Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol
stream of tears!) Euripides.’

Two

p. 148IMPRESSION DE VOYAGE

p. 148

The sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky Burned like a heated opal through the air; We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair For the blue lands that to the eastward lie. From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek, Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak, And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady. The flapping of the sail against the mast, The ripple of the water on the side, The ripple of girls’ laughter at the stern, The only sounds:—when ’gan the West to burn, And a red sun upon the seas to ride, I stood upon the soil of Greece at last!

The

Katakolo.

Katakolo

p. 149THE GRAVE OF SHELLEY

p. 149

Like burnt-out torches by a sick man’s bed Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone; Here doth the little night-owl make her throne, And the slight lizard show his jewelled head. And, where the chaliced poppies flame to red, In the still chamber of yon pyramid Surely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid, Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead.

Like

Ah! sweet indeed to rest within the womb Of Earth, great mother of eternal sleep, But sweeter far for thee a restless tomb In the blue cavern of an echoing deep, Or where the tall ships founder in the gloom Against the rocks of some wave-shattered steep.

Rome.

Rome

p. 150BY THE ARNO

p. 150


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