The Odyssey of Homer


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The man for wisdom's various arts renown'd,  
Long exercised in woes, O Muse! resound;  
Who, when his arms had wrought the destined fall  
Of sacred Troy, and razed her heaven-built wall,  
Wandering from clime to clime, observant stray'd,  
Their manners noted, and their states survey'd,  
On stormy seas unnumber'd toils he bore,  
Safe with his friends to gain his natal shore:  
Vain toils! their impious folly dared to prey  
On herds devoted to the god of day;  
The god vindictive doom'd them never more  
(Ah, men unbless'd!) to touch that natal shore.  
Oh, snatch some portion of these acts from fate,  
Celestial Muse! and to our world relate.  
Now at their native realms the Greeks arrived;  
All who the wars of ten long years survived;  
And 'scaped the perils of the gulfy main.  
Ulysses, sole of all the victor train,  
An exile from his dear paternal coast,  
Deplored his absent queen and empire lost.  
Calypso in her caves constrain'd his stay,  
With sweet, reluctant, amorous delay;  
In vain-for now the circling years disclose  
The day predestined to reward his woes.  
At length his Ithaca is given by fate,  
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