Beautiful Isle of Lemnos

 Beautiful Isle of Lemnos

from

The Old Ships by James Elroy Flecker 

I have seen old ships sail like swans asleep

Beyond the village which men still call Tyre,

With leaden age o’er cargoed, dipping deep

For Famagusta and the hidden sun

That rings black Cyprus with a lake of fire;

And all those ships were certainly so old

Who knows how oft with squat and noisy gun,

Questing brown slaves or Syrian oranges,

The pirate Genoese

Hell-raked them till they rolled

Blood, water, fruit and corpses up the hold.

The Argonauts by D.H. Lawrence 

They are not dead, they are not dead!
Now that the sun, like a lion, licks his paws
And goes slowly down the hill:
Now that the moon, who remembers, and only cares
That we should be lovely in the flesh, with bright, crescent feet
Pauses near the crest of the hill, climbing slowly, like a queen
Looking down on the lion as he retreats-

Now the sea is the Argonauts’ sea, and in the dawn
Odysseus calls the commands, as he steers past those foamy islands;
Wait, wait, don’t bring the coffee yet, nor the pain grille.
The dawn is not off the sea, and Odysseus’ ships
Have not yet passed the islands, I must watch them still.

from

The Odyssey by Homer, book V

A great wave drove at him with toppling crest
Spinning him round, in one tremendous blow,
And he went plunging overboard, the oar-haft
Wrenched from his grip. A gust that came on howling
At the same time broke his mast in two,
Hurling his yard and sail far out to leeward.
Now the big wave a long time kept him under,
Helpless to surface, held by tons of water,
Tangled, too, by the seacloak of Kalypso.
Long, long, until he came up spouting brine,
With streamlets gushing from his head and bear;
But still bethought him, half-drowned as he was,
To flounder for the boat and get a handhold
Into the bilge- to crouch there, foiling death.
























from

Don Juan by Lord Byron

The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung.
Where grew the arts of war and peace, -
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all except their sun is set.