by John Goggin

Nights, the journey seems immense;
that part past a jot compared
to that which looms ahead.

Losing headway seems the mode
of madness on this trip;
delay the only way God speeds us home.

Is it that we fear ten bitter years has made a gap?
Only rubble in our households left, like Priam’s wall
the night that silly ruse bore fruit.

Half hoped I that it, too, would fail,
and there would be an end.

And why not make an end, or some savage new beginning?
Why turn our course from simple death
and Poseidon’s wrath to harder tasks,
like land reform and domestic strife?

What can I do?

This craft sails wither it will,
and I, too clever a steersman,
run with these strange, strong currents.

This is also from John’s classicist period.