And inly pining for his native shore;

For now the soft enchantress pleased no more;

For now, reluctant, and constrained by charms,

Absent he lay in her desiring arms,

In slumber wore the heavy night away,

On rocks and shores consumed the tedious day;

There sate all desolate, and sighed alone,

With echoing sorrows made the mountains groan.

And roll’d his eyes o’er all the restless main,

Till, dimmed with rising grief, they streamed again.


Here, on his musing mood the goddess press’d,

Approaching soft, and thus the chief address’d:

“Unhappy man! to wasting woes a prey,

No more in sorrows languish life away:

Free as the winds I give thee now to rove:

Go, fell the timber of yon lofty grove,

And form a raft, and build the rising ship,

Sublime to bear thee o’er the gloomy deep.

To store the vessel let the care be mine,

With water from the rock and rosy wine,

And life-sustaining bread, and fair array,

And prosperous gales to waft thee on the way.

These, if the gods with my desire comply

(The gods, alas, more mighty far than I,

And better skill’d in dark events to come),

In peace shall land thee at thy native home.”


With sighs Ulysses heard the words she spoke,

Then thus his melancholy silence broke:

“Some other motive, goddess! sways thy mind

(Some close design, or turn of womankind),

Nor my return the end, nor this the way,

On a slight raft to pass the swelling sea,

Huge, horrid, vast! where scarce in safety sails

The best-built ship, though Jove inspires the gales.

The bold proposal how shall I fulfil,

Dark as I am, unconscious of thy will?

Swear, then, thou mean’st not what my soul forebodes;

Swear by the solemn oath that binds the gods.”


Him, while he spoke, with smiles Calypso eyed,

And gently grasp’d his hand, and thus replied:

“This shows thee, friend, by old experience taught,

And learn’d in all the wiles of human thought,

How prone to doubt, how cautious, are the wise!