Anne Sexton, from 'Rowing'

I wore rubies and bought tomatoes
and now, in my middle age,
about nineteen in the head I'd say,
I am rowing, I am rowing
though the oarlocks stick and are rusty
and the sea blinks and rolls
like a worried eyeball,
but I am rowing, I am rowing,
though the wind pushes me back
and I know that the island will not be perfect,
it will have the flaws of life,
the absurdities of the dinner table,
bu there will be a door
and I will open it
and I will get rid of the rat inside of me,
the gnawing pestilential rat.
God will take it with his two hands
and embrace it.

As the African says:
This is my tale which I have told,
if it be sweet, if it not be sweet,
take somewhere else and let some return to me.
This story ends with me still rowing.