aside,

Seiz'd by the hand, and thus prophetic cried:

'Yon bird, that dexter cuts th' aërial road, Rose ominous, nor flies without a God: No race but thine shall Ithaca obey; To thine, for ages, Heav'n decrees the sway.'

'Succeed the omens, Gods!' (the youth rejoin'd)

'Soon shall my bounties speak a grateful mind,

And soon each envied happiness attend 579 The man who calls Telemachus his friend.' Then to Peiræus: Thou whom time has prov'd

A faithful servant, by thy Prince belov❜d! Till we returning shall our guest demand, Accept this charge with honour, at our hand.'

I haste to meet my mother's longing eyes, And end her tears, her sorrows, and her

sighs,

But thou, attentive, what we order heed: 10
This hapless stranger to the city lead:
By public bounty let him there be fed,
And bless the hand that stretches forth the
bread;

To wipe the tears from all afflicted eyes,
My will may covet, but my power denies.
If this raise anger in the stranger's
thought,

The pain of anger punishes the fault:
The very truth I undisguised declare;
For what so easy as to be sincere ?'

To this Ulysses: What the Prince requires

20

·

The least glad tidings of my absent lord?' To her the youth: We reach'd the Pylian plains,

Where Nestor, shepherd of his people, reigns.

All arts of tenderness to him are known,
Kind to Ulysses' race as to his own :
No father with a fonder grasp of joy
Strains to his bosom his long-absent boy.
But all unknown, if yet Ulysses breathe, 130
Or glide a spectre in the realms beneath:
For farther search, his rapid steeds trans-
port

My lengthen'd journey, to the Spartan

160

Learn what I heard the sea-born seer re-
late,
Whose eye can pierce the dark recess of
fate.

Sole in an isle, imprison'd by the main,
The sad survivor of his numerous train,
Ulysses lies; detain❜d by magic charms,
And press'd unwilling in Calypso's arms.
No sailors there, no vessels to convey,
No oars to cut th' immeasurable way.”
This told Atrides, and he told no more.
Then safe I voyaged to my native shore.'
He ceas'd; nor made the pensive Queen
reply,

170

But droop'd her head, and drew a secret sigh.

When Theoclymenus the seer began: 'O suff'ring consort of the suff'ring man! What human knowledge could, those Kings might tell,

But I the secrets of high Heav'n reveal. Before the first of Gods be this declared, Before the board whose blessings we have shared;

Witness the genial rites, and witness all This house holds sacred in her ample

wall!