Classic Poem

Like to a stranger in a foreign strand
I 've dreamed—God knows how oft.
Now I go home. Already, far from land
I hear the storm aloft.
To unknown realms beyond the pillared gates
Of mighty Heracles
I steer me where the isle of islands waits
Enshrined in sapphire seas.

There, sunlit in yon ocean's broad expanse,
Lies Ithaca, mine isle,
Where the white-arching boughs of fruit-trees glance,
And billows die the while
Mid sedge, as dies a harp's faint evening song,
Love-muffled, on the ear.
There, be the voyage ne'er so hard and long,
My vessel I would steer.

For there will stand the cool white marble house
In which I fain would dwell.
Above will sigh the silver poplar boughs
That guard while I rest well.
Ye waves of life, I'm weary of your foam!
Dim forces rise in me
Urging toward Ithaca, my heart's true home,
My bright isle in the sea.

On the way homeward absently I hear
The noise of life's alarm,
As though I heard a stranger who came near
And took me by the arm.
Brothers, though still I walk here as do ye,
Of ills here unafraid,
Smiling, I greet the future's mystery,
For my account is made.

More strongly meanwhile do I feel the urge
Of music every day,
The evening echo of the beating surge
Within mine island's bay.
Leaned o'er the waves, I watch as in a spell
The dolphins flashing past.
No isle's in sight, but almond perfumes tell
That I'm approaching fast.

Still will I bear as much as any man
May bear of misery,
For this I know, that no one ever can
Tell my heart's Odyssey.
My trifling griefs and joys—their tinsel gleams
As dust to dust I fling,
Now that my boat nears Ithaca, my dreams'
Bright island of the spring.