ERE the fierce Tartar fled Cathay, The stark Goth shafted Tartary, The fiery Kelt the Gothic fray, -- And the Kelt rolled on Italy; Ere the wolf-cubs lolled tongues of prey, Or Rhodian galleys sheered the sea, An isle there was -- where is't to-day? -- The Muses called it Sicily. Was it, and is it not? -- Aye me, Where's Eden, or Taprobane? Where now does old Simaethus flow? You take a map (great Poesy, Have they mapped Heaven!) and thereon show -- What? -- the dust-heap of Italy! The Ausonian mainland from its toe Spurns it aside contemptuously. You point to it, you man that know, And this, you say, is Sicily. I know not how the thing may be -- It is not Sicily to me! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BABY RUNNING BAREFOOT by DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE THE LAST LOOK O' HAME by HEW AINSLIE MORTAL JEALOUSY by PHILIP AYRES THE HAPPY DAYS WHEN I WER YOUNG by WILLIAM BARNES SONG OF THE WHITE COMPANY by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE THAT'S HER PRIVILEGE by BERTON BRALEY WHOM EARTH HAS TAUGHT: REVELATION by MARGARET PERKINS BRIGGS |