Sapho-the lyric poetess of Lesbos, who lived in the seventh entury B. C. Only fragments of her poetry have come down to us, but they are fervid enough to justify the epithet "burning."

Delos-an island in the Egean sea, which was supposed to have risen from the sea. It was the birth-place of Phoebus Apollo.

Scian and Teian-refer to Homer and Anacreon. Scio is one of the towns which claim to be Homer's birthplace, and Teos is the birthplace of the lyric poet, Anacreon.

Islands of the Blest-The classic tradition about these islands was doubtless based upon the tale of some adventurous voyager who sailed as far west as the Cape Verde Islands, or the Canaries.

Marathon-a village on the east coast of Attica, memorable as the scene of the defeat of the Persians under Darius by the Greeks under Miltiades, 490 B. C.

Salamis-a small island of Greece off the coast of Attica, noted chiefly for the great naval battle fought there.

A king sate, etc.-This refers to King Xerxes and the battle of Salamis, a great naval battle between the Greeks and Persians, 480 B. C. The Persians were utterly overthrown. Byron doubtless got a suggestion for this stanza from lines from Æschylus, the Greek poet:

Deep were the groans of Xerxes, when he saw
This havoc; for his seat, a lofty mound
Commanding the wide sea, o'erlooked the hosts.
With rueful cries he rent his royal robes,

And through his troops embattled on the shore
Gave signal of retreat; then started wild

And filed disordered.

Must we but weep, etc.-The feeling expressed in this stanza is sincere, for shortly after the time this poem was written Byron consecrated himself to the cause of Greek independence.

Thermopyla-a famous pass leading from Thessaly into Locris, and the only road by which an invading army can go from northern to southern Greece. It was the scene of the heroic death of Leonidas and his 300 Spartans in their attempt to stem the tide of Persian invasion, 480 B. C.

Pyrrhic dance-the movements of this dance are in imitation of the motions of a combatant. It is said to be named from its inventor, Pyrrhicus.

Pyrrhic phalanx-a formation of troops in battle named after Pyrrhus, king of Epirus.

Cadmus-is fabled to have brought the alphabet from Egypt to Greece.

Sunium-the ancient name of Cape Colonna, the southernmost point of Attica, Greece. Its summit is crowned by the ruins of a temple, 269 feet above the level of the sea, of which 16 columns of white marble are still standing.

Swan-like-the swan is fabled to sing as it is dying; a "swan-song" is a death song.

ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER

The wonderful English boy-poet Keats was not a Greek scholar, though he possessed much of the Greek spirit. One night a friend brought to him a copy of Homer's Odyssey translated by George Chapman, and they sat up together all night reading it. They parted at daybreak and his friend went to his lodgings two miles away. At ten o'clock that morning his friend found the sonnet, On First Looking into Chapman's

Homer, lying on his library table. Keats had evidently written it before going to sleep after the night's reading.

ON FIRST LOOKING INTO CHAPMAN'S HOMER

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been,
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific-and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

-John Keats.

He had travelled in the poetic "realms of gold'' only in his imagination and his reading, and had seen "goodly states and kingdoms" only in the same way, for he had never been out of England. His reading had been confined largely to the poets of England, the "western islands." Apollo was the mythical god of music and poetry, and thus the ruler of these "realms of gold" which the poets held in fealty, loyalty, to him as vassals did in the old feudal days. The pictures of Homer all show him as "deep-browed."

Serene-is here used as a noun, meaning calm and clear atmosphere. Every schoolboy knows that it was Balboa and not Cortez who discovered the Pacific Ocean, but this slip does not really mar the beauty and majesty of the figure.

Leigh Hunt says of the last line: "We leave the reader standing upon it, with all the illimitable world of thought and feeling before him, to which his imagination will have brought him, while journeying through these 'realms of gold.'” Whether the reader has such thoughts and feelings is a good test of whether or not he has read with the understanding. Keats was only twenty-one when he wrote the sonnet.

BREAK, BREAK, BREAK

Some readers will find in this lyric of Tennyson's a mood of sorrow, others a cry of grief; which, will depend upon how fully the reader can experience for himself the emotion of the author. To those who can enter completely into the spirit of the piece, the breaking of the waves of the sea is like the breaking of the heart.

On thy cold gray stones, O sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter

The thoughts that arise in me.

2

O well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

3

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

4

At the foot of thy crags, O sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.

-Alfred Tennyson.

In the first stanza the author says that the breaking waves give him thoughts which he cannot utter. This is the most evident meaning of the poem, that emotion is too deep for any words to express. That the thoughts are sad ones is evident from the three words, "cold gray stones." The sight of breaking waves is often a joyous sight, but not so here.

Stanzas two and three tell why. The fisherman's boy is too young to know, and the cheerful sailor lad does not think of the tragedies of those who "go down to the sea in ships." It is well for them that they sing and shout now, for their own fathers may perchance be the next to lose their lives. The stately ships go on to their haven under the hill, but in some