Homer

“ The faithful servant joy'd his unknown lord.
"Oh be thou dear (Ulysses cried) to Jove,
As well thou claim'st a grateful stranger's love!"
"Be then thy thanks (the bounteous swain replied)
Enjoyment of the good the gods provide.
From God's own hand descend our joys and woes;
These he decrees, and he but suffers those:
All power is his, and whatsoe'er he wills,
The will itself, omnipotent, fulfils." ”

“ Each day the fattest bleeds of either herd,
All to the suitors' wasteful board preferr'd."
Thus he, benevolent: his unknown guest
With hunger keen devours the savoury feast;
While schemes of vengeance ripen in his breast.
Silent and thoughtful while the board he eyed,
Eumaeus pours on high the purple tide;
The king with smiling looks his joy express'd,
And thus the kind inviting host address'd:
"Say now, what man is he, the man deplored,
So rich, so potent, whom you style your lord?
Late with such affluence and possessions bless'd,
And now in honour's glorious bed at rest. ”

“ The scorching flames climb round on every side;
Then the singed members they with skill divide;
On these, in rolls of fat involved with art,
The choicest morsels lay from every part.
Some in the flames bestrew'd with flour they threw;
Some cut in fragments from the forks they drew:
These while on several tables they dispose. ”

“ The coasts they ravage, and the natives kill.
The spreading clamour to their city flies,
And horse and foot in mingled tumult rise.
The reddening dawn reveals the circling fields,
Horrid with bristly spears, and glancing shields.
Jove thunder'd on their side. Our guilty head
We turn'd to flight; the gathering vengeance spread
On all parts round, and heaps on heaps lie dead. ”

“ Their rapine strengthens, and their riots rise:
Constant as Jove the night and day bestows,
Bleeds a whole hecatomb, a vintage flows.
None match'd this hero's wealth, of all who reign
O'er the fair islands of the neighbouring main.
Nor all the monarchs whose far-dreaded sway
The wide-extended continents obey:
First, on the main land, of Ulysses' breed
Twelve herds, twelve flocks, on ocean's margin feed;
As many stalls for shaggy goats are rear'd;
As many lodgments for the tusky herd;
Two foreign keepers guard: and here are seen
Twelve herds of goats that graze our utmost green ”

“ A rural portico of rugged stone
(In absence of his lord with honest toil
His own industrious hands had raised the pile) .
The wall was stone from neighbouring quarries borne,
Encircled with a fence of native thorn,
And strong with pales, by many a weary stroke
Of stubborn labour hewn from heart of oak:
Frequent and thick. Within the space were rear'd
Twelve ample cells, the lodgments of his herd.
Full fifty pregnant females each contain'd;
The males without (a smaller race) remain'd ”