(Homer, The Odyssey, Book 13, lines 76-93)
Now the crewmen sit to their oars in order and slip
the cable from the bollard hole and heave backwards
so their oarblades chop at the swell and churn up water
while over Odysseus sweet sleep irresistibly
falls so fathomless and sound it might almost be the sleep
of death itself. And the ship like a team of stallions
coursing to the crack of the lash with hoofs bounding
high and manes blown back like foam off the summits of waves
lunges along stern up and plunging as the riven
rollers close up crashing together in her wake
and she surges on so unrelenting not even a bird
quick as the falcon could have stayed abreast . . .
So she leaps on splitting the black combers bearing
a man godlike in his wisdom who has suffered years
of sorrow and turmoil until his heart grew weary
of scything a path home through his enemies or the furious
ocean; but now he sleeps profoundly, with all his griefs,
asleep at his side, forgotten.