis dreamed, with baffled will.”
But still in unmeasured space, still beyond and afar and unattained, still lost in the unpenetrated realms of the poet’s fancy,—
“Atlantis lies beyond the pillars yet!”
“Here Ischia smiles
O’er liquid miles.”
High o’er the sea-surge and the sands,
Like a great galleon wrecked and cast
Ashore by storms, thy Castle stands
A mouldering landmark of the Past.
Upon its terrace-walk, I see
A phantom gliding to and fro;
It is Colonna,—it is she
Who lived and loved so long ago.
Longfellow.