The Project Gutenberg eBook of Helen Redeemed and Other Poems, by Maurice Hewlett

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Title: Helen Redeemed and Other Poems

Author: Maurice Hewlett

Release Date: September 29, 2007 [EBook #22803]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Thierry Alberto, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ***

HELEN REDEEMED

AND OTHER POEMS

BY

MAURICE HEWLETT

Δῶρον Ἔρως Ἀΐδῃ

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

1913

Transcriber's Note:

Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Archaic spellings have been retained. All Greek words have mouse-hover transliterations, Δῶρον, and appear as originally printed.

DEDICATION

Love owes tribute unto Death,

Being but a flower of breath,

Ev'n as thy fair body is

Moment's figure of the bliss

Dwelling in the mind of God

When He called thee from the sod,

Like a crocus up to start,

Gray-eyed with a golden heart,

Out of earth, and point our sight

To thy eternal home of light.

Here on earth is all we know:

To let our love as steadfast blow,

Open-hearted to the sun,

Folded down when our day's done,

As thy flower that bids it be

Flower of thy charity.

'Tis not ours to boast or pray

Breath from us shall outlive clay;

'Tis not thine, thou Pitiful,

Set me task beyond my rule.

Yet as young men carve on trees

Lovely names, and find in these

Solace in the after time,

So to have hid thee in my rhyme

Shall be comfort when I take

The lonely road. Then, for my sake,

Keep thou this my graven sigh,

And, that I may not all die,

Open it, and hear it tell,

Here was one who loved thee well.

October 6, 1912.

CONTENTS

PAGE

HELEN REDEEMED

1

HYPSIPYLE

123

OREITHYIA

149

CLYTIÉ

155

LAI OF GOBERTZ

159

THE SAINTS' MAYING

169

THE ARGIVE WOMEN

173

GNATHO

187

TO THE GODS OF THE COUNTRY

193

FOURTEEN SONNETS—

ALMA SDEGNOSA

197

THE WINDS' POSSESSION

198

ASPETTO REALE

199

KIN CONFESSED

200

QUEL GIORNO PIÙ

201

ABSENCE

202

PRESENCE

203

DREAM ANGUISH

204

HYMNIA-BEATRIX

206

LUX E TENEBRIS

207

DUTY

208

WAGES

209

EYE-SERVICE

210

CLOISTER THOUGHTS

211

THE CHAMBER IDYLL

213

EPIGRAMMATA—

THE OLD HOUSE

217

BLUE IRIS

217

THE ROSEBUD

218

SPRING ON THE DOWN

218

SNOWY NIGHT

219

EVENING MOOD

219

THE PARTING

220

DEDICATION OF A BOOK

221

NOTE

Three of the Poems here published have appeared in book form already, in the Volume called Songs and Meditations, long out of print.

HELEN REDEEMED

PROEM

Sing of the end of Troy, and of that flood

Of passion by the blood

Of heroes consecrate, by poet's craft

Hallowed, if that thin waft

Of godhead blown upon thee stretch thy song

To span such store of strong

And splendid vision of immortal themes

Late harvested in dreams,

Albeit long years laid up in tilth. Most meet

Thou sing that slim and sweet

Fair woman for whose bosom and delight

Paris, as well he might,

Wrought all the woe, and held her to his cost

And Troy's, and won and lost

Perforce; for who could look on her or feel

Her near and not dare steal

One hour of her, or hope to hold in bars

Such wonder of the stars

Undimmed? As soon expect to cage the rose

Of dawn which comes and goes

Fitful, or leash the shadows of the hills,

Or music of upland rills

As Helen's beauty and not tarnish it

With thy poor market wit,

Adept to hue the wanton in the wild,

Defile the undefiled!

Yet by the oath thou swearedst, standing high

Where piled rocks testify

The holy dust, and from Therapnai's hold

Over the rippling wold

Didst look upon Amyklai's, where sunrise

First dawned in Helen's eyes,

Take up thy tale, good poet, strain thine art

To sing her rendered heart,

Given last to him who loved her first, nor swerved

From loving, but was nerved

To see through years of robbery and shame

Her spirit, a clear flame,

Eloquent of her birthright. Tell his peace,

And hers who at last found ease

In white-arm'd Heré, holy husbander

Of purer fire than e'er

To wife gave Kypris. Helen, and Thee sing

In whom her beauties ring,

Fair body of fair mind fair acolyte,

Star of my day and night!

