Gayley
The Age of Fable (chapters 22 and 23) Thomas Bulfinch
The Story of the Greek People Eva March Tappan
Greece and the Aegean Isles Philip S. Marden
Greek Lands and Letters F.G. and A.C.E.  Allinson
Old Greek Folk Stories J.P.  Peabody
Men of Old Greece Jennie Hall
The Lotos-eaters Alfred Tennyson
Ulysses " "
The Strayed Reveller Matthew Arnold
A Song of Phaeacia Andrew Lang
The Voyagers (in The Fields of Dawn) Lloyd Mifflin
Alice Freeman Palmer George Herbert Palmer

See the references for Moly on p. 84, and for Odysseus on p. 140.

ODYSSEUS

GEORGE CABOT LODGE

    He strove with Gods and men in equal mood
      Of great endurance:  Not alone his hands
      Wrought in wild seas and labored in strange lands,
      And not alone his patient strength withstood
    The clashing cliffs and Circe’s perilous sands: 
      Eager of some imperishable good
      He drave new pathways thro’ the trackless flood
      Foreguarded, fearless, free from Fate’s commands. 
    How shall our faith discern the truth he sought? 
      We too must watch and wander till our eyes,
      Turned skyward from the topmost tower of thought,
    Haply shall find the star that marked his goal,
      The watch-fire of transcendent liberties
      Lighting the endless spaces of the soul.

SUGGESTIONS FOR STUDY

Read the poem through.  How did Ulysses strive with gods and men?  Why can it be said that he did not labor alone?  Look up the story of Circe and her palace.[10] What was the imperishable good that Ulysses sought?  What does his experience have to do with our lives?  What sort of freedom does the author speak of in the last few lines?

This verse-form is called the sonnet.  How many lines has it?  Make out a scheme of the rhymes:  a b b a, etc.  Notice the change of thought at the ninth line.  Do all sonnets show this change?

EXERCISES

Read several other sonnets; for instance, the poem On the Life-Mask of
Abraham Lincoln, on page 210, or On First Looking into Chapman’s
Homer, by John Keats, or The Grasshopper and the Cricket, by Leigh
Hunt.

Notice how these other sonnets are constructed.  Why are they considered good?

If possible, read part of what is said about the sonnet in English Verse, by R.M.  Alden or in Forms of English Poetry, by C.F.  Johnson, or in Melodies of English Verse, by Lewis Kennedy Morse; notice some of the examples given.