Insomnia. Homer. Taut canvas.

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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.

© Osip Emilevich Mandelstam