And safe they won the haven that they sought.

XVII.

Beneath a grassy cliff, beneath the down,
Where swift Eurotas mingles with the sea,
There climb'd the grey walls of a little town,
The sleepy waters wash'd it languidly,
For tempests in that haven might not be.
The isle across the inlet guarded all,
And the shrill winds that roam the ocean free
Broke and were broken on the rocky wall.

XVIII.

Then Paris did a point of hunting blow,
Nor yet the sound had died upon the hill
When round the isle they spied a scarlet prow,
And oars that flash'd into that haven still,
The oarsmen bending forward with a will,
And swift their black ship to the haven-side
They brought, and steer'd her in with goodly skill,
And bare on board the strange Achaean bride.

XIX.

Now while the swift ship through the waters clave,
All happy things that in the waters dwell,
Arose and gamboll'd on the glassy wave,
And Nereus led them with his sounding shell: