O’er heaven’s pure azure spreads the glowing light,
Promiscuous death the form of war confounds,
Each adverse battle gored with equal wounds;
But when his evening wheels o’erhung the main,
Then conquest crown’d the fierce Ciconian train. 
Six brave companions from each ship we lost,
The rest escape in haste, and quit the coast,
With sails outspread we fly the unequal strife,
Sad for their loss, but joyful of our life. 
Yet as we fled, our fellows’ rites we paid,
And thrice we call’d on each unhappy shade,

“Meanwhile the god, whose hand the thunder forms,
Drives clouds on clouds, and blackens heaven with storms: 
Wide o’er the waste the rage of Boreas sweeps,
And night rush’d headlong on the shaded deeps. 
Now here, now there, the giddy ships are borne,
And all the rattling shrouds in fragments torn. 
We furl’d the sail, we plied the labouring oar,
Took down our masts, and row’d our ships to shore. 
Two tedious days and two long nights we lay,
O’erwatch’d and batter’d in the naked bay. 
But the third morning when Aurora brings,
We rear the masts, we spread the canvas wings;
Refresh’d and careless on the deck reclined,
We sit, and trust the pilot and the wind. 
Then to my native country had I sail’d: 
But, the cape doubled, adverse winds prevail’d. 
Strong was the tide, which by the northern blast
Impell’d, our vessels on Cythera cast,
Nine days our fleet the uncertain tempest bore
Far in wide ocean, and from sight of shore: 
The tenth we touch’d, by various errors toss’d,
The land of Lotus and the flowery coast. 
We climb’d the beach, and springs of water found,
Then spread our hasty banquet on the ground. 
Three men were sent, deputed from the crew
(A herald one) the dubious coast to view,
And learn what habitants possess’d the place. 
They went, and found a hospitable race: 
Not prone to ill, nor strange to foreign guest,
They eat, they drink, and nature gives the feast
The trees around them all their food produce: 
Lotus the name:  divine, nectareous juice! 
(Thence call’d Lo’ophagi); which whose tastes,
Insatiate riots in the sweet repasts,
Nor other home, nor other care intends,
But quits his house, his country, and his friends. 
The three we sent, from off the enchanting ground
We dragg’d reluctant, and by force we bound. 
The rest in haste forsook the pleasing shore,
Or, the charm tasted, had return’d no more. 
Now placed in order on their banks, they sweep
The sea’s smooth face, and cleave the hoary deep: 
With heavy hearts we labour through the tide,
To coasts unknown, and oceans yet untried.