Sailing east to Greece
Impression de Voyage
"I stood upon the soil of Greece at last!"
Poem
The sea was sapphire coloured, and the skyBurned like a heated opal through the air;We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fairFor the blue lands that to the eastward lie.From the steep prow I marked with quickening eyeZakynthos, every olive grove and creek,Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak,And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady.The flapping of the sail against the mast,The ripple of the water on the side,The ripple of girls’ laughter at the stern,The only sounds:—when ’gan the West to burn,And a red sun upon the seas to ride,I stood upon the soil of Greece at last!
Katakolo.
In brief
SummaryA sonnet of arrival. Under a sapphire sea and an opal sky, the speaker's boat sails east with a fair wind. From the prow he watches the landmarks of Greek legend go by: Zakynthos with its olive groves, the cliff of Ithaca, the snowy peak of Lycaon and the flowering hills of Arcady. The only sounds are the flapping sail, the ripple of water and girls laughing at the stern. As the sun sets red over the sea, he steps ashore at last on the soil of Greece.
Key themes
"The sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky"
Summary
The first eight lines set out on the voyage. 'The sea was sapphire coloured', the sky 'Burned like a heated opal', and the travellers hoist sail with a fair wind 'For the blue lands that to the eastward lie'. From the 'steep prow' the speaker marks, 'with quickening eye', the places they pass: Zakynthos, 'every olive grove and creek', 'Ithaca's cliff, Lycaon's snowy peak', and 'all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady'.
The last six lines turn to sound. 'The flapping of the sail against the mast', the ripple of water on the side and 'The ripple of girls' laughter at the stern' are 'The only sounds'. Then, as the West begins to burn and a red sun rides on the sea, the voyage ends in a single exclamation: 'I stood upon the soil of Greece at last!' The poem is signed 'Katakolo'.
Characters
The speaker
The eager traveller
A traveller sailing east who stands at the 'steep prow' naming each island and peak as it appears. He hears only the sail, the water and the girls laughing behind him, and ends the poem with the joyful cry that he has reached Greece 'at last'.
Themes
Arrival after longing
The whole sonnet leans towards its last line. The travellers sail for 'the blue lands that to the eastward lie', the speaker watches the coast 'with quickening eye', and the closing words 'at last!' reveal how long he has waited. Setting foot 'upon the soil of Greece' is presented as the fulfilment of a hope, not merely the end of a journey.
Places full of legend
The landmarks the speaker names are loaded with story. Ithaca is the home of Odysseus, Lycaon's peak recalls a king of Arcadian myth, and 'Arcady' has long stood for an ideal pastoral world. By listing them from the prow, the poem turns a real sea journey into a passage through the Greece of books and poems, now seen with the traveller's own eyes.
Colour and quiet
The octave is painted in jewel colours: a 'sapphire' sea, a sky like 'a heated opal', 'blue lands', 'flower-strewn hills'. The sestet is almost silent, with only the flap of the sail, the ripple of water and girls' laughter. The poem then ends in fire, as 'the West' begins 'to burn' and 'a red sun' rides the sea, marking the moment of landing.
Quotes
Context
'Impression de Voyage', French for 'impression of a journey', appears in the 'Flowers of Gold' section of Wilde's collected poems. It is a sonnet signed 'Katakolo', a harbour on the west coast of the Peloponnese, and the places it names are the Ionian islands of Zakynthos and Ithaca and the mountains and hills of Arcadia in the Peloponnese.
About this edition
- Text: the complete work from Standard Ebooks, released into the public domain (CC0 1.0). We change only the layout.
- Download the EPUB of the whole book it comes from, free, for any e-reader.
- Every quotation and glossary word in these notes is checked against the text.