Classic Poem

Thalatta! Thalatta!

Thalatta! Thalatta!
Hail to thee, oh Sea, ageless and eternal!
Hail to thee, from a jubilant heart —
Ten thousand times hail!
Hail, as you were hailed by
Ten thousand Grecian hearts;
Calamity-conquering, homeward-hungering,
Immortal Grecian hearts.

The billows rolled higher,
Heaving and howling;
The sun poured eagerly downward
A rain of rosy lights;
The startled sea-gulls
Flew off with loud cries;
And there were sounds of horses stamping,
And the clashing of shields,
And echoes ringing, like a battle-shout:
" Thalatta! Thalatta! "

Hail to thee, Sea, ageless and eternal!
The whisper of your waters is as the speech of my own land;
The shimmer and surge of your billowy wastes
Is as the dreams of my childhood;
And old memory reveals in new colors
All of those lovely, wonderful playthings,
All of those glittering Christmas presents,
All of those rosy branches of coral,
Goldfish and pearls and shining sea-shells, —
All that you cherish and guard
Down in your clear and crystal depths.

Oh, how I have suffered in strange places!
My heart lay in my breast
Like a fading flower
In the tin box of a botanist.
It seems as though I had sat through the whole Winter,
A sick man in a dismal room, —
And now I leave it!
And suddenly there streams upon me
The emerald Spring, the sun-awakened;
And white branches rustle
And the young flowers look at me
With bright and odorous eyes,
And there's perfume and humming and laughter in all that breathes,
And in the blue heavens the very birds are singing:
" Thalatta! Thalatta! "

Oh dauntless, home-returning heart,
How often, oh how often,
The barbarian girls of the North have assailed you!
How often have they shot burning arrows
With their great, conquering eyes;
How often have they threatened to cleave the breast
With curved, two-edged words, sharper than swords;
How often their chiseled, hieroglyphic letters
Have beaten on my poor, bewildered brain.
I raised my shield against them vainly.
The arrows whistled, the blows came crashing,
And the barbarian girls of the North
Drove me to the sea —
And now, with a great breath, I greet it,
The long-loved, rescuing sea,
" Thalatta! Thalatta! "