know not what, and choosing neither to abide in the fair Phaeacian island,
nor to dwell and die with the Sirens, at length end miserably in a desert
country by the sea, is set forth the Vanity of Melancholy. And by the land
of Phaeacia is to be understood the place of Art and of fair Pleasures; and
by Circe's Isle, the place of bodily delights, whereof men, falling aweary,
attain to Eld, and to the darkness of that age. Which thing Master
Francoys Rabelais feigned, under the similitude of the Isle of the
Macraeones.



THE SEEKERS FOR PHAEACIA.



There is a land in the remotest day,
Where the soft night is born, and sunset dies;
The eastern shore sees faint tides fade away,
That wash the lands where laughter, tears, and sighs
Make life,--the lands below the blue of common skies.

But in the west is a mysterious sea,
(What sails have seen it, or what shipmen known?)
With coasts enchanted where the Sirens be,
With islands where a Goddess walks alone,
And in the cedar trees the magic winds make moan.

Eastward the human cares of house and home,
Cities, and ships, and unknown gods, and loves;
Westward, strange maidens fairer than the foam,