Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HOMER, BLIND, by LEWIS MORRIS (1833-1907)


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HOMER, BLIND, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: This is the tale wise aristoteles
Last Line: And left the ages brighter for his loss.
Subject(s): Homer (10th Century B.c.); Poetry & Poets; Iliad; Odyssey


THIS is the tale wise Aristoteles,
Master of knowledge wider than his time,
Fired by some rare poetic fervour, told:

The young Homeros meditating much
The tale of Troy divine, o'er all the shores
Of Troas wandered, if perchance his eyes
Might take some vivid memory of the Past
To fire his song. Long on the desert plain
He fed his solitary muse with thoughts
Of that great pageant -- Hector, and his sire
Priamos; Agamemnon with his hosts;
The fair false Helen, and her perjured Lord
And all the varied fortunes of the fight,
Till tower and temple sank in blood and fire.
And last, beside the narrow waters came
Of Hellespont, and there, one dreaming day,
Knelt where within a time-worn tomb were laid,
White ashes hid within an urn of gold,
Achilles and Patroklos side by side.
Then gradually to his musing eye
The Past gave up its secret, and he saw
All things as they had been. The brazen prows
Leapt o'er the waves. Again a fresh breeze woke
The blue AEgaean, and the oarsmen, bent
Upon their well-ranged benches, sheared again
The crisp white surges of the purple sea;
The bustle of the landing; the long line
Of white tents ranged beneath the untaken walls;
The dull delays; the virgin sacrificed
In vain; the weary winters and the tale
Of daily war and death. But most his mind
Turned to the young Achilles, the best bloom
Of chivalry of old, his mystic birth,
His goddess-mother, his heroic youth,
His perfect manhood, and his early doom
Before the unconquered town, till last his soul
Grew fired, and he possessed.

Then, as he gazed
With a fixed gaze upon the tomb, behold
There rose a gleaming phantom in a mist
Of silvery light -- silvery his panoply,
His greaves, his created helmet and his spear,
And silvery as a statue, the strong limbs,
The fair proud face, the god-like symmetry
Of a young hero, like a blazing star
Burned with white fire, and straight the gazer knew
The presence of Achilles. As he looked,
Brighter and keener still the vision grew,
As when the Goddess with a bath of fire
Purged out the mortal alloy from her child
In Phthia long ago. And then no more
He gazed, but, with the exceeding splendour blind,
No longer saw the aspect of the sun,
Nor earth, nor any more the purple sea,
Nor Dawn, nor Eve, but one Heroic Day
Lighted his inner vision till he died,
And left the Ages brighter for his loss.





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