"
The Lotos-Eaters" is a poem by
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, published in his 1832 poetry collection. Written after a trip to Spain, it describes a group of mariners who, upon eating the
lotos, are put into an
altered state and isolated from the outside world. The poem is inspired by a similar scene in
Homer's
Odyssey. This illustration, completed by
W. E. F. Britten for a 1901 printing of Tennyson's works, accompanies the lines:
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.
Illustration: W. E. F. Britten; restoration: Adam Cuerden