18th September 1912.

FIRST STAVE

THE DEATH OF ACHILLES

Where Simoeis and Xanthos, holy streams,

Flow brimming on the level, and chance gleams

Betray far Ida through a rended cloud

And hint the awful home of Zeus, whose shroud

The thunder is—'twixt Ida and the main

Behold gray Ilios, Priam's fee, the plain

About her like a carpet; from whose height

The watchman, ten years watching, every night

Counteth the beacon fires and sees no less

Their number as the years wax and duress

Of hunger thins the townsmen day by day—

More than the Greeks kill plague and famine slay.

Here in their wind-swept city, ten long years

Beset and in this tenth in blood and tears

And havocry to fall, old Priam's sons

Guard still their gods, their wives and little ones,

Guard Helen still, for whose fair womanhood

The sin was done, woe wrought, and all the blood

Of Danaan and Dardan in their pride

Shed; nor yet so the end, for Heré cried

Shrill on the heights more vengeance on wrong done,

And Greek or Trojan paid it. Late or soon

By sword or bitter arrow they went hence,

Each with their goodliest paying one man's offence.

Goodliest in Troy fell Hector; back to Greek

Then swung the doomstroke, and to Dis the bleak

Must pass great Hector's slayer. Zeus on high,

Hidden from men, held up the scales; the sky

Told Thetis that her son must go the way

He sent Queen Hecuba's—himself must pay,

Himself though young, splendid Achilles' self,

The price of manslaying, with blood for pelf.

A grief immortal took her, and she grieved

Deep in sea-cave, whereover restless heaved

The wine-dark ocean—silently, not moving,

Tearless, a god. O Gods, however loving,

That is a lonely grief that must go dry

About the graves where the beloved lie,

And knows too much to doubt if death ends all

Pleasure in strength of limb, joy musical,

Mother-love, maiden-love, which never more

Must the dead look for on the further shore

Of Acheron, and past the willow-wood

Of Proserpine!

But when he understood,

Achilles, that his end was near at hand,

Darkling he heard the news, and on the strand

Beyond the ships he stood awhile, then cried

The Sea-God that high-hearted and clear-eyed

He might go down; and this for utmost grace

He asked, that not by battle might his face

Be marred, nor fighting might some Dardan best

Him who had conquered ever. For the rest,

Fate, which had given, might take, as fate should be.

So prayed he, and Poseidon out of the sea,

There where the deep blue into sand doth fade

And the long wave rolls in, a bar of jade,

Sent him a portent in that sea-blue bird

Swifter than light, the halcyon; and men heard

The trumpet of his praise: "Shaker of Earth,

Hail to thee! Now I fare to death in mirth,

As to a banquet!"

So when day was come

Lightly arose the prince to meet his doom,

And kissed Briseïs where she lay abed

And never more by hers might rest his head:

"Farewell, my dear, farewell, my joy," said he;

"Farewell to all delights 'twixt thee and me!

For now I take a road whose harsh alarms

Forbid so sweet a burden to my arms."

Then his clean limbs his weeping squires bedight

In all the mail Hephaistos served his might

Withal, of breastplate shining like the sun

Upon flood-water, three-topped helm whereon

Gleamed the gold basilisk, and goodly greaves.

These bore he without word; but when from sheaves

Of spears they picked the great ash Pelian

Poseidon gave to Peleus, God to a man,

For no man's manège else—than all men's fear:

"Dry and cold fighting for thee this day, my spear,"

Quoth he. And so when one the golden shield

Immortal, daedal, for no one else to wield,

Cast o'er his head, he frowned: "On thy bright face

Let me see who shall dare a dint," he says,

And stood in thought full-armed; thereafter poured

Libation at the tent-door to the Lord

Of earth and sky, and prayed, saying: "O Thou

That hauntest dark Dodona, hear me now,

Since that the shadowing arm of Time is flung

Far over me, but cloudeth me full young.

