Odysseus tells his mariners to have courage assuring them that they will soon reach the shore of their home. In the afternoon, they reach a land in which it seemed always afternoon, because of the languid and peaceful atmosphere. The mariners sight this land of streams with its gliming river flowing to the sa, its trees snow-capped mountaintops, and its shadowy pine growing in the vale.
The mariners are greeted by the “mild0eyed melancholy” , the lotos-eaters whose dark faces appear pale aginst rosy sun-set. These loter-eaters come bearing the flower and the fruit of the lotos, which they offer to Odysses’ mariners. Those who eat the lotos deel as id, they had fallen into a deep sleep , they sit down upon the yellow sand of the island and they could only hear their own heart-beat. Although it has been sweet to dream of their homes in Ithaca, the lotos make them weary of wandering, preferring to linger here. One who has eaten the lotos fruit proclaims that he will “return no more”, and all the mariners begin to sing about this resolution to remain in the land of the lotos eaters.
The rest of the poem consists of the eight numbered stanzas of the mariners choric song, expressing their resolution to stay for ever. First, they praise the sweet and soporific music of the land of the lotos eaters, comparing this music to petals dew, granite, and tired eye-lids. In the second stanza , they queation why man is the only creature in nature who must toil. They argue that everything in nature is able to rest and stay still, but man is tossed from one sorrow to another. Man’s inner spirit tells him that tranquility and calmness offer the only joy, and yet he is fated to toil and wander his whole life.
In the third stanza, the mariners declare that everything in nature is allotted a life span in which to bloom and fade. As examples of other living things that die, they cite the “folded leaf, which eventually turns yellow and drifts to the earth, as well as...