Two days and nights upon the long smooth swell He drifted on, nor could his heart foretell Aught but destruction; but when fair-tressed Morn Brought the third day to birth, the tempest fell, And windless grew the calm; and now anigh He saw the land, with keen and forward eye Gazing, as lifted on the swell he rose: And with such joy as children may descry Hope for a father's life who long has lain Wasted by sickness, bearing grievous pain Beneath some grim God's hand, and gladly they See him by kinder Heaven restored again: So joyfully Odysseus saw appear Forest and shore, and strongly swam to near The mainland: but when now no farther off Than a man's voice will carry, he could hear Upon the reefs the thunder of the sea, Where the great wave on dry land horribly Belched roaring, and in spindrift all the coast Was wrapped, nor any landing-place saw he, Nor harbourage where ships might find relief, But all was jutting fang of rock and reef. Thereat Odysseus trembled, heart and limb, And to his mighty soul he spoke in grief: 'Woe's me! when now beyond my hope to-day Zeus grants me sight of land, and all this way Throughout the sea-gulf I at last have pierced, I see no issue from the ocean grey. 'For sharp rocks rise far out, and all around Welters the breaker with a roaring sound, And the cliff runs up sheer, and under it The sea is deep, nor may I take the ground 'Or foothold find among the waves, lest one Might catch and hurl me on a ridge of stone As forth I climb: poor work were that: and yet If I swim farther up to light upon 'Some shoaling beach or haven of the main, I fear lest yet once more the hurricane May sweep me out on the fish-pasturing sea, And all my heavy woe begin again: 'Or lest heaven loose on me some monster dread, Such as in Amphitrite's halls are bred Full many: for I know how sore the great Shaker of earth with me is angered.' While he debated thus his heart within, A great wave lifted him and bore him in Upon a jagged rock, that there and then Had shattered all his bones and stripped his skin, But that the Goddess with the eyes of grey, Athena, put it in his heart to lay Both hands tight-clutched upon the rock, and there Cling gasping till the great wave passed away. Over his head it went, but backward whirled Bore down on him and struck him full and hurled Far out to sea: as when a cuttlefish Out of its hole is dragged with suckers curled And clinging round the pebbles of its bed, So from his mighty hands the skin was shred Against the rocks; and in the whelming wave Quite hidden, then Odysseus had been dead Before his day, in grievous wise and grim, But that grey-eyed Athena put in him Counsel, uprising from beneath the flood That burst upon the land, far out to swim, Still keeping on the land a sidelong eye, Some shoaling beach or haven to descry: Until he, swimming onward, to the mouth Of a fair-flowing river drew anigh. And there he chose what seemed the likeliest place, Being clear of rocks and sheltered for a space. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MY BIRD by EMILY CHUBBUCK JUDSON ON KEATS, WHO DESIRED THAT ON HIS TOMB SHOULD BE INSCRIBED: by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY TO QUILCA; A COUNTRY HOUSE IN NO GOOD REPAIR by JONATHAN SWIFT THE FIRST DANDELION by WALT WHITMAN PERFECT WOMAN by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH ODES: BOOK 2: ODE 1 by MARK AKENSIDE ODES: BOOK 2: ODE 6. TO WILLIAM HALL, ESQ., WITH THE WORKS OF CHAULIEU by MARK AKENSIDE |