Classic Poem

Now Paris tipt her chin and turned her face
Upwards to his that fondly he might trace
The beauty of her budded lips, and stoop
And kiss them softly; and fingered in the loop
That held her girdle, and closer pressed, on fire,
Towards her; for her words had stung desire
Anew; and wooing in his fond boy's way,
Whispered and lookt his passion; then to pray
Began: "Ah, love, long strange to me, behold
Thy winter past, and come the days of gold
And pleasance of the spring! For in thine eyes
I see his light and hail him as he flies!
Nay, cloud him not, nor veil him"--for she made
To turn her face, saying, "Ah, let them fade:
The soul thou prisonest here is grayer far."
But he would give no quarter now. "O star,
O beacon-star, shine on me in the night
That I may wash me in thy bath of light,
Taking my fill of thee; so cleanséd all
And healed, I rise renewed to front what call
May be!" which said, with conquest in his bones
And in his eyes assurance, in high tones
He called her maids, bade take her and prepare
The couch, and her to be new-wedded there;
For long had they been strangers to their bliss.
So by the altar standeth she submiss
And watchful, praying silent and intense
To a strange-figured Goddess, to his sense
Who knew but Aphrodité. "Love, what now?
Who is thy God? What secret rite hast thou?"
For grave and stern above that altar stood
Heré the Queen of Heaven.
In dry mood
She answered him, "Chaste wives to her do pray
Before they couch, Blest be the strife! You say
We are to be new-wedded. Pour with me
Libation that we love not fruitlessly."
So said, she took the well-filled cup and poured,
And prayed, saying, "O Mother, not abhorred
Be this my service of thee. Count it not
Offence, nor let my prayers be forgot
When reckoning comes of things done and not done
By me thy child, or to me, hapless one,
Unloving paramour and unloved wife!"
"Heré, to thee for issue of the strife!"
Cried Paris then, and poured. So Helen went
And let her maids adorn her to his bent.

Then took he joy of her, and little guessed
Or cared what she might give or get. Possest
Her body by his body, but her mind
Searcht terribly the issue. As one blind
Explores the dark about him in broad day
And fingers in the air, so as she lay
Lax in his arms, her fainting eyes, aglaze
For terror coming, sought escape all ways.
Alas for her! What way for woman fair,
Whose joy no fairer makes her than despair?
Her burning lips that kisses could not cool,
Her beating heart that not love made so full,
The surging of her breast, her clinging hands:
Here are such signs as lover understands,
But fated Paris nowise. Her soul, distraught
To save him, proved the net where he was caught.
For more she anguisht lest love be his bane
The fiercelier spurred she him, to make him fain
Of that which had been ruinous to all.
But all the household gathered on the wall
While these two in discordant bed were plight,
And watcht the Achaian fires. No beacon-light
Showed by the shore, but countless, flickering, streamed
Innumerable lights, wove, dipt and gleamed
Like fireflies on a night of summer heat,
Withal one way they moved, though many beat
Across and back, and mingled with the rest.
Anon a great glare kindled from the crest
Of Ida, and was answered by a blaze
Behind the ships, which threw up in red haze
Huge forms of prow and beak. Then from the Mound
Of Ilos fire shot up, from sacred ground,
And out the mazy glory of moving lights
One sped and flared, as of the meteorites
In autumn some fly further, brighter courses.
A chariot! They heard the thunder of the horses;
And as they flew the torch left a bright wake.
And thus to one another woman spake,
"Lo, more lights race! They follow him, they near,
Catch and draw level. Hark! Now you can hear
The tramp of men!"
Says one, "That baleful sheen
Is light upon their spears. The Greeks, I ween,
Are coming up to rescue or requite."
But then her mate: "They mass, they fill the night
With panic terror."
True, that all night things
Fled as they came. They heard the flickering wings
Of countless birds in haste, and as they flew
So fled the dark away. Light waxed and grew
Until the dead of night was vivified
And radiant opened out the countryside
With pulsing flames of fire, which gleamed and glanced,
Flickered, wavered, yet never stayed advance.
As the sun rising high o'er Ida cold
Beats a sea-path in flakes of molten gold,
So stretcht from shore to Troy that litten stream
That moved and shuddered, restless as a dream,
Yet ever nearing, till on spear and shield
They saw light like the moon on a drowned field,
And in the glare of torches saw and read
Gray faces, like the legions of the dead,
Silent about the walls, and waiting there.
But in the fragrant chamber Helen the fair
Lay close in arms, and Paris slept, his head
Upon her bosom, deep as any dead.

