ÆGEUS.
Reading edition
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BY WILLIAM H. C. HOSMER.
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Theseus set sail for Athens in the same mournful ship in which he came to Crete, but forgot to change his sails, according to the instructions of his father; so that when his father beheld from a watch-tower the ship returning with black sails, he imagined that his son was dead, and cast himself headlong into the sea, which was afterward called Ægean sea, from his name and destiny.—Andrew Tooke.
“A mast above the waters
Is rising tall and fair,
And hither bound, with glory crowned,
Welcome my princely heir!”
A king these glad words uttered,
His white locks streaming free,
Beneath a golden circlet,
In his watch-tower by the sea.
When nearer drew to Athens
The bark that bore his son,
The monarch, with an altered look,
This loud lament begun.
“Those sails are sails of mourning,
They flap above the dead;
And winds, that fill them, murmur
Low lies the laureled head!
“Vain, vain the hope long cherished,
That this old hand of mine
To Theseus, in dying hour,
Would royal robe resign.
“Though black the sails and rigging
Of yon ill-omened bark,
In my despairing bosom
There is a night more dark.”
High, high the broken billow
Its wreath of foam did fling,
When, headlong from the dizzy tower
Plunged, in his wo, the king.
Thenceforth, august Athena!
Thy sea, for beauty famed,
The bards of classic story
“Ægeum Mare” named.
A waste of troubled waters
Is, aye, the poet’s dower,
And royal thought keeps vigil
Within a lonely tower.
Rich fancies have been trusted
To Fortune’s varying gale,
And eagerly the watcher marks
Yon home-returning sail.
Perchance on board are riches,
To cheer the minstrel’s lot,
And glory’s crown of amaranth,
Whose purple fadeth not.
Winds drive the vessel nearer,
And well their wrath she braves—
“Ho, watchman! swells her canvas
A white cloud o’er the waves?
“Thy visions, bard, are perished,
Thy golden hopes have fled—
Those sails are sails of mourning,
They flap above the dead.”