Classic Poem

Is it on a coast of my soul
That galleons out of Greece are beaching the beautiful gods
And Nausicaa is willowy on the seashore?

Why do you gaze seaward, sister draped in drifting blue?
Is the Wanderer gone, sailing the seas for home?
Your Wanderer, is he gone?

The white wave curls singing on the shore among the pebbles,
The white nymphs dance and sing: something about dark Helen,
Something about dark Helen ...

Spell of Apollo brightens and burns my spirit ...
O my soul, opening in the sunrise that is Greece,
Gone home singing to the star of beauty,
Where flesh is touched with the immortal wonder of calm divinities,
And Aphrodite is in the salt wave, shining, breaking ...
Breaking, shining ...

Why do you gaze seaward, sister wound in wavy blue?
Am I the Wanderer, and did we kiss last night in firelight among the pillars,
And did I steal away in the morning, sailing the seas for home?

I call you: " Nausicaa" ...
I call and call you in the sunrise: " Nausicaa" ...
The sea's blue is in my eyes,
And in my ears the song of the white nymphs: something about dark Helen,
Something about dark Helen ...

Is it a galleon out of Greece that bears me to the land of Zion
And the dark rose of Sharon?
Have I left the beautiful sister in the sunrise to go home to the ancient Mother sitting in the lap of Night
Weeping among the willows where Babylon mocks her
And she remembers Zion?

She sits by the waters of rivers, my dark great Mother,
Calling the exiles home to her heart:
Mystery is her name, and Night, and terrible Jehovah:
She carries the storm of man, struggling with lightnings and thunders to the heights of glory ...
Sunrise of Greece is a watery shaft in her whirling abyss ...

And the Wanderer drifts in the middle of the seas, his oars idle, his sails furled,
Becalmed between sunrise and night, between Greece and Zion,
And he calls: " Nausicaa,"
He calls and calls toward the sunrise: " Nausicaa"
While the dark great Mother weeps in the core of his heart.