Scatheless I vow them. Let one Trojan cast

His spear and loose my spirit. Rage is past

Though I go forth my most provocative

Adventure: 'tis not I that seek. Receive

My prayer Thou as I have earned it—lo,

Dying I stand, and hail Thee as I go

Lord of the Ægis, wonderful, most great!"

Which done, he took his stand, and bid his mate

Urge on the steeds; and all the Achaian host

Followed him, not with outcry or loud boast

Of deeds to do or done, but silent, grim

As to a shambles—so they followed him,

Eyeing that nodding crest and swaying spear

Shake with the chariot. Solemn thus they near

The Trojan walls, slow-moving, as by a Fate

Driven; and thus before the Skaian Gate

Stands he in pomp of dreadful calm, to die,

As once in dreadful haste to slay.

Thereby

The walls were thick with men, and in the towers

Women stood gazing, clustered close as flowers

That blur the rocks in some high mountain pass

With delicate hues; but like the gray hill-grass

Which the wind sweepeth, till in waves of light

It tideth backwards—so all gray or white

Showed they, as sudden surges moved them cloak

Their heads, or bare their faces. And none spoke

Among them, for there stood not woman there

But mourned her dead, or sensed not in the air

Her pendent doom of death, or worse than death.

Frail as flowers were their faces, and all breath

Came short and quick, as on this dreadful show

Staring, they pondered it done far below

As on a stage where the thin players seem

Unkith to them who watch, the stuff of dream.

Nor else about the plain showed living thing

Save high in the blue where sailed on outspread wing

A vulture bird intent, with mighty span

Of pinion.

In the hush spake the dead man,

Hollow-voiced, terrible: "Ye tribes of Troy,

Here stand I out for death, and ye for joy

Of killing as ye will, by cast of spear,

By bowshot or with sword. If any peer

Of Hector or Sarpedon care the bout

Which they both tried aforetime let him out

With speed, and bring his many against one,

Fearing no treachery, for there shall be none

To aid me, God nor man; nor yet will I

Stir finger in the business, but will die

By murder sooner than in battle fall

Under some Trojan hand."

Breathless stood all,

Not moving out; but Paris on the roof

Of his high house, where snug he sat aloof,

Drew taut the bowstring home, and notched a shaft,

Soft whistling to himself, what time with craft

Of peering eyes and narrow twisted face

He sought an aim.

Swift from her hiding-place

Came burning Helen then, in her blue eyes

A fire unquenchable, but cold as ice

That scorcheth ere it strike a mortal chill

Upon the heart. "Darest thou...?"

Smiling still,

He heeded not her warning, nor he read

The terror of her eyes, but drew and sped

A screaming arrow, deadly, swerving not—

Then stood to watch the ruin he had wrought.

He heard the sob of breath o'er all the host

Of hushing men; he marked, but then he lost,

The blood-spurt at the shaft-head; for the crest

Upheaved, the shoulders stiffen'd, ere to the breast

Bent down the head, as though the glazing sight

Curious would mark the death-spot. Still upright

Stood he; but as a tree that on the side

Of Ida yields to axe her soaring pride

And lightlier waves her leafy crown, and swings

From side to side—so on his crest the wings

Erect seemed shaking upwards, and to sag

The spear's point, and the burden'd head to wag

Before the stricken body felt the stroke,

Or the strong knees grew lax, or the heart broke.

Breathless they waited; then the failing man

Stiffened anew his neck, and changed and wan

Looked for the last time in the face of day,

And seemed to dare the Gods such might to slay

As this, the sanguine splendid thing he was,

Withal now gray of face and pinched. Alas,

For pride of life! Now he had heard his knell.

His spirit passed, and crashing down he fell,

Mighty Achilles, and struck the earth, and lay

A huddled mass, a bulk of bronze and clay

Bestuck with gilt and glitter, like a toy.

