In the Morning

by Willis Boyd Allen

The characters playing strange pranks on the pages,

While still we droned on, “He—advanced—thirteen—stages.”

We wished the Ten Thousand had all broken loose

Before they began on their endless σταθμοῦς;

We preferred that they wouldn’t get on quite so fast;

We wished that their leader had not ἀναβάσ-ed;

But Xenophon brought them all safe to the sea,

He got out of the woods, and, at last, so did we.

Did you march on the Common? How proud were we then

To be reckoned in newspapers “two hundred men”!