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...LINES FROM A PLUTOCRATIC POETASTER TO A DITCH-DIGGER by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS THE SECRET by KATHERINE MANSFIELD CAMPUS SONNET: BEFORE AN EXAMINATION by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET THE WORLD AS WILL AND REPRESENTATION' by HAYDEN CARRUTH PENT by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON SOLDIER by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON |