Thence they came to the land of the Cyclopes, a rude and monstrous tribe but favored of the immortal gods by whose bounty they live. They toil not, neither do they sow, nor till the ground, but the earth of herself brings forth for them a bountiful living of wheat and barley, and huge swelling clusters of the grape. Naught know they of law or civil life, but each lives in his cave on the wild mountainside, dwelling apart, careless of his neighbors with his wife and
children.

It was a dark, cloudy night, and a thick mist overspread the sea when suddenly Odysseus heard the booming of breakers on a rocky shore. Before an order could be given, or any measure taken for the safety of the ships, the little fleet was caught by a strong landward current and whirled recklessly through a narrow passage between the cliffs into a land-locked harbor. Drawing their breath with relief at their wonderful escape, they beached their vessels
on the level sand and lay down to wait for the day.

In the morning they found that they had been driven to the landward shore of a long island which formed a natural breakwater to a spacious bay with a narrow entrance at either end. The island was thickly covered with woods giving shelter to a multitude of wild goats, its only inhabitants. For the Cyclopes have no ships, so that the goats were left in undisturbed possession, though the place was well suited for human habitation with a deep, rich soil and plentiful springs of water.

The first care of Odysseus was to supply the crews of his vessels, which were twelve in number, with fresh meat. Armed with bows and spears, he and a picked body of men scoured the woods in search of game. They soon obtained a plentiful booty, and nine goats were assigned to each vessel with ten for that of Odysseus. So, all that day till the setting of the sun they sat and feasted on fat venison and drank of the wine which they had taken in their raid on the Thracians.

Early the next morning Odysseus manned his own galley and set forth to explore the mainland leaving the rest of the crews to await his return on the island. As they drew near the opposite shore of the bay, the mariners came in view of a gigantic cavern overshadowed by laurel-trees. Round the front of the cavern was a wide courtyard rudely fenced with huge blocks of stone and unhewn trunks of trees.

Homer’s “Odyssey”

"The land of Cyclops first, a savage kind,
Nor tamed by manners, nor by laws confined:
Untaught to plant, to turn the glebe, and sow,
They all their products to free nature owe:
The soil, untill'd, a ready harvest yields,
With wheat and barley wave the golden fields;
Spontaneous wines from weighty clusters pour,
And Jove descends in each prolific shower,
By these no statues and no rights are known,
No council held, no monarch fills the throne;
But high on hills, or airy cliffs, they dwell,
Or deep in caves whose entrance leads to hell.
Each rules his race, his neighbour not his care,
Heedless of others, to his own severe.
 

Note

Only spelling mistakes, if any, in the above passage have been corrected. No other corrections, including grammatical, have been made so that the originality of the passage is maintained.