Lloyd Mifflin

The Ship

I LAY on Delos of the Cyclades
At evening, on a cape of golden land;        
The blind Bard’s book was open in my hand,
There where the Cyclops makes the Odyssey’s
Calm pages tremble as Odysseus flees.
Then, stately, like a mirage o’er the sand,
A phantom ship across the sunset strand        
Rose out of dreams and clave the purple seas;
Straight on that city’s bastions did she run—
Whose toppling turrets on their donjons hold
Bells that to mortal ears have never tolled—
Then drifted down the gateways of the sun        
With fading pennon and with gonfalon,
And cast her anchors in the pools of gold.