[left][/left]Within the perplexity of a noble toil,
Fraught with mysteries in its vague ambience,
Blooms the fair maids robed to the nines
On priceless garbs and crowns with grand 'gravings:
Clio, Euterpe, Thalia, Erato, Melpomene, the doleful dame
Terpsichore, Polymnia, Ourania, Calliope, the fairest flame
They art the seeds of Mnemosyne and sovereign Zeus
Who lords as king on Olympus' crown.

Deep therein, their distant hymns resound
And waves across the sphere of the besieged land
That they who, forsooth, art thirst in merit's suit
Mayst seize the trail and seek sheer splendour's source.
At first, an ardent adept merely gropes along
Towards the uncertainties true of all sublime strive
Till as steel his sufferance hones his edge
That he mayst grasp the bliss sought upon this bound.

Yet herein, lo!
All seekers' feet art fouled by the nescience' force
And they mayst stumble still as they dare to spring
But, dismayed, the fragile creeps in quick retreat
Cursing fate and luck for all their woe.
Alert, whereas, to glory's ache the stout mounts a new
With his vision steered out from errors' jeers.
He makes whet his sense to the tone of his muse
And strives to her tunnel's end ruled by her cues.

©INNOCENT PAUL UCHECHUKWU 2018