Spoke over shoreless seas and fathomless deeps,

[34]

And in great calms, as from a colder world;

Nor slack'd I sail by day, nor yet when night

Fell on my running keel, and now would burn,

With all her eyes, my errand into me.

So sped I on, fill'd with a voice divine:

And hardly wist I whom I was to slay,

My mother! but a vague, heroic dream

Possess'd me; fired to do the will of gods,

I lost the man in minister of Heaven;

Nor took I note of sandbank, nor of storm,

Nor of the ocean's thunders, when the shores

All round had faded, leaving me alone:

I knew I could not die, till I had slain!

But, when I came once more upon the land

That rear'd me, all the sweetness of old days

Came back on me: I stood, as from a dream

Waked to a sudden, sad reality.

And when, far off, I saw those ancient towers,

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