And now the pain of great beauty: the opening passages of The Iliad and The Odyssey, in three different translations. I'm surprised to find that I like different translators for different books; the Lattimore translation of The Iliad sings to me:

Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus
and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians,
hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls
of heroes, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting
of dogs, of all birds, and the will of Zeus was accomplished
since that time when first there stood in division of conflict
Atreus’ son the lord of men and brilliant Achilleus. . . .

But the stark simplicity of Fagles' Odyssey appeals to me more:

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.

Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds,
many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea,
fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home.
But he could not save them from disaster, hard as he strove –
the recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all,
the blind fools, they devoured the cattle of the Sun
and the Sungod blotted out the day of their return. . . .

Though I like best the opening lines of Fitzgerald's translation:

Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story
of that man skilled in all ways of contending

That is how it feels, when you are writing something that is right . . . as if it comes from inside you and outside of you all at once.