Odysseus's Lotos

They think that I took no flower
From that virgin land of ever-still dreams,
That those blossoms had not the power
To bind me to the land where everything gleams,

And the sun is a fire in a bank of cloud,
And the clouds are the blooms of the sky,
And the breakers are hushed from the loud
Crash of mid-ocean to a seagull's sweet sigh.

They think that because I chose duty
Means that I did not smell the sweet scent
That drifted from that land of languorous beauty,
And by languid breezes to the ocean was sent,

And that I did not long to half-hover in a world
Where the dawn is unfolding like a rose,
And one can lie still while around one are hurled
Misfortunes of the past, now turned to rainbows.

They think that I because I had wished
To see again the shores of Ithaca my home
Means that I did not long for the opal mist
That fills the mind with the clarity of a mad poem,

And raptures one away to the deep realms
Where there are known all the heart's mysteries,
Where the winds murmuring in oaks and elms
Hold the clues to the tongue of the seas.

They do not know that I took a lotos, 
My own mingling of bright dreams and moonfire.
They do not know that I have my own lust-
Not as theirs was, a longing for dreamy desire-

But for when I let loose my last breath.
Then let the lotos chase my mind with dreams,
And then let the sirens sing me into death,
Into the sea where my youth's long-lost sunlight still gleams.