Can someone help me summarize The Lotos- Eaters?

The Lotos-Eaters


by Alfred Tennyson

















"Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land,


"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon."


In the afternoon they came unto a land


In which it seemed always afternoon.


All round the coast the languid air did swoon,


Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.


Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;


And like a downward smoke, the slender stream


Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.





A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,


Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;


And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke,


Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.


They saw the gleaming river seaward flow


From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops,


Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,


Stood sunset-flush'd: and, dew'd with showery drops,


Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.





The charmed sunset linger'd low adown


In the red West: thro' mountain clefts the dale


Was seen far inland, and the yellow down


Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale


And meadow, set with slender galingale;


A land where all things always seem'd the same!


And round about the keel with faces pale,


Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,


The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.





Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,


Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave


To each, but whoso did receive of them,


And taste, to him the gushing of the wave


Far far away did seem to mourn and rave


On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,


His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;


And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake,


And music in his ears his beating heart did make.





They sat them down upon the yellow sand,


Between the sun and moon upon the shore;


And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,


Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore


Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar,


Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.


Then some one said, "We will return no more";


And all at once they sang, "Our island home


Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam."

Can someone help me summarize The Lotos- Eaters?
It's a poem based on part of "The Odyssey"





Basically Odysseus sails to an island that looks like a paradise. The people there eat a magical lotus plant, which causes whoever eats it to lose all will to leave the island, and forces them to remain in a stupor there for the rest of their lives. The poem is based heavily on that. The sailors who ate the lotus will never return to their homeland, and their memories of their families will be nothing more then a dream to them.