The Odyssey: Book Four

Menelaus greets his guests and bids them both to sup
Helen spikes their wine in an attempt to cheer them up
She tells of how Odysseus came to Troy in disguise
"I knew him straight away of course, imagine my surprise!
I swore not to betray him though, I gave him a nice bath.
He'd come dressed as a beggar! Your dad really was a laugh."
Of his troubled voyage home now Menelaus speaks
His many years in Egypt where there were few other Greeks
When he attempted to sail home, on Pharos he was stuck
It seemed that he was doomed until he had a stroke of luck
The goddess Eidothea said she'd help him to be free
He'd need to catch her father, who's the Old Man of the Sea
So wrapped inside a seal skin he lay down on the beach -
it really stank! He waited til the Old Man came in reach
He caught the Old Man and was free to travel home at last
But first the Old Man brought him news that made him sore aghast
His brother Agamemnon had been slain through treachery!
And little Ajax, too, had perished, swallowed by the sea
Odysseus had been imprisoned on Calypso's isle
It seems he's still alive, then, and in his house, meanwhile
The suitors plot to kill Telemachus when he returns
Penelope is most distressed when of this scheme she learns!