And by the land of Phaeacia is to
be understood the place of Art and of fair Pleasures; and by
Circe's Isle, the places of bodily delights, whereof men, falling
aweary, attain to Eld, and to the darkness of that age. Which
thing Master Francoys Rabelais feigned, under the similitude of the
Isle of the Macraeones.
THE SEEKERS FOR PHAEACIA.
There is a land in the remotest day,
Where the soft night is born, and sunset dies;
The eastern shores see faint tides fade away,
That wash the lands where laughter, tears, and sighs,
Make life,--the lands beneath the blue of common skies.
But in the west is a mysterious sea,
(What sails have seen it, or what shipmen known?)
With coasts enchanted where the Sirens be,
With islands where a Goddess walks alone,
And in the cedar trees the magic winds make moan
Eastward the human cares of house and home,
Cities, and ships, and unknown Gods, and loves;
Westward, strange maidens fairer than the foam,
And lawless lives of men, and haunted groves,
Wherein a God may dwell, and where the Dryad roves.
The Gods are careless of the days and death
Of toilsome men, beyond the western seas;
The Gods are heedless of their painful breath,
And love them not, for they are not as these;
But in the golden west they live and lie at ease.
Yet the Phaeacians well they love, who live
At the light's limit, passing careless hours,
Most like the Gods; and they have gifts to give,
Even wine, and fountains musical, and flowers,
And song, and if they will, swift ships, and magic powers.
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