Classic Poem

You have heaped my hands with rubies
and showered me with pearls.
In my nostrils you placed the morning,
on my lap the everlasting hills.

You have cooled me in broad rivers
and bedded me upon cloud,
and burned, for my night-warming,
forests of sandalwood.

And given me for my pleasure
your body, Calypso,
of white beach-foam and phosphor,
of honey and cloves. And oh,

if only a man could hold it —
he'd not stare out to sea
weeping for meagre Ithaca
and plain Penelope.











" Odysseus' Song to Calypso " . Used by permission of author.