Page:Poems, Alan Seeger, 1916.djvu/170

 If in your eyes some merit I have won—

Merit, or more or less—for tribute done

When in the world I framed my lofty verse:

Move not; but fain were we that one rehearse

By what strange fortunes to his death he came."

The elder crescent of the antique flame

Began to wave, as in the upper air

A flame is tempest-tortured, here and there

Tossing its angry height, and in its sound

As human speech it suddenly had found,

Rolled forth a voice of thunder, saying: "When,

The twelve-month past in Circe's halls, again

I left Gaeta's strand (ere thither came

Æneas, and had given it that name)

Not love of son, nor filial reverence,

Nor that affection that might recompense

The weary vigil of Penelope,

Could so far quench the hot desire in me

To prove more wonders of the teeming earth,—

Of human frailty and of manly worth.

In one small bark, and with the faithful band

That all awards had shared of Fortune's hand,

I launched once more upon the open main.

Both shores I visited as far as Spain,—

Sardinia, and Morocco, and what more

The midland sea upon its bosom wore.

The hour of our lives was growing late

When we arrived before that narrow strait

Where Hercules had set his bounds to show 120