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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=408424" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Voyage of Telegonus</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ill fares it with the man whose lips are set<br>To bitter themes and words that spite the gods;<br>For, seeing how the son of Saturn sways<br>With eyes and ears for all, this one shall halt<br>As on hard, hurtful hills; his days shall know<br>The plaintive front of sorrow; level looks<br>With cries ill-favoured shall be dealt to him;<br>And ~this~ shall be that he may think of peace<br>As one might think of alienated lips<br>Of sweetness touched for once in kind, warm dreams.<br>Yea, fathers of the high and holy face,<br>This soul thus sinning shall have cause to sob<br>'Ah, ah,' for sleep, and space enough to learn<br>The wan, wild Hyrie's aggregated song<br>That starts the dwellers in distorted heights,<br>With all the meaning of perpetual sighs<br>Heard in the mountain deserts of the world,<br>And where the green-haired waters glide between<br>The thin, lank weeds and mallows of the marsh.<br>But thou to whom these things are like to shapes<br>That come of darkness - thou whose life slips past<br>Regarding rather these with mute fast mouth -<br>Hear none the less how fleet Telegonus,<br>The brass-clad hunter, first took oar and smote<br>Swift eastward-going seas, with face direct<br>For narrowing channels and the twofold coasts<br>Past Colchis and the fierce Symplegades,<br>And utmost islands, washed by streams unknown.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For in a time when Phasis whitened wide<br>And drove with violent waters blown of wind<br>Against the bare, salt limits of the land,<br>It came to pass that, joined with Cytheraea,<br>The black-browed Ares, chafing for the wrong<br>Ulysses did him on the plains of Troy,<br>Set heart against the king; and when the storms<br>Sang high in thunder and the Thracian rain,<br>The god bethought him of a pale-mouthed priest<br>Of Thebae, kin to ancient Chariclo,<br>And of an omen which the prophet gave<br>That touched on death and grief to Ithaca;<br>Then, knowing how a heavy-handed fate<br>Had laid itself on Circe's brass-clad son,<br>He pricked the hunter with a lust that turned<br>All thoughts to travel and the seas remote;<br>But chiefly now he stirred Telegonus<br>To longings for his father's exiled face,<br>And dreams of rest and honey-hearted love<br>And quiet death with much of funeral flame<br>Far in the mountains of a favoured land<br>Beyond the wars and wailings of the waves.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So, past the ridges where the coast abrupt<br>Dips greyly westward, Circe's strong-armed son<br>Swept down the foam of sharp-divided straits<br>And faced the stress of opening seas. Sheer out<br>The vessel drave; but three long moons the gale<br>Moaned round; and swift, strong streams of fire revealed<br>The labouring rowers and the lightening surf,<br>Pale watchers deafened of sonorous storm,<br>And dipping decks and rents of ruined sails.<br>Yea, when the hollow ocean-driven ship<br>Wheeled sideways, like a chariot cloven through<br>In hard hot battle, and the night came up<br>Against strange headlands lying east and north,<br>Behold a black, wild wind with death to all<br>Ran shoreward, charged with flame and thunder-smoke,<br>Which blew the waters into wastes of white,<br>And broke the bark, as lightning breaks the pine;<br>Whereat the sea in fearful circles showed<br>Unpitied faces turned from Zeus and light -<br>Wan swimmers wasted with their agony,<br>And hopeless eyes and moaning mouths of men.<br>But one held by the fragments of the wreck,<br>And Ares knew him for Telegonus,<br>Whom heavy-handed Fate had chained to deeds<br>Of dreadful note with sin beyond a name.<br>So, seeing this, the black-browed lord of war,<br>Arrayed about by Jove's authentic light,<br>Shot down amongst the shattered clouds and called<br>With mighty strain, betwixt the gaps of storm<br>'Oceanus! Oceanus!' Whereat<br>The surf sprang white, as when a keel divides<br>The gleaming centre of a gathered wave;<br>And, ringed with flakes of splendid fire of foam,<br>The son of Terra rose half-way and blew<br>The triple trumpet of the water-gods,<br>At which great winds fell back and all the sea<br>Grew dumb, as on the land a war-feast breaks<br>When deep sleep falls upon the souls of men.<br>Then Ares of the night-like brow made known<br>The brass-clad hunter of the facile feet,<br>Hard clinging to the slippery logs of pine,<br>And told the omen to the hoary god<br>That touched on death and grief to Ithaca;<br>Wherefore Oceanus, with help of hand,<br>Bore by the chin the warrior of the North,<br>A moaning mass, across the shallowing surge,<br>And cast him on the rocks of alien shores<br>Against a wintry morning shot with storm.