No More Learning

Thy ancient friend, O stranger, is no more!
Full recompense thy bounty else had borne:
For every good man yields a just return:
So civil rights demand; and who begins
The track of friendship, not pursuing, sins.
But tell me, stranger, be the truth confess'd,
What years have circled since thou saw'st that guest?
That hapless guest, alas! for ever gone!
Wretch that he was! and that I am! my son!
If ever man to misery was born,
'Twas his to suffer, and 'tis mine to mourn!
Far from his friends, and from his native reign,
He lies a prey to monsters of the main;
Or savage beasts his mangled relics tear,
Or screaming vultures scatter through the air:
Nor could his mother funeral unguents shed;
Nor wail'd his father o'er the untimely dead:
Nor his sad consort, on the mournful bier,
Seal'd his cold eyes, or dropp'd a tender tear!

"But, tell me who thou art? and what thy race?
Thy town, thy parents, and thy native place?
Or, if a merchant in pursuit of gain,
What port received thy vessel from the main?
Or comest thou single, or attend thy train?
"

Then thus the son: "From Alybas I came,
My palace there; Eperitus my name
Not vulgar born: from Aphidas, the king
Of Polyphemon's royal line, I spring.
Some adverse demon from Sicania bore
Our wandering course, and drove us on your shore;
Far from the town, an unfrequented bay
Relieved our wearied vessel from the sea.
Five years have circled since these eyes pursued
Ulysses parting through the sable flood:
Prosperous he sail'd, with dexter auguries,
And all the wing'd good omens of the skies.
Well hoped we then to meet on this fair shore,
Whom Heaven, alas! decreed to meet no more. "

Quick through the father's heart these accents ran;
Grief seized at once, and wrapp'd up all the man:
Deep from his soul lie sigh'd, and sorrowing spread
A cloud of ashes on his hoary head.
Trembling with agonies of strong delight
Stood the great son, heart-wounded with the sight:
He ran, he seized him with a strict embrace,
With thousand kisses wander'd o'er his face:
"I, I am he; O father, rise! behold
Thy son, with twenty winters now grown old;
Thy son, so long desired, so long detain'd,
Restored, and breathing in his native land:
These floods of sorrow, O my sire, restrain!
The vengeance is complete; the suitor train,
Stretch'd in our palace, by these hands lie slain. "

Amazed, Laertes: "Give some certain sign
(If such thou art) to manifest thee mine. "

"Lo here the wound (he cries) received of yore,
The scar indented by the tusky boar,
When, by thyself, and by Anticlea sent,
To old Autolycus' realms I went.
Yet by another sign thy offspring know;
The several trees you gave me long ago,
While yet a child, these fields I loved to trace,
And trod thy footsteps with unequal pace;
To every plant in order as we came,
Well-pleased, you told its nature and its name,
Whate'er my childish fancy ask'd, bestow'd:
Twelve pear-trees, bowing with their pendent load,
And ten, that red with blushing apples glow'd;
Full fifty purple figs; and many a row
Of various vines that then began to blow,
A future vintage! when the Hours produce
Their latent buds, and Sol exalts the juice. "

Smit with the signs which all his doubts explain,
His heart within him melt; his knees sustain
Their feeble weight no more: his arms alone
Support him, round the loved Ulysses thrown;
He faints, he sinks, with mighty joys oppress'd:
Ulysses clasps him to his eager breast.
Soon as returning life regains its seat,
And his breath lengthens, and his pulses beat:
"Yes, I believe (he cries) almighty Jove!
Heaven rules us yet, and gods there are above.