Classic Poem

“I have been very patient.” Through my ears
The wail most hopeless of that love-doomed King
Herod, re-echoed, and through Time will ring
And o'er Night's tides where desolation steers.
Not through the grimly grand dramatic years
Elizabethan, where song-giants sing,
Was seen more wildly pitiful a thing
Than Herod's madness, Mariamne's tears.

But now, Calypso vainly on the breeze
Whispering, while dreams of Ithaca gild the foam,
Past islands where white arms invite to ease
And softest dalliance weariest breasts that roam,
Past pleasure's temples, past all rock-strewn seas,
Poet, thou guidest great Ulysses home.