I met at dawn a royal ship of Greece
Slow stemming toward this isle. What that might bode,
And who might sail thereon, I guessed; and taking
A dolphin’s shape, that thro’ the heavy waters
Tumbles in sport, around the labouring prow
I gambolled, till her idle crew stood by
To watch me from the wooden battlements.
And surely among them there full soon I saw,
Even as I feared, the man I feared, agaze
With hypocrite eyes, the prince of Ithaca,