The North Sea -- Second Cycle
I
Greeting to the Sea
Thalatta!Thalatta!
I hail thee,O Sea,thou Ancient of Days!
I hail thee,O Sea,ten thousand times
With jubilant heart,
Of yore as once hailed thee
Those Grecian hearts ten thousand,
Homestead-desiring,calamity-mastering,
World-renowned bold Grecian hearts.
The billows were heaving,
Were heaving and roaring,
The sun shed briskly from heaven
His quivering rosy sparklets,
In sudden scare the tribes of sea-birds
Rose on the wing,loud-shrieking;
O'er stamping of war-steeds and clang of shields smitten,
Far-pealed that shout,like a victor's cry:
'Thalatta I Thalatta!
'
I hail thee,O Sea,thou Ancient of Days!
Like speech of my homestead murmurs thy water,
Like dreams of my childhood shimmer before me
The heaving leagues of thy billowy realm,
As Memory,the grey-beard,remurmurs his stories
Of all those dear magnificent playthings,
Of all those glittering Christmas-presents,
Of all those branchy red trees of coral,
Gold-fishes,pearls,and shimmering sea-shells,
Which thou mysteriously dost guard
Down there in thy lucid crystal house.
Oh,how long have I languished in lonely exile!
Like a poor fading flow'ret
Shut in a botanist's tin for collecting
Drooped the sick heart in my breast.
Meseems I've sat the livelong winter,
A sick man alone in his gloomy sick-room,
And now have suddenly left it;
And blindingly flashes upon me
The emerald spring by the sun awakened,
And the trees are a-whisper with snowy blossom,
And the fair young flowers gaze in my face,
Their bright eyes brimming with sweetness;
All's odour and hum,and laughter and breeze,
And in heaven's blue deep the birds are all singing-
Thalatta!Thalatta!
Thou valiant homing heart,
How oft,how bitter oft,
The northern she-barbarians have beset thee!
From great eyes,roving for conquest,
Shooting their fiery arrows;
With words ground crooked like sabres,
Threatening still to cleave my bosom;
With letters like clubs they battered to bits-,-
My feeble and stupefied brain—
In vain I braced my buckler against them,'
The shafts flew hissing,the blows fell crashing,
And by the northern she-barbarians
Down was I driven to the sea—
And,breathing freely,I hail thee,O Sea,
Thou kindly,rescuing Sea,
Thalatta!Thalatta!