They see Tiresias Sitting, staff in hand, On the warm, grassy Asopus bank, His robe drawn over His old, sightless head, Revolving inly The doom of Thebes. They see the Centaurs In the upper glens Of Pelion, in the streams, Where red-berried ashes fringe The clear-brown shallow pools, With streaming flanks, and heads Rear'd proudly, snuffing The mountain wind. They see the Indian Drifting, knife in hand, His frail boat moor'd to A floating isle thick-matted With large-leaved, low-creeping melon-plants, And the dark cucumber. He reaps, and stows them, Drifting--drifting;--round him, Round his green harvest-plot, Flow the cool lake-waves, The mountains ring them. They see the Scythian On the wide stepp, unharnessing His wheel'd house at noon. He tethers his beast down, and makes his meal-- Mares' milk, and bread Baked on the embers;--all around The boundless, waving grass-plains stretch, thick-starr'd With saffron and the yellow hollyhock And flag-leaved iris-flowers. Sitting in his cart He makes his meal; before him, for long miles, Alive with bright green lizards, And the springing bustard-fowl, The track, a straight black line, Furrows the rich soil; here and there Clusters of lonely mounds Topp'd with rough-hewn, Grey, rain-blear'd statues, overpeer The sunny waste. They see the ferry On the broad, clay-laden Lone Chorasmian stream;--thereon, With snort and strain, Two horses, strongly swimming, tow The ferry-boat, with woven ropes To either bow Firm harness'd by the mane; a chief, With shout and shaken spear, Stands at the prow, and guides them; but astern The cowering merchants, in long robes, Sit pale beside their wealth Of silk-bales and of balsam-drops, Of gold and ivory, Of turquoise-earth and amethyst, Jasper and chalcedony, And milk-barr'd onyx-stones. The loaded boat swings groaning In the yellow eddies; The Gods behold them. They see the Heroes Sitting in the dark ship On the foamless, long-heaving Violet sea, At sunset nearing The Happy Islands. These things, Ulysses, The wise bards also Behold and sing. But oh, what labour! O prince, what pain! They too can see Tiresias;--but the Gods, Who give them vision, Added this law: That they should bear too His groping blindness, His dark foreboding, His scorn'd white hairs; Bear Hera's anger Through a life lengthen'd To seven ages.