The Return of the Argo

Over the crests of the furthermost mountains like foam on

a wave-spine,

Milk-blue clouds curl, and faint patches of cloud-rime are

spread on the deep blue.

A barm of green birches has bubbled all over the slopes of

the low hills,

But those in the distance are dark though the sunshine

distributes her colors-

Blue to the ocean that bears us, and blue more remote to

the heavens,

To all the grand earth arich greennessof trees and a warmth

of brown hill-soil

Where soon shall our sandals be deep-sunk, which long

since have trod deck.

Pull, O my rowers and push back the wave surge behind

your sharp oar-blades,

Pull, see our red prow rise dripping from where she has

plunged in the water

Upon the black shadow cast down by the great sail that

strains in the sunshine,

Smooth as the breast of a maiden who runs in a wind-

tightened garment.

Crumple the waters and cream them with strokes from the

palms your flat oars have,

Pull the smooth shaft of your oars like a lover towards

your bronzed bosoms,

For ere this white glittering sun has dropped westward

there, making all blood-red

The heavens-a bowl of transparent and ebon-veined

porphyry round us-

We shall have bent for the last time the smooth supple

bronze of our bodies

In toil and in struggle with stiff oars, and menace of winds

and of waters.

We shall be breaking the tightness of grapeskins and

drinking of cool cream.

Ere all the craft in the harbor of midnight have hung out

their small lamps

We shall have bathed from our bodies with soft oil the

sweat and the sea-salt;

We shall be clothed in clean linen and lying on wool rugs

and bear-skins,

With amber of honey before us and brown cakes of fine

wheaten flour,

Feasting in warmth and in shelter with children around us

whose gold curls

Gleam fair like asphodels fringing the shores where the

sirens were singing;

Mothers and wives too will greet us with laughter when

tears are over.

There! as that headland draws back like a curtain comes

Pelion in full sight

Gleaming in sunshine as white as the snows on the

Riphaian hilltops,

Shining from out of the dark bluish pine-trees and green of

the blunt oaks.

Weep not, O rowers, oh, weep not, rejoice that our journey

is over,

That dangers are done with and scarlet-prowed Argo has

touched the white pebbles.