Heroic Notes Poem by Guy Northam

I.

T'is Somebody, a Cyclops,
Waiting for something big to happen.
I shepherded my flocks,
Made cheeses, grew fat. In vain.
No luckless Greek came my way. Oft sung
Polyphemus milked that opportunity.
It cost him an eye;
Small price for a name.

II.

Whatever befalls me, I have walked
The battlements of Troy
And heard Achilles shout my name.

I have felt the rage of war, seen
Our towers burning,
Men slaughtered, women taken

And Aeneas,
Slipping out the gate.

III.

I revolve around my head
Heroic tales of Greece -
Achilleus, and Hector,
And the Trojan dead.

The Persians at Salamis,
Sunk in defeat, since
Spartans at Thermopylae
Neglected to die.

IV.

I finished Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall'
On a tumultuous afternoon.

The Empire has gone. It's over.
And, like this particular rain,
It cannot fall again.