Thereat Laertes answered him and said: 'If thou art verily my son Odysseus, Come home again, now tell me of some sign Infallible, so that I may be sure.' Then deep Odysseus answered him and said: 'Look first on this scar and consider it, Where the boar ripped me with his gleaming tusk, Upon Parnassus, whither I had gone. Thou and my honoured mother, ye had sent me Unto Autolycus, my mother's father, To get the gifts which on his coming hither He promised and agreed to give me. But Come, I will tell thee also of the trees Through all this ordered garden, which of old Thou gavest me when I was but a child Begging for this and that, and following thee All through the garden. 'Twas these very trees That we were passing, and thou toldest me The name and kind of each, and gavest me Thirteen pear-trees, ten apple-trees, and figs Two score; and fifty rows of vines as well Thou namedst as the ones which I should have, Whereof each row ripened successively, Bearing all sorts of clusters, whensoe'er Zeus' seasons from above weighed down on them.' E'en as he spoke, his father's knees and heart Were loosed, to recognize the certain signs Odysseus told him; and he cast his arms Round his dear son, and steadfast good Odysseus Caught up his father fainting unto him. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE GREAT CAROUSAL by LOUIS UNTERMEYER WHEN THERE IS PEACE by HENRY AUSTIN DOBSON WRITTEN IN KEATS' 'ENDYMION' by THOMAS HOOD A SHROPSHIRE LAD: 18 by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN THE MEANING OF PRAYER by JAMES MONTGOMERY FOREIGN LANDS by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON EMBLEMS OF LOVE: CUPID TO CHLOE WEEPING; A SONNET by PHILIP AYRES |