Insomnia. Homer. Taut Canvas.

Osip Mandelstam

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 loves glow.
Which should I hear? Now Homer is silent,
and the Black Sea thundering its oratory, turbulent,
and, surging, roars against my pillow.

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