The poem
Insomnia. Homer. Taut canvas. Half the catalogue of ships is mine: that flight of cranes, long stretched-out line, that once rose, out of Hellas.
To an alien land, like a phalanx of cranes — Foam of the gods on the heads of kings — Where do you sail? What would the things of Troy, be to you, Achaeans, without Helen?
The sea, or Homer — all moves by love's glow. Which should I hear? Now Homer is silent, and the Black Sea thundering its oratory, turbulent, and, surging, roars against my pillow.