PALINURUS
Starlight: with deep and quiet breathing sleptThe southern sea. The white-wing’d ship that boreThe good Aeneas from his Dido’s shoreGhostlike, with rippling furrows, onward crept,And only faithful Palinurus keptThe midnight watch—but ah, the magic bough,The opiate dew that dript upon his brow,The vacant post, the friends who waking wept.The gods demand their victims; who shall knowWhat failures Time and Circumstance compel?Yet, if such doom were mine, I would ’twere soThat they would mark my absence thus: “How wellEven unto the last he struggled, lo!He tore the rudder with him when he fell!”
Starlight: with deep and quiet breathing sleptThe southern sea. The white-wing’d ship that boreThe good Aeneas from his Dido’s shoreGhostlike, with rippling furrows, onward crept,And only faithful Palinurus keptThe midnight watch—but ah, the magic bough,The opiate dew that dript upon his brow,The vacant post, the friends who waking wept.The gods demand their victims; who shall knowWhat failures Time and Circumstance compel?Yet, if such doom were mine, I would ’twere soThat they would mark my absence thus: “How wellEven unto the last he struggled, lo!He tore the rudder with him when he fell!”
Starlight: with deep and quiet breathing sleptThe southern sea. The white-wing’d ship that boreThe good Aeneas from his Dido’s shoreGhostlike, with rippling furrows, onward crept,And only faithful Palinurus keptThe midnight watch—but ah, the magic bough,The opiate dew that dript upon his brow,The vacant post, the friends who waking wept.
Starlight: with deep and quiet breathing slept
The southern sea. The white-wing’d ship that bore
The good Aeneas from his Dido’s shore
Ghostlike, with rippling furrows, onward crept,
And only faithful Palinurus kept
The midnight watch—but ah, the magic bough,
The opiate dew that dript upon his brow,
The vacant post, the friends who waking wept.
The gods demand their victims; who shall knowWhat failures Time and Circumstance compel?Yet, if such doom were mine, I would ’twere soThat they would mark my absence thus: “How wellEven unto the last he struggled, lo!He tore the rudder with him when he fell!”
The gods demand their victims; who shall know
What failures Time and Circumstance compel?
Yet, if such doom were mine, I would ’twere so
That they would mark my absence thus: “How well
Even unto the last he struggled, lo!
He tore the rudder with him when he fell!”