“A GAMEMNON .”
Who named her? What weird tongue unseen forestalled
Their doom with deft surmise?
Helen! The spear-won wife,
The hell of towns and ships and men at strife,
From her rich canopies
She sailed with giant Zephyr, when he called;
And mailèd huntsmen in the rowers' wake,
Thro Simois' forest sighed
Above the beachèd galley, plied
The murderous quarrel for her sake.
The wrath of Zeus in sufferance was pent
Till Ilion's daughter, kin
To death, in Heaven's time
Haled her new brethren, whose loud bridal chime
Attainted them of sin
Gainst hearth and home, unto their punishment.
So Priam's ancient burgh, in other strain
And dirgeful, last and first,
On Paris cries, the bridegroom curst,
For those her children's blood and bitter pain.
As a lion's whelp she hath been,
A child of the house for a day,
Whom a man adventures to wean,
And 't is tame and gentle at play,
The pet, while a summer runs,
Of the old and the little ones,
As it fawns with a hungry mien.
But the lion's heart doth rouse,
And 't is quick to return his care
With a fierce and free carouse;
For never a knave will dare
To prevent the gory feast,
Or deliver his sheep from the priest
Whom the fool would hire and house.
That presence softly brooding, for an hour,
Seemed to the town a trance
As of the waves at rest,
A jewel smiling fair on Ilion's breast,
A gently darted glance
Of love, that bourgeoned into poignant flower.
But love with death consorting, joys with fears,
On Priam's house she trod,
To venge the hospitable God,
A Fury fed with widows' tears.
My mind mislikes the ancient sage's tale,
That Fortune, fully grown,
Begets a progeny
And dies not childless; for good luck, they cry,
Hath issue of its own
And heritage of rank increasing bale.
Not so! It is the pregnant deed of wrong
That yields an aftergrowth
Of kindred wickedness; the house that doth
A right hath children ever fair and strong.
For Violence, as a seed which was sown of old,
A creature doth surely breed, who is young and bold.
And she waxeth in woe upon men in the day of doom;
For the new-born beareth again, and the fruit of her womb
Is Lust and Defiance, a fiend who is stronger than man,
A demon whom man cannot bind nor Heaven shall ban.
And the dwelling accurst is afraid of the deadly twins,
For their visage is dark with the shade of the primal sins.
But Justice abideth bright in the smoky cot,
In the righteous is her delight, with the just her lot,
And she holdeth her eyes aloof from the smirchèd gilt,
From the pride of the sinner's roof, that his hands have built.
She disdaineth the power and praise that is miscreate.
With the just is her home, and her ways are the ways of Fate.
Who named her? What weird tongue unseen forestalled
Their doom with deft surmise?
Helen! The spear-won wife,
The hell of towns and ships and men at strife,
From her rich canopies
She sailed with giant Zephyr, when he called;
And mailèd huntsmen in the rowers' wake,
Thro Simois' forest sighed
Above the beachèd galley, plied
The murderous quarrel for her sake.
The wrath of Zeus in sufferance was pent
Till Ilion's daughter, kin
To death, in Heaven's time
Haled her new brethren, whose loud bridal chime
Attainted them of sin
Gainst hearth and home, unto their punishment.
So Priam's ancient burgh, in other strain
And dirgeful, last and first,
On Paris cries, the bridegroom curst,
For those her children's blood and bitter pain.
As a lion's whelp she hath been,
A child of the house for a day,
Whom a man adventures to wean,
And 't is tame and gentle at play,
The pet, while a summer runs,
Of the old and the little ones,
As it fawns with a hungry mien.
But the lion's heart doth rouse,
And 't is quick to return his care
With a fierce and free carouse;
For never a knave will dare
To prevent the gory feast,
Or deliver his sheep from the priest
Whom the fool would hire and house.
That presence softly brooding, for an hour,
Seemed to the town a trance
As of the waves at rest,
A jewel smiling fair on Ilion's breast,
A gently darted glance
Of love, that bourgeoned into poignant flower.
But love with death consorting, joys with fears,
On Priam's house she trod,
To venge the hospitable God,
A Fury fed with widows' tears.
My mind mislikes the ancient sage's tale,
That Fortune, fully grown,
Begets a progeny
And dies not childless; for good luck, they cry,
Hath issue of its own
And heritage of rank increasing bale.
Not so! It is the pregnant deed of wrong
That yields an aftergrowth
Of kindred wickedness; the house that doth
A right hath children ever fair and strong.
For Violence, as a seed which was sown of old,
A creature doth surely breed, who is young and bold.
And she waxeth in woe upon men in the day of doom;
For the new-born beareth again, and the fruit of her womb
Is Lust and Defiance, a fiend who is stronger than man,
A demon whom man cannot bind nor Heaven shall ban.
And the dwelling accurst is afraid of the deadly twins,
For their visage is dark with the shade of the primal sins.
But Justice abideth bright in the smoky cot,
In the righteous is her delight, with the just her lot,
And she holdeth her eyes aloof from the smirchèd gilt,
From the pride of the sinner's roof, that his hands have built.
She disdaineth the power and praise that is miscreate.
With the just is her home, and her ways are the ways of Fate.