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“It was the king

Our father. He has willed that we should wander,

Even as in a dream, and be the gods

Of strangers. Somewhere west of the ocean stream

He sends us, to a circle of small hills—

Come, for I see the place!”

That suffered thunder

Sounded again, agreeing; and they went.

Out of the cave they poured, into spring sun

Whose warmth they yet increased, for the falling light

Was less than theirs was, moving as they moved.

No soldier and no shepherd, climbing here,

Would have discovered deity. The brambles

Hid as they ever had this stony hole

Whence seven had been wakened, and where still,

Enormous in dark chains, their parents wept.

Invisible to suns, the seven gathered

Round a white rock and gazed. The sea was there,

The Aegean, and a ship without a sail

Plied southward, trailing smoke; at which Hephaestus

Squinted. Then he slapped his thigh and smiled,

And waved for six to follow as down world

He leapt.

They landed, all of them, as lightly

As a fair flock of gulls upon the prow

Of the tramp Jonathan B. Travis, bound