Tell me the song that the sirens sang When the Greeks plunged from their triremes, left their oars adrift. Achilles, who captured Troy, they tell, In a horse crammed with bronze, Achilles led his armies well. Yet he was caught by the melody The maids of Hellas sang. Tell me, Venus, I pray to thee, What tune so sweetly rang? A prisoner guarded in his cell Sang so sadly, sang so well, That ransomless they set him free, Restored him to her who wept at the prisonside. Nausicaä at the fountain, Penelope in the hall, Zeuxis over the housetops combing, All sang folksongs in the gloaming. ... And the cup-bearers' call! Echoes of echoes over the plains And the emigrants' refrains! Where are the songs of the days gone by Sung in a fashion now no more remembered? Where are the pearly-toothed damosels Who sang love under lock and key? And my songs? May they come back to me! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SANDHILL PEOPLE by CARL SANDBURG THE SONG OF THE MAD WOMAN'S SON by KAREN SWENSON THE GROVES OF BLARNEY by RICHARD ALFRED MILLIKIN SONNET: DEATH-WARNINGS by FRANCISCO GOMEZ DE QUEVEDO Y VILLEGAS AMORETTI: 70 by EDMUND SPENSER THE TENT ON THE BEACH: 11. ABRAHAM DAVENPORT by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER |