The Earthly Paradise

The prologue introduces a company of Norsemen who have fled the pestilence and set sail to seek the fabled Earthly Paradise "across the western sea where none grow old."

Not having succeeded in their quest, they have returned "shrivelled, bent, and grey," after lengthy wanderings abroad, to a "nameless city in a distant sea" where the worship of the ancient Greek gods has not died out.

Thus the long poem is neatly partitioned into twelve books with interpolated prologues and epilogues in the form of lyrics about the progressive changes in nature.

[3] The Earthly Paradise was generally well received by reviewers: according to one study it "established Morris's reputation as one of the foremost poets of his day".

[5] Morris's "wanderers" reach "A nameless city in a distant sea / White as the changing walls of faërie", where they hear and narrate legends including "The Land East of the Sun and West of the Moon"; Tolkien's Book of Lost Tales II contains one of the legendarium's foundation-poems that similarly describes the "Wanderer" Earendel, who sails "West of the Moon, east of the Sun".