Edwin Muir(1887–1959)
The Return of the Greeks
The veteran Greeks came home
Sleepwandering from the war.1
We saw the galleys come
Blundering over the bar.
Each soldier with his scar
In rags and tatters came home.
Reading the wall of Troy
Ten years without a change
Was such intense employ
(Just out of the arrows' range),
All the world was strange
After ten years of Troy.
Their eyes knew every stone
In the huge heartbreaking wall
Year after year grown
Till there was nothing at all
But an alley steep and small,
Tramped earth and towering stone.
Now even the hills seemed low
In the boundless sea and land,
Weakened by distance so.
H o w c o u l d t h e y u n d e r s t a n d
S p a c e e m p t y o n e v e r y h a n d
A n d t h e h i l l o c k s s q u a t a n d l o w ?
And when they arrived at last
T h e y f o u n d a c h i l d i s h s c e n e
E m b o s o m e d i n t h e p a s t ,
A n d t h e w a r l y i n g b e t w e e n —
A c h i l d ' s p r e o c c u p i e d s c e n e
When they came home at last.
B u t e v e r y t h i n g t r i t e a n d s t r a n g e ,
T h e p e a c e , t h e p a r c e l l e d g r o u n d ,
T h e v i n e r o w s — n e v e r a c h a n g e !
T h e p a s t a n d t h e p r e s e n t b o u n d
In one oblivious round
P a s t t h i n k i n g t r i t e a n d s t r a n g e .
B u t f o r t h e i r g r e y - h a i r e d w i v e s
A n d t h e i r s o n s g r o w n s h y a n d t a l l
T h e y w o u l d h a v e g i v e n t h e i r l i v e s
To raise the battered wall
A g a i n , i f t h i s w a s a l l
I n s p i t e o f t h e i r s o n s a n d w i v e s .
P e n e l o p e 2 i n h e r t o w e r
L o o k e d d o w n u p o n t h e s h o w
And saw within an hour
E a c h m a n t o h i s w i f e g o ,
H e s i t a n t , s u r e a n d s l o w :
S h e , a l o n e i n h e r t o w e r .