Page:The Iliad and Odyssey of Homer (IA iliadodysseyofho02home).pdf/128

120 Nor yet, her latest gift, a gentle gale And manageable, which Ulysses spread, Exulting, all his canvas to receive. Beside the helm he sat, steering expert, Nor sleep fell ever on his eyes that watch'd Intent the Pleiads, tardy in decline Bootes, and the Bear, call'd else the Wain, Which, in his polar prison circling, looks Direct toward Orion, and alone Of these sinks never to the briny Deep. That star the lovely Goddess bade him hold Continual on his left through all his course. Ten days and sev'n, he, navigating, cleav'd The brine, and on the eighteenth day, at length, The shadowy mountains of Phæacia's land Descried, where nearest to his course it lay Like a broad buckler on the waves afloat. But Neptune, now returning from the land Of Ethiopia, mark'd him on his raft Skimming the billows, from the mountain-tops Of distant Solyma. With tenfold wrath Inflamed that sight he view'd, his brows he shook, And thus within himself, indignant, spake. So then—new counsels in the skies, it seems, Propitious to Ulysses, have prevail'd Since Æthiopia hath been my abode.