"Earls, JP" wrote:

> It strikes me as more Tennyson than Homer.  The comment "We shall not
> come here again" is Tennyson's Ulysses, not Homer's!   I keep hearing
> "The Lotos-Eaters" in the background, even when the imagery is more
> like the "Nature, red in tooth and claw" moments of _In Memoriam_.

> Check this from "The Lotos-Eaters": "Then someone said, 'We will
> return no more'; . . ."  The sailor is speaking of (not) returning to
> the land of responsibility (post-Romantic England?), opting instead to
> stay with the self-absorbed lotos-eaters.  Eliot's sailor ("We shall
> not come here again.") seems to be saying the contrary: "we're never
> going to come back to this land of enslavement to sensuality."

Thanks for the insights, Earl.  I hear, too, Milton

     the pansy freak'd with jet [Lycidas]

     Their petals are fanged and red
     With hideous streak and stain;    [Circe's Palace]

Marcia