THERE is a law of stern Necessity, The immemorial ordinance of the gods Made fast for ever, bravely sworn and sealed: -- Should any Spirit, born to enduring life, Be fouled with sin of slaughter, or transgress By disputation, perjured and forsworn, Three times ten thousand years that soul shall wander An outcast from Felicity, condemned To mortal being, and in diverse shapes With interchange of hardship go his ways. The Heavens force him headlong to the Sea; And vomited from the Sea, dry land receives him, But flings unwanted to the burning Sun; From there, to the heavenly vortex backward thrown, He makes from host to host, by all abhorred. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SILVER by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE TO A DOG'S MEMORY by LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY GOOD AND BAD LUCK by HEINRICH HEINE THE NILE by JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT THE DAUGHTER OF MENDOZA by MIRABEAU BONAPARTE LAMAR HYMNS OF THE MARSHES: SUNRISE by SIDNEY LANIER FITZ-GREENE HALLECK, AT THE UNVEILING OF HIS STATUE by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER |