  Thalatta! Thalatta! Hail to thee, O thou Ocean eterne! Hail to thee ten thousand times From hearts all exulting, As formerly hail’d thee Ten thousand Grecian hearts, Misfortune-contending, homeward-aspiring, World-renown’d Grecian hearts. The billows were heaving, They heaved and they bluster’d, The sun shed hastily downwards His light so sportive and rosy-hued; The sudden-startled flocks of sea-mews Flutter’d along, loud screaming, The horses were stamping, the bucklers were ringing, And afar there resounded triumphantly: Thalatta! Thalatta! Like voices of home thy waters are rushing, Like visions of childhood saw I a glimmering Over thy heaving billowy-realm, And olden remembrance again tells me stories Of all the darling, beautiful playthings, Of all the glittering Christmas presents, Of all the ruddy coral branches, The gold fish, pearls and colour’d shells Which thou mysteriously dost keep Down yonder in bright crystal house. O how have I languish’d in drear foreign lands! Like to a wither’d flower In the tin case of a botanist, Lay in my bosom my heart; Methought whole winters long I sat An invalid, in darksome sick-room, And now I suddenly leave it, And with dazzling rays am I greeted By emerald springtime, the sunny-awaken’d, And the snowy blossoming trees are all rustling, And the youthful flowers upon me gaze With eyes all chequer’d and fragrant; There’s a perfume and humming and breathing and laughing, And the birds in the azure heavens are singing— Thalatta! Thalatta! Thou valiant retreating heart! How oft, how bitter-oft, wast thou Hard press’d by the Northern barbarian women From large victorious eyes Shot they their burning arrows; With words both crooked and polish’d They threatened to cleave my breast, With cuniform billets-doux harass’d they My poor distracted brain— In vain I held my shield to resist them, The arrows whizz’d and the blows crash’d heavily, And by the Northern barbarian women Back to the sea was I driven, And freely breathing I hailÈd the sea, The darling life-saving sea, Thalatta! Thalatta! |
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