When the pale empress of yon starry train

In the next month renews her faded wane,

Ulysses will assert his rightful reign.”


“What thanks! what boon! (replied the queen), are due,

When time shall prove the storied blessing true!

My lord’s return should fate no more retard,

Envy shall sicken at thy vast reward.

But my prophetic fears, alas! presage

The wounds of Destiny’s relentless rage.

I long must weep, nor will Ulysses come,

With royal gifts to send you honour’d home!—

Your other task, ye menial train forbear:

Now wash the stranger, and the bed prepare:

With splendid palls the downy fleece adorn:

Uprising early with the purple morn.

His sinews, shrunk with age, and stiff with toil,

In the warm bath foment with fragrant oil.

Then with Telemachus the social feast

Partaking free, my soul invited guest;

Whoe’er neglects to pay distinction due,

The breach of hospitable right may rue.

The vulgar of my sex I most exceed

In real fame, when most humane my deed;

And vainly to the praise of queen aspire,

If, stranger! I permit that mean attire

Beneath the feastful bower. A narrow space

Confines the circle of our destin’d race;

’Tis ours with good the scanty round to grace.

Those who to cruel wrong their state abuse,

Dreaded in life the mutter’d curse pursues;

By death disrobed of all their savage powers,

Then, licensed rage her hateful prey devours.

But he whose inborn worth his acts commend,

Of gentle soul, to human race a friend;

The wretched he relieves diffuse his fame,

And distant tongues extol the patron-name.”


“Princess? (he cried) in vain your bounties flow

On me, confirm’d and obstinate in woe.

When my loved Crete received my final view,

And from my weeping eyes her cliffs withdrew;

These tatter’d weeds (my decent robes resign’d)

I chose, the livery of a woful mind!

Nor will my heart-corroding care abate

With splendid palls, and canopies of state: