Through all your changes, that skill is not got By sleight or art, since thy most hard-hit face Is still distinguish’d by thy free-giv’n grace; And therefore, truly to acknowledge thee In thy encounters, is a mastery In men most-knowing; for to all men thou Tak’st sev’ral likeness. All men think they know Thee in their wits; but, since thy seeming view Appears to all, and yet thy truth to few, Through all thy changes to discern thee right Asks chief love to thee, and inspiréd light. But this I surely know, that, some years past, I have been often with thy presence grac’d, All time the sons of Greece wag’d war at Troy; But when Fate’s full hour let our swords enjoy Our vows in sack of Priam’s lofty town, Our ships all boarded, and when God had blown Our fleet in sunder, I could never see The Seed of Jove, nor once distinguish thee Boarding my ship, to take one woe from me. But only in my proper spirit involv’d, Err’d here and there, quite slain, till heav’n dissolv’d Me, and my ill; which chanc’d not, till thy grace By open speech confirm’d me, in a place Fruitful of people, where, in person, thou Didst give me guide, and all their city show; And that was the renown’d Phæacian earth. Now then, ev’n by the Author of thy birth, Vouchsafe my doubt the truth (for far it flies My thoughts that thus should fall into mine eyes Conspicuous Ithaca, but fear I touch At some far shore, and that thy wit is such Thou dost delude me) is it sure the same Most honour’d earth that bears my country’s name?” “I see,” said she, “thou wilt be ever thus In ev’ry worldly good incredulous, And therefore have no more the pow’r to see Frail life more plagued with infelicity In one so eloquent, ingenious, wise. Another man, that so long miseries Had kept from his lov’d home, and thus return’d To see his house, wife, children, would have burn’d In headlong lust to visit. Yet t’ inquire What states they hold, affects not thy desire, Till thou hast tried if in thy wife there be A sorrow wasting days and nights for thee In loving tears, that then the sight may prove A full reward for either’s mutual love. But I would never credit in you both Least cause of sorrow, but well knew the troth Of this thine own return, though all thy friends, I knew as well, should make returnless ends; Yet would not cross mine uncle Neptune so To stand their safeguard, since so high did go His wrath for thy extinction of the eye Of his lov’d son. Come then, I’ll show thee why I call this isle thy Ithaca, to ground Thy credit on my words: This haven is own’d By th’ agéd sea-god Phorcys, in whose brow This is the olive with the ample bough, And here, close by, the pleasant-shaded cave That to the Fount-Nymphs th’ Ithacensians gave, As sacred to their pleasures. Here doth run The large and cover’d den, where thou hast done Hundreds of off’rings to the Naiades, Here Mount Neritus shakes his curléd tress Of shady woods.” This said, she clear’d the cloud