Page:Poems for the Sea.djvu/43



[It is a fable of heathen mythology, that the ship Argo was built of oaks from the sacred groves of Dodonia, which were endowed with the gift of prophecy; so that the masts and timbers gave oracular advice to the Argonautic adventurers, and saved them from many threatening calamities.]

Oaks were those, ye say That warn'd the sailor on his way, When in old time, with peril fraught. The Argonautic fleece he saught. For still prophetic impulse wove Those sever'd trunks from sacred grove,