Sudden there smote the blast of a great horn,
Single, long-held and shuddering, and far-borne;
And then a deathless silence. Paris stirred
On that soft pillow, and listened while they heard
Many men running frantically, with feet
That slapt the stones, and voices in the street
Of question and call--"Oh, who are ye that run?
What of the night?" "O peace!" And some lost one
Wailed like a woman, and her a man did curse,
And there were scuffling, prayers, and then worse--
A silence. But the running ended not
While Paris lay alistening with a knot
Of Helen's loose hair twisting round his finger.
"O love," he murmured low, "I may not linger.
The street's awake. Alas, thou art too kind
To be a warrior's bride." Sighing, she twined
Her arm about his neck and toucht his face,
And pressed it gently back to its warm place
Of pillowing. And Paris kissed her breast
And slept; but her heart's riot gave no rest
As quaking there she lay, awaiting doom.
Then afar off rose clamour, and the room
Was fanned with sudden light and sudden dark,
As on a summer night in a great park
Blazed forth you see each tuft of grass or mound,
Anon the drowning blackness, while the sound
Of Zeus's thunder hardens every close:
So here the chamber glared, then dipt, and rose
That far confuséd tumult, and now and then
The scurrying feet of passion-driven men.
Thrilling she waited with sick certainty
Of doom inexorable, while the struck city
Fought its death-grapple, and the windy height
Of Pergamos became a shambles. White
The holy shrines stared on a field of blood,
And with blank eyes the emptied temples stood
While murder raved before them, and below
And all about the city ran the woe
Of women for their children. Then the flame
Burst in the citadel, and overcame
The darkness, and the time seemed of broad day.
And Helen stared unwinking where she lay
Pillowing Paris.
Now glad and long and shrill
The second trumpet sounds. They have the hill--
High Troy is down, is down! Starting, he wakes
And turns him in her arms. His face she takes
In her two hands and turns it up to hers.
Nothing she says, nothing she does, nor stirs
From her still scrutiny, nor so much as blinks
Her eyes, deep-searching, of whose blue he drinks,
And fond believes her all his own, while she
Marvels that aught of his she e'er could be
In times bygone. But now he is on fire
Again, and urges on her his desire,
And loses all the sense of present needs
For him in burning Troy, where Priam bleeds
Head-smitten, trodden on his palace-floor,
And white Kassandra yieldeth up her flower
To Aias' lust, and of the Dardan race
Survive he only, renegade disgrace,
He only and Aineias the wise prince.
But now is crying fear abroad and wins
The very household of the shameful lover;
Now are the streets alive, for worse in cover
Like a trapt rat to die than fight the odds
Under the sky. Now women shriek to the Gods,
And men run witlessly, and in and out
The Greeks press, burning, slaying, and the rout
Screameth to Heaven. As at sea the mews
Pack, their wings battling, when some fresh wrack strews
The tideway, and in greater haste to stop
Others from prey, will let their morsel drop,
And all the while make harsh lament--so here
The avid spoilers bickered in their fear
To be manœuvred out of robbery,
And tore the spoil, and mangled shamefully
Bodies of men to strip them, and in haste
To forestall ravishers left the victims chaste.
Ares, the yelling God, and Até white
Swept like a snow-storm over Troy that night;
And towers rockt, and in the naked glare
Of fire the smoke climbed to the upper air;
And clamour was as of the dead broke loose.
But Menelaus his stern way pursues,
And to the wicked house with chosen band
Cometh, his good sword naked in his hand;
And now, while Paris loves and holds her fast
In arms, the third horn sounds a shattering blast,
Long-held, triumphant; and about the door
Gathers the household, to cry, to pray, to implore,
And at the last break in and scream the truth--
"The Greeks! The Greeks! Save yourselves!"
Then in sooth
Starts Paris out of bed, and as he goes
Sees in the eyes of Helen all she knows
And all believes; and with his utter loss
Of her rises the man in him that was
Ere luxury had entered blood and bone
Of him. No word he said, but let one groan,
And turned his dying eyes to hers, and read
Therein his fate, that to her he was dead,
Long dead and cold in grave. Whereat he past
Out of the door, and met his end at last
As man, not minion.
But the woman fair
Lay on her face, half buried in her hair,
Naked and prone beneath her saving sin,
Not yet enheartened new life to begin.


ENVOY

But thou didst rise, Maid Helen, as from sleep,
A final tryst to keep
With thy true lover, in whose hands thy life
Lay, as in arms; his wife
In heart as well as deed; his wife, his friend,
His soul's fount and its end!
For such it is, the marriage of true minds,
Each in each sanction finds;
So if her beauty lift her out of thought
Whither man's to be brought
To worship her perfection on his knees,
So in his strength she sees
Self glorified, and two make one clear orb
Whereinto all rays absorb
Which stream from God and unto God return.--
So, as he fared, I yearn
To be, and serve my years of pain and loss
'Neath my walled Ilios,
With my eyes ever fixt to where, a star,
Thou and thy sisters are,
Helen and Beatrice, with thee embraced,
Hands in thy hands, and arms about thy waist.