Nor Orpheus pass unnamed, though from the rest Apart, he leaned upon that lyre divine, Which once in heaven his glory should attest, Set there a sacred sign.
But when auspicious thunders rolled on high, Unto its chords and to his chant sublime The joyful heroes, toiling manfully, With measured strokes kept time.
Then when that keel divided first the waves, Them Chiron cheered from Pelion’s piny crown, And wondering Sea-nymphs rose from ocean caves, And all the Gods looked down.
The bark divine, itself instinct with life, Went forth, and baffled Ocean’s rudest shocks, Escaping, though with pain and arduous strife, The huge encountering rocks;
And force and fraud o’ercome, and peril past, Its hard-won trophy raised in open view, Through prosperous floods was bringing home at last Its high heroic crew;
Till now they cried, (Ææa left behind, And the dead waters of the Cronian main,) “No peril more upon our path we find, Safe haven soon we gain.”
When, as they spake, sweet sounds upon the breeze Came to them, melodies till now unknown, And blended into one delight with these, Sweet odours sweetly blown,—
Sweet odours wafted from the flowery isle, Sweet music breathèd by the Sirens three, Who there lie wait, all passers to beguile, Fair monsters of the sea—
Fair monsters foul, that with their magic song And beauty to the shipman wandering, Worse peril than disastrous whirlpools strong, Or fierce sea-robbers bring.
Sometimes upon the diamond rocks they leant, Sometimes they sate upon the flowery lea That sloped towàrd the wave, and ever sent Shrill music o’er the sea.
One piped, one sang, one struck the golden lyre; And thus to forge and fling a threefold chain Of linkèd harmony the three conspire, O’er land and hoary main.
The winds, suspended by the charmèd song, Shed treacherous calm about that fatal isle; The waves, as though the halcyon o’er its young Were brooding, always smile;
And every one that listens, presently Forgetteth home, and wife, and children dear, All noble enterprise and purpose high, And turns his pinnace here,—
He turns his pinnace, warning taking none From the plain doom of all who went before, Whose bones lie bleaching in the wind and sun, And whiten all the shore.