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Hear also, thou, how mighty gods sustain<br>The men set out to work the ends of Fate<br>Which fill the world with tales of many tears<br>And vex the sad face of humanity:<br>Six days and nights the brass-clad chief abode<br>Pent up in caverns by the straitening seas<br>And fed on ferns and limpets; but the dawn,<br>Before the strong sun of the seventh, brought<br>A fume of fire and smells of savoury meat<br>And much rejoicing, as from neighbouring feasts;<br>At which the hunter, seized with sudden lust,<br>Sprang up the crags, and, like a dream of fear,<br>Leapt, shouting, at a huddled host of hinds<br>Amongst the fragments of their steaming food;<br>And as the hoarse wood-wind in autumn sweeps<br>To every zone the hissing latter leaves,<br>So fleet Telegonus, by dint of spear<br>And strain of thunderous voice, did scatter these<br>East, south, and north. 'Twas then the chief had rest,<br>Hard by the outer coast of Ithaca,<br>Unknown to him who ate the spoil and slept.<br>Nor stayed he hand thereafter; but when noon<br>Burned dead on misty hills of stunted fir,<br>This man shook slumber from his limbs and sped<br>Against hoar beaches and the kindled cliffs<br>Of falling waters. These he waded through,<br>Beholding, past the forests of the West,<br>A break of light and homes of many men,<br>And shining corn, and flowers, and fruits of flowers.<br>Yea, seeing these, the facile-footed chief<br>Grasped by the knot the huge Aeaean lance<br>And fell upon the farmers; wherefore they<br>Left hoe and plough, and crouched in heights remote,<br>Companioned with the grey-winged fogs; but he<br>Made waste their fields and throve upon their toil -<br>As throve the boar, the fierce four-footed curse<br>Which Artemis did raise in Calydon<br>To make stern mouths wax white with foreign fear,<br>All in the wild beginning of the world.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So one went down and told Laertes' son<br>Of what the brass-clad stranger from the straits<br>Had worked in Ithaca; whereat the King<br>Rose, like a god, and called his mighty heir,<br>Telemachus, the wisest of the wise;<br>And these two, having counsel, strode without,<br>And armed them with the arms of warlike days -<br>The helm, the javelin, and the sun-like shield,<br>And glancing greaves and quivering stars of steel.<br>Yea, stern Ulysses, rusted not with rest,<br>But dread as Ares, gleaming on his car<br>Gave out the reins; and straightway all the lands<br>Were struck by noise of steed and shouts of men,<br>And furious dust, and splendid wheels of flame.<br>Meanwhile the hunter (starting from a sleep<br>In which the pieces of a broken dream<br>Had shown him Circe with most tearful face),<br>Caught at his spear, and stood like one at bay<br>When Summer brings about Arcadian horns<br>And headlong horses mixt with maddened hounds;<br>Then huge Ulysses, like a fire of fight,<br>Sprang sideways on the flying car, and drave<br>Full at the brass-clad warrior of the North<br>His massive spear; but fleet Telegonus<br>Stooped from the death, but heard the speedy lance<br>Sing like a thin wind through the steaming air;<br>Yet he, dismayed not by the dreadful foe -<br>Unknown to him - dealt out his strength, and aimed<br>A strenuous stroke at great Laertes' son,<br>Which missed the shield, but bit through flesh and bone,<br>And drank the blood, and dragged the soul from thence.<br>So fell the King! And one cried 'Ithaca!<br>Ah, Ithaca!' and turned his face and wept.<br>Then came another - wise Telemachus -<br>Who knelt beside the man of many days<br>And pored upon the face; but lo, the life<br>Was like bright water spilt in sands of thirst,<br>A wasted splendour swiftly drawn away.<br>Yet held he by the dead: he heeded not<br>The moaning warrior who had learnt his sin -<br>Who waited now, like one in lairs of pain,<br>Apart with darkness, hungry for his fate;<br>For had not wise Telemachus the lore<br>Which makes the pale-mouthed seer content to sleep<br>Amidst the desolations of the world?<br>So therefore he, who knew Telegonus,<br>The child of Circe by Laertes' son,<br>Was set to be a scourge of Zeus, smote not,<br>But rather sat with moody eyes, and mused,<br>And watched the dead. For who may brave the gods?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet, O my fathers, when the people came,<br>And brought the holy oils and perfect fire,<br>And built the pile, and sang the tales of Troy -<br>Of desperate travels in the olden time,<br>By shadowy mountains and the roaring sea,<br>Near windy sands and past the Thracian snows -<br>The man who crossed them all to see his sire,<br>And had a loyal heart to give the king,<br>Instead of blows - this man did little more<br>Than moan outside the fume of funeral rites,<br>All in a rushing twilight full of rain,<br>And clap his palms for sharper pains than swords.<br>Yea, when the night broke out against the flame,<br>And lonely noises loitered in the fens,<br>This man nor stirred nor slept, but lay at wait,<br>With fastened mouth. For who may brave the gods?</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Henry+Kendall">Henry Kendall</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=408424" data-title="The Voyage of Telegonus de Henry Kendall" data-description="Ill fares it with the man whose lips are set
To bitter themes and words that spite the gods;
For, seeing how the son of Saturn sways
With eyes and ears for all, this one shall halt
As on hard, hurtful hills; his days shall know
The plaintive front..."></div>
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