Aftermath

Away with us.
Let all our dark prowed ships
now beached upon the edge of toppled Troy
sail outward, hurried on the sea
like swooping terns,
into the salty realm
of combers with their silvered crests
and depths of lucid blue,
where cloud and storm and death within
the homeward run will test
our iron resolve,
and show us all again as truly
Agamemnon’s men.

Come, rise, fill up your oar-lined hulls
each with our own hard-won Cassandras, yes,
and all of Priam’s gold,
and sing, hymn long, hymn loud
to Zeus our weighty thanks,
as white with stroke on stroke
we rhythm bright the leagues of sea
this god has now set out as ours.