HOMER.

———

BY TRUEMAN S. PERRY.

———

Upon the rocks, the wave-worn rocks of Chios,

Sat an old beggar—hoar and bent was he—

Still murmuring to himself, the lone winds drifting

His words, like leaves about a withered tree.

Patiently all the day had he been standing

Where pour the ways their turbid tides along,

Meekly had borne the coldness, and the rudeness,

The jeers and jostlings of the thoughtless throng.

And now at night no home or friend received him;

Few e’er had loved him, his nor cot nor hall,

For he had always walked apart from others,

A mark of marvel, or of jest, to all.

Men lightly heeded him, poor helpless dotard,

And few did note that face so high and sad,

And fewer yet gleaned up his muttered measures,

And many said the strange old man was mad.

Each bowing low, to gods that saw not, heard not,

He’d left the herd of folly, gain and pride,

When by its tender kiss, and kind low whisper,

He wist the coming of the even-tide.

Had he come forth to look on rock and wild-wood,

Bathed in the amber light of setting day?

Was it to watch the rain-bow glowing, fading,

In the light leapings of the silver spray?

Vainly did even and her fairer sister

Pour all their glories on his sightless eye,

Long had he ceased to mark the sun’s hot splendor,

The wave’s fleet sparkle and the cloud’s rich dye.

Low on his shriveled palms he bows his forehead,

With beard white waving round his loosened zone,

While strains majestic from the ocean’s bosom

Spake to the mightier stirring in his own.

The towers of Illion, and the Argive ramparts,

The keel-plowed sand he scans with inward eye,

And now he hears the sound of many myriads

Rushing along in thundering onset by.

Bright ’mid the serried spears he sees Peleides,

The sons of Atreus, Diomed’s swift car,

The goddess-born, and Hector, and the Xanthus,

Rolling his red and spumy waves afar.

He marks the brief recoil, the fiercer onset,

The struggling waver of the deathful shock,

And hosts convulsed around each god-like hero,

Like storms impetuous torn by mountain rock.

His snowy hair streams wild, his withered bosom

Heaves as the troubled surges rise and fall,

And hot Promethean fire, intensely gathering,

Now blazing leaps from either sightless ball.

“And night came down and all the ways were shaded,”

Dark green the last hot footsteps of the sun,

Still sat the bard entranced with glowing visions,

His night ended, and his day begun.

And still he sat and felt the cooling night-wind,

And listened to the wave’s untiring beat,

And sang of earth, and heaven, and hell, till morning

Recalled him, hungering, to the dusty street.

Sad was the hour that scourged thy spirit homeward,

While yet her pinions were untired and strong,

From those bright fields where she had found and tasted

The honied lotus, mighty one of song.

Loneness of soul, phantasies bright and wayward,

Neglect and sorrow, longings sad and wild,

Well didst thou prove, and faithfully bequeath them,

E’en to thy latest and thy meanest child.

O, pitied, jeered, adored! Time’s latest offspring

Shall turn with reverent heed those pages o’er,

Great with thy deathless thoughts—thy peerless glory

Shall brighten aye, till time shall be no more.