<Dd> In silence--ripen, fall, and cease: </Dd> <Dd> Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease . (lines 88--98) </Dd> <P> Although the mariners are isolated from the world, they are connected in that they act in unison . This relationship continues until the very end when the narrator describes their brotherhood as they abandon the world: </P> <Dl> <Dd> Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, </Dd> <Dd> In the hollow Lotos - land to live and lie reclined </Dd> <Dd> On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind . </Dd> <Dd> For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd </Dd> <Dd> Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd </Dd> <Dd> Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world; </Dd> <Dd> Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, </Dd> <Dd> Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, </Dd> <Dd> Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands . </Dd> <Dd> But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song </Dd> <Dd> Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong, </Dd> <Dd> Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong; </Dd> <Dd> Chanted from an ill - used race of men that cleave the soil, </Dd> <Dd> Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil, </Dd> <Dd> Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil; </Dd> <Dd> Till they perish and they suffer--some,' tis whisper'd--down in hell </Dd> <Dd> Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, </Dd> <Dd> Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel . </Dd> <Dd> Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore </Dd> <Dd> Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; </Dd> <Dd> O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more . (lines 154--173) </Dd> </Dl>

Write an essay on the theme of the poem lotos eaters