The Poet

He never mastered destiny. The land
He stumbled on had rushed across the sea 
Into his stunned horizon: fortune and 
Compliance made him part of history. 
The continent elected him a god,
Who could not read a compass or the stars
And had in desperation gone abroad
To seek escape from inter-tribal wars.
The crown they gave him did not fit, his laws
Were laughed at. But the nincompoop was flattered 
To think that half the world now bore his name. 
Biographers were kind to him because
The world was half the size before he came. 
And that, not he, was all that really mattered.