Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Homer (fl. 850 B.C.). The Odyssey.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

Concluding Sonnet

Homer, thy song men liken to the sea,

With every note of music in his tone,

With tides that wash the dim dominion

Of Hades, and light waves that laugh in glee

Around the isles enchanted: nay, to me

Thy verse seems as the River of source unknown

That glasses Egypt’s temples overthrown,

In his sky-nurtur’d stream, eternally.

No wiser we than men of heretofore

To find thy mystic fountains guarded fast;

Enough—thy flood makes green our human shore

As Nilus, Egypt, rolling down his vast,

His fertile waters, murmuring evermore

Of gods dethroned, and empires of the Past.