I treat with the footed olive tree, Who more than laurel serves a crown For loving and wise Penelope. In Ithaca the sun goes down – As in a cold and flowing stream Her footsteps disappear and drown, So light she treads in treading dream, And sees Scamander washing steps That closer, ever closer, seem. Work of that lord of great adepts! Thou art the pillar of her mind, Her loveliness that oversteps The heart and soul of Helen’s kind – And he too rests his famous head On reeds themselves that to you bind. Once the travelling hero said, And of all turns this wisdom was, “Come to our hallowed marriage bed.” I treat with the footed olive tree, Who rests upon caressing years: The pillar of his ecstasy And surety against her fears. She looked upon him, when he went, And watered him with absent tears. Now her forehead, sorrow spent, Inclines towards the olive-throne, And knows his brow to her is bent In whose soul-soil the wood was grown, Then she takes up the tapestry, Sings softly for those ears, alone That brave the strange and treacherous sea, Remakes the day that she was wed And bound the ship of odyssey. For once the travelling hero said, And of all turns this wisdom was, “Come to our hallowed marriage bed.”
