The Sicilian Expedition

To-day the Triremes sailed for Sicily With no wind stirring on a soundless sea; But a great crying of birds beat up and filled The empty caverns of the air and stilled The thrashing of the oars. The level sun Unto himself, it seemed, drew one by one With strings of gold the ships that no one heard Move on the waters, till at last one bird (Of all the wings past knowledge and past counting) Wheeled upwards on the air and mounting, mounting, Rose out of human sight, but all the rest Passed with the passing fleet into the West.

To-day the Triremes sailed—and will their sailing Prosper or fail because a gull was wailing For crumbs about the prows? Who but a fool Would find a message in a screaming gull? For if gods use such messengers as these The less gods they (or so says Socrates). They are not gods (he says) of fear and hate, A swollen type of man degenerate, Catching at flattery, at sorrow fleering And every spiteful whisper overhearing; But largely on their mountain they attend Unflinchingly the one appointed end, When what was nobly done and finely striven Will find the archetype laid up in heaven. Not these by gulls pronounce or suffer doom, Nor cries among the ships (and yet the gloom Settles about Athene’s temple. If An injured god used his prerogative Of anger, might not Hermes?)—that’s the gull Stirring the superstition of a fool! What if a week ago we, waking, found The Hermae spoiled or fallen to the ground? Shall Fate be altered or a doom be spoken Because an image was in malice broken? Or Athens, that remembers Marathon, Rock in her empire for a splintered stone? How dear she is—was never city else So loved, or lovely in her strength; like bells Pealed in the brain her beauty. This is she, Athens, whose sweeter name is liberty.

To-day the Triremes sailed—as Zeus decrees All shall be done; but hardly Socrates, As Westward in the dark our captains wear, Would frown if an Athenian spoke a prayer Even to Hermes, (even though it seem We fear the flight of birds and cries in him), Thus saying simply for the love of her— Athens—“O Hermes, called the Messenger, God of the wings, since now the sails are set, If aught was evil, evil now forget! If aught was left undone, think not of this But her remember, Hermes, what she is, A city leaning to the sea, and shod With freedom on her feet, as thou a god With wings art poised for flight—O, if the gull Were bird of thine, Hermes, be merciful.”