Road to Corinth

Today, I part from Ithaca,
With starlight caught in Byzantine,
I keep it caged in river-sage,
And lamps of spice and kerosene,

I make my way beneath a sun,
Of miracles and meadow-lea,
To give me joy, I may employ,
The shadow of a cypress tree,

And far beyond the ocean spray,
The sands with sea-glass heavens meet,
And gilded oar converging shore,
They bathe me in the salts of Crete,

The clouds themselves have never seen,
In all their days of chasing vice,
The seamless, flaxen, sandstone sheen,
Of voyaging through paradise