Classic Poem

"Then tooke they seate, and forth our passage strooke--
The fomie Sea beneath their labour shooke--
Rowd on in reach of an erected voice;
The Sirens soone tooke note without our noice,
Tun'd those sweete accents that made charmes so strong
And these learn'd numbers made the Sirens' song:
" "Come here, thou, worthy of a world of praise,
That dost so high the Grecian glory raise.
Ulysses! stay thy ship, and that song heare
That none past ever but it bent his eare,
But left him ravishd and instructed more
By us than any ever heard before.
For we know all things whatsoever were
In wide Troy labour'd, whatsoever there
The Grecians and the Troyans both sustain'd
By those high issues that the Gods ordain'd:
And whatsoever all the earth can show
T'informe a knowledge of desert, we know."
"This they gave accent in the sweetest straine
That ever open'd an enamour'd vaine--
When my constrain'd heart needs would have mine eare
Yet more delighted, force way forth, and heare.
To which end I commanded with all signe
Sterne lookes could make (for not a joynt of mine
Had powre to stirre) my friends to rise, and give
My limbs free way. They freely striv'd to drive
Their ship still on. When (farre from will to lose)
Eurylochus and Perimedes rose
To wrap me surer, and opprest me more
With many a halser than had use before.
When, rowing on without the reach of sound,
My friends unstopt their eares and me unbound,
And that Ile quite we quitted. But againe
Fresh feares emploid us. I beheld a maine
Of mighty billows, and a smoke ascend,
A horrid murmure hearing. Every friend
Astonisht sat: from every hand his oare
Fell quite forsaken: with the dismall Rore,
Where all things there made Echoes, stone still stood
Our ship it selfe, because the ghastly flood
Tooke all men's motions from her in their owne:
I through the ship went, labouring up and downe
My friends' recovered spirits. One by one
I gave good words, and said that well were knowne
These ills to them before: I told them all;
And that these could not prove more capitall
Than those the Cyclop blockt us up in, yet
My vertue, wit, and heaven-helpt Counsailes set
Their freedomes open. I could not beleeve
But they remembered it, and wisht them give
My equall care and meanes now equall trust:
The strength they had for stirring up they must
Rouze and extend, to trie if Jove had laid
His powres in theirs up, and would adde his aid
To scape even that death. in particular then
I told our Pylot that past other men
He most must beare firme spirits, since he swaid
The Continent that all our spirits convaid
In his whole guide of her. He saw there boile
The fierie whirlpooles that to all our spoile
Inclosde a Rocke, without which he must stere,
Or all our ruines stood concluded there.

"The Iland left so farre that land no where
But onely sea and skie had powre t'appeare,
Jove fixt a cloud above our ship, so blacke
That all the sea it darkened. Yet from wracke
She ranne a good free time, till from the West
Came Zephyr ruffling forth, and put his breast
Out in a singing tempest so most vast
It burst the Gables that made sure our Mast;
Our Masts came tumbling downe, our tackle downe
Rusht to the Pump, and by our Pylot's crowne
The maine Mast past his fall, pasht all his Skull--
And all this wracke but one flaw made at full.
Off from the sterne the Sternesman diving fell,
And from his sinews flew his Soule to hell.
Together, all this time Jove's Thunder chid,
And through and through the ship his lightning glid
Till it embrac't her round; her bulke was filld
With nasty sulphur, and her men were killd,
Tumbl'd to Sea, like Sea-mews swumme about,
And there the date of their returne was out.
"I tost from side to side still, till all broke
Her Ribs were with the storme, and she did choke
With let-in Surges, for the Mast, torne downe,
Tore her up pecemeale, and for me to drowne
Left little undissolv'd. But to the Mast
There was a lether Thong left, which I cast
About it and the keele, and so sat tost
With banefull weather till the West had lost
His stormy tyranny. And then arose
The South, that bred me more abhorred woes--
For backe againe his blasts expelld me quite
On ravenous Charybdis. All that Night
I totter'd up and downe, till Light and I
At Scylla's Rocke encounterd, and the nie
Dreadfull Charybdis. As I drave on these,
I saw Charybdis supping up the seas,
And had gone up together if the tree
That bore the wilde figs had not rescu'd me--
To which I leapt and left my keele, and, hie
Clambring upon it, did as close imply
My brest about it as a Reremouse could.
Yet might my feete on no stub fasten hold
To ease my hands, the roots were crept so low
Beneath the earth, and so aloft did grow
The far-spred armes that (though good height I gat)
I could not reach them. To the main Bole flat
I therefore still must cling, till up againe
She belcht my Mast, and after that amaine
Me keele came tumbling. So at length it chanc't
To me as to a Judge, that, long advanc't
To judge a sort of hote yong fellowes' jarres,
At length time frees him from their civill warres,
When glad he riseth, and to dinner goes:
So time at length releast with joyes my woes,
And from Charybdis' mouth appear'd my keele.
To which (my hand now loosd, and now my heele)
I altogether with a huge noise dropt,
Just in her midst fell, where the Mast was propt,
And there rowd off, with owers of my hands.
God and Man's Father would not from her sands
Let Scylla see me, for I then had died
That bitter death that my poore friends supplied.
"Nine Daies at Sea I hover'd: the tenth Night
In th'Ile Ogygia, where abode the bright
And right renoum'd Calypso, I was cast
By powre of Deitie--where I liv'd embrac't
With Love and feasts.