Sicilian Muse! O thou who sittest dumb Amid the sodden fields and ways forlorn, Where once the herdsmen singing, watched their kine Breast-deep in fragrance, odorous eve and morn; Stranger to thee, yet led by love I come, A suppliant sable-stoled, to mix with thine My tears, and at thy shrine Kindle a funeral torch for Sicily: Give not the suppliant’s prayer the meed of blame! Scorn not the stranger’s proffered oil and wine! O thou from whom the heavenly madness came, When Orpheus hymning struck his golden lute, And stirred old memories in Persephone, While all the lonely shades in hell stood mute To watch the still-beloved Eurydice Borne lightly upward on the silver surge To Enna’s flowery verge;-- Spirit august! Child of Mnemosyne! With reverence and true humility I break before thy feet my careless flute, And wait upon my lips thy touch of flame: Begin, Sicilian Muse! Begin the dirge! O race unmindful of the Destinies! The dread Euminides Or Mœræ old, sent from Earth’s inmost core A tremor, warning blindly ye who, blind, See not the sleepless doom that evermore Has watched your tragic shore Since lost sea-rovers shaded first their eyes To spy the riches of your waving store, And grated up your sands with doubtful keel. The startled jungle growled above its young; The Arctic foxes snuffed the scentless wind; But ye who knew yourselves a fated race, That gods have loved and gods to hate exposed, Though black the death clouds over Ætna hung, Forgot the anguish in Pompeii’s face, Beneath her half-drawn winding sheet disclosed; Forgot white Lisbon’s doom, nor called to mind-- In pleasant Zancle taking noonday ease-- How, from its ashes by the western seas A stricken Phœnix rises, stone and steel. Fresh as her Poro flowers at early dawn, When over Hybla’s hills the yellow bees From aromatic blossoms shake the dew; Fair as the maiden ere by dark Fate drawn, She saw the wide earth yawn Before the thunderous horses, and the strong Arm of Aïdes crushed her gathered flowers; So fresh, so fair, amid her storied seas, She who remains through changes æon-long A greater Helen wooed with sword and song, Of mightier victors bride and battle prize, Lay lapped in peace, when swift from Hades driven, Upward the death-king came; the earth was riven, And through the darkness rang her children’s cries. Now Scylla unto fierce Charybdis calls, While on the water spreads a crimson stain; Now Galatea sobs in Ocean’s halls, And vengeful Polyphemus laughs again. The Nereids now in oozy caverns hide, Where sea-kings of the old Æolian shore Watch sunken argosies forevermore, And tell their tales of dread Poseidon’s hate; While dimly from the far, ensanguined tide Patient Odysseus furrowed once of yore, A glint of daylight through the darkness falls On swaying helmets, tumbled bronze and gold, On broidered vestments stiff and Tyrian dyed.