Part 8 (2/2)

He floated on and on Dawn ca caht blazed in ht stands still and dawn is not yet, the waves, kindlier than before, carried hiia, where he heard the sea ny him a fairy welcome

Soft hands drew him from the deep, soft voices welcomed hiolden hair which shone, towered aentle swoon, a soft surrender to sleep

”We watch the fleeting isles of shade That float upon the sea When 'neath the sun some cloud hath spread His purple canopy

The woodbine odours scent the air, The cypress' leaves are wet Fro Parsley and violet

Here shall the Wanderer reet the past, the old Sad spectres of the night”

Soft and low the sea- nine long years ago when the sea cast hiht sunlight, a great fire of cedar wood burnt on an altar before the cave of the Goddess who loved the hero, and the srove of stately trees which bordered the s on a bed of fresh-born violets A purple old, woven by Calypso, was spread over hirant cypresses were full of sweet-voiced birds

Over the rapes drooped and fell from it in their abundance

Fros of clear water ca rivulets

This was the hodom of the Goddess Calypso, and was so beautiful a place that the fame of it had even reached Oly years had passed! It was nine years ago that the pale gaunt waif of the sea--a sad jetsaht-haired lady of Ogygia had gazed in wonder upon him

Circe had enthralled Ulysses for a year in her palace of wine and sorcery and lust That was a time of fierce sinful pleasures, of wild deliriums

The fire had blazed, burnt, and died away in that still marble house in the wood

But how different these nine drea Goddess lay in the hero's arht in tender love and sleep

She was no Circe, but a lady of quieter delights Her spell was upon hiic influence, but she loved hi years!

Those old valiant mariners from the plains of Troyland were only white bones now, part of the sea-bed They were far-off, reracious music to which his life moved now

Often he doubted all the past They were phantootten people

So he lay sleeping aave aa thin jocund song as they burst from the dark rich earth into the sunshi+ne, and within her cave the Goddess threw the golden shuttle and ht of her stately warrior hard by, and sent hiolden hair

She kneould never leave her now Her spells were too strong Her love too great

During the first years he had been wont to wander away to a lonely part of the shore He would sit gazing with haunted eyes out over the sea, and his thoughts went to Penelope, and he shed a tear for old King Laertes and whispered to little Telemachus

But that also was over for him now Ithaca was but a misty cloud, and the dear ones there but dreams in this island of dreaed The hard lines of endeavour, the brown painting of the wind, had gone from it noble and beautiful still, but even in sleep it could be seen to have lost its force

Suddenly, in the dirove, there was a silence The birds stopped singing, and the murmur of the insects droned, swelled louder, and died away

Nothing was heard for a moment but the trickle of the streams, and then this also faded from sound