No More Learning

Possess'd by wild barbarians, fierce in arms?
Or men whose bosom tender pity warms?
Where shall this treasure now in safely be?
And whither, whither its sad owner fly?
Ah, why did I Alcinous' grace implore?
Ah, why forsake Phaeacia's happy shore?
Some juster prince perhaps had entertain'd,
And safe restored me to my native land.
Is this the promised, long-expected coast,
And this the faith Phaeacia's rulers boast?
O righteous gods! of all the great, how few
Are just to Heaven, and to their promise true!
But he, the power to whose all-seeing eyes
The deeds of men appear without disguise,
'Tis his alone to avenge the wrongs I bear;
For still the oppress'd are his peculiar care.
To count these presents, and from thence to prove,
Their faith is mine; the rest belongs to Jove. "

Then on the sands he ranged his wealthy store,
The gold, the vests, the tripods number'd o'er:
All these he found, but still in error lost,
Disconsolate he wanders on the coast,
Sighs for his country, and laments again
To the deaf rocks, and hoarse-resounding main.
When lo! the guardian goddess of the wise,
Celestial Pallas, stood before his eyes;
In show a youthful swain, of form divine,
Who seem'd descended from some princely line.
A graceful robe her slender body dress'd;
Around her shoulders flew the waving vest;
Her decent hand a shining javelin bore,
And painted sandals on her feet she wore.
To whom the king: "Whoe'er of human race
Thou art, that wanderest in this desert place,
With joy to thee, as to some god I bend,
To thee my treasures and myself commend.
O tell a wretch in exile doom'd to stray,
What air I breathe, what country I survey?
The fruitful continent's extremest bound,
Or some fair isle which Neptune's arms surround?

"From what far clime (said she) remote from fame
Arrivest thou here, a stranger to our name?
Thou seest an island, not to those unknown
Whose hills are brighten'd by the rising sun,
Nor those that placed beneath his utmost reign
Behold him sinking in the western main.
The rugged soil allows no level space
For flying chariots, or the rapid race;
Yet, not ungrateful to the peasant's pain,
Suffices fulness to the swelling grain;
The loaded trees their various fruits produce,
And clustering grapes afford a generous juice;
Woods crown our mountains, and in every grove
The bounding goats and frisking heifers rove;
Soft rains and kindly dews refresh the field,
And rising springs eternal verdure yield.
E'en to those shores is Ithaca renown'd,
Where Troy's majestic ruins strew the ground. "

At this, the chief with transport was possess'd;
His panting heart exulted in his breast;
Yet, well dissembling his untimely joys,
And veiling truth in plausible disguise,
Thus, with an air sincere, in fiction bold,
His ready tale the inventive hero told:

"Oft have I heard in Crete this island's name;
For 'twas from Crete, my native soil, I came,
Self-banished thence. I sail'd before the wind,
And left my children and my friends behind.
From fierce Idomeneus' revenge I flew,
Whose son, the swift Orsilochus, I slew
(With brutal force he seized my Trojan prey,
Due to the toils of many a bloody day).
Unseen I 'scaped, and favour'd by the night,
In a Phoenician vessel took my flight,
For Pyle or Elis bound; but tempests toss'd
And raging billows drove us on your coast.
In dead of night an unknown port we gain'd;
Spent with fatigue, and slept secure on land.
But ere the rosy morn renew'd the day,
While in the embrace of pleasing sleep I lay,
Sudden, invited by auspicious gales,
They land my goods, and hoist their flying sails.
Abandon'd here, my fortune I deplore
A hapless exile on a foreign shore,"

Thus while he spoke, the blue-eyed maid began
With pleasing smiles to view the godlike man;
Then changed her form: and now, divinely bright,
Jove's heavenly daughter stood confess'd to sight;
Like a fair virgin in her beauty's bloom,
Skill'd in the illustrious labours of the loom.

"O still the same Ulysses!