Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Greece and Turkey in Europe: Vol. XIX. 1876–79.
Town and Harbor of Ithaca
By Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838)B
Than our actual sky;
With the purple ocean bounded
Does the island lie
Like a dream of the old world.
Bare the rugged heights ascending
Bring to mind the past,
When, the weary voyage ending,
Was the anchor cast,
And the stranger sails were furled
Beside the glorious island
Where Ulysses was the king.
With its carvéd gates;
Where the suitors drained the chalice,
Mocking at the Fates.
Stern and dark and veiled are they,
Still their silent thread intwining
Of our wretched life;
With their cold, pale hands combining
Hate and fear and strife.
Hovers the avenging day
O’er the glorious island
Where Ulysses was the king.
If amid these trees
Still it sees the garden
Of old Laertes,
Where he met his glorious son.
The apple boughs were drooping
Beneath their rosy fruit,
And the rich brown pears were stooping
To the old man at their foot,
While his daily task was done
In the glorious island
Where Ulysses was the king.
’T is the spirit’s wrong,
Which to some small mind’s pretension
Would subdue that song,
Shrined in manhood’s general heart.
One almighty mind, one only,
Could such strain have sung;
Ever be the laurel lonely
Where such lyre is hung.
Be the world a thing apart
Of the glorious island
Where Ulysses was the king.