ERE the fierce Tartar fled Cathay, The stark Goth shafted Tartary, The fiery Kelt the Gothic fray, -- And the Kelt rolled on Italy; Ere the wolf-cubs lolled tongues of prey, Or Rhodian galleys sheered the sea, An isle there was -- where is't to-day? -- The Muses called it Sicily. Was it, and is it not? -- Aye me, Where's Eden, or Taprobane? Where now does old Simaethus flow? You take a map (great Poesy, Have they mapped Heaven!) and thereon show -- What? -- the dust-heap of Italy! The Ausonian mainland from its toe Spurns it aside contemptuously. You point to it, you man that know, And this, you say, is Sicily. I know not how the thing may be -- It is not Sicily to me! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...WRITTEN FOR MY SON, AND SPOKEN BY HIM AT HIS FIRST PUTTING ON BREECHES by MARY BARBER THE NIGHT MAIL NORTH (EUSTON SQUARE, 1840) by HENRY CHOLMONDELEY-PENNELL FAREWELL TO LOVE by JOHN DONNE BALLAD by PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR MORAL ESSAYS: EPISTLE 2. TO A LADY: OF THE CHARACTERS OF WOMEN by ALEXANDER POPE |