Isle of Mystral Lake

December 18, 2007

Isle of Mystral Lake




I've been dreaming of owning an isle since read the enchanting words by Yeats of his The Lake Isle of Innisfree. What has even more deeply induced this daydream, however, was a passage of The Odyssey, where Homer depicted the picturesque scene as Hermes stepped into Calypso's island:

A great fire
blazed on the hearth and the smell of cedar
cleanly split and sweetwood burning bright
wafted a cloud of fragrance down the island.
......
Thick, luxuriant woods grew round the cave,
alders and black poplars, pungent cypress too,
and there birds roosted, folding their long wings,
owls and hawks and the spread-beaked ravens of the sea,
black skimmers who make their living off the waves.
And round the mouth of the cavern trailed a vine
laden with clusters, bursting with ripe grapes.
Four springs in a row, bubbling clean and cold,
running side-by-side, took channels left and right.
Soft meadows spreading round were starred with violets,
lush with beds of parsley. Why, even a deathless god
who came upon that place would gaze in wonder,
heart entranced with pleasure...

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