There dropt a forest hush on watching Troy,

Upon the plain and watching ranks of men;

And from a tower some woman keened him then

With long thin cry that wavered in the air—

As once before one wailed her Hector there.

SECOND STAVE

MENELAUS' DREAM: HELEN ON THE WALL

So he who wore his honour like a wreath

About his brows went the dark way of death;

Which being done, that deed of ruth and doom

Gave breath to Troy; but on the Achaians gloom

Settled like pall of cloud upon a land

That swoons beneath it. Desperate they scanned

Each other, saying: "Now we are left by God,"

And in the huts behind the wall abode,

Heeding not Diomede, Idomeneus,

Nor keen Odysseus, nor that friend of Zeus

Mykenai's king, nor that robbed Menelaus,

Nor bowman Teukros, Nestor wise, nor Aias—

Huge Aias, cursed in death! Peleides bare

Himself with pride, but he went raving there.

For in the high assembly Thetis made

In honour of her son, to waft his shade

In peace to Hades' house, after the fire

Twice a man's height for him who did suspire

Twice a man's heart and render it to Heaven

Who gave it, after offerings paid and given,

And games of men and horses, she brought forth

His regal arms for hero of most worth

In the broad Danaan host, who was adjudged

Odysseus by all voices. Aias grudged

The vote and wandered brooding, drawn apart

From his room-fellows, seeding in his heart

Envy, which biting inwards did corrode

His mettle, and his ill blood plied the goad

Upon his brain, until the wretch made mad

Went muttering his wrongs, ill-trimmed, ill-clad,

Sightless and careless, with slack mouth awry,

And working tongue, and danger in the eye;

And oft would stare at Heaven and laugh his scorn:

"O fools, think not to trick me!" then forlorn

Would gaze about green earth or out to sea:

"This is the end of man in his degree"—

Thus would he moralise in those bare lands

With hopeless brows and tossing up of hands—

"To sow in sweat and see another reap!"

Then, pitying himself, he'd fall to weep

His desolation, scorned by Gods, by men

Slighted; but in a flash he'd rage again

And shake his naked sword at unseen foes,

And dare them bring Odysseus to his blows:

Or let the man but flaunt himself in arms...!

So threatening God knows what of savage harms,

On him the oxen patient in the marsh,

Knee-deep in rushes, gazed to hear his harsh

Outcry; and them his madness taught for Greeks,

So on their dumb immensity he wreaks

His vengeance, driving in the press with shout

Of "Aias! Aias!" hurtling, carving out

A way with mighty swordstroke, cut and thrust,

And makes a shambles in his witless lust;

And in the midst, bloodshot, with blank wild eyes

Stands frothing at the lips, and after lies

All reeking in his madman's battlefield,

And sleeps nightlong. But with the dawn's revealed

The pity of his folly; then he sees

Himself at his fool's work. With shaking knees

He stands amid his slaughter, and his own

Adds to the wreck, plunging without a groan

Upon his planted sword. So Aias died

Lonely; and he who, never from his side

Removed, had shared his fame, the Lokrian,

Abode the fate foreordered in the plan

Which the Blind Women ignorantly weave.

But think not on the dead, who die and leave

A memory more fragrant than their deeds,

But to the remnant rather and their needs

Give thought with me. What comfort in their swords

Have they, robbed of the might of two such lords

As Peleus' son and Telamon's? What art

Can drive the blood back to the stricken heart?

Like huddled sheep cowed obstinate, as dull

As oxen impotent the wain to pull

Out of a rut, which, failing at first lunge,

Answer not voice nor goad, but sideways plunge

Or backward urge with lowered heads, or stand

Dumb monuments of sufferance—so unmanned

The Achaians brooded, nor their chiefs had care

To drive them forth, since they too knew despair,

And neither saw in battle nor retreat

A way of honour.

And the plain grew sweet

Again with living green; the spring o' the year

Came in with flush of flower and bird-call clear;

And Nature, for whom nothing wrought is vain,

Out of shed blood caused grass to spring amain,

And seemed with tender irony to flout

Man's folly and pain when twixt dead spears sprang out

The crocus-point and pied the plain with fires

More gracious than his beacons; and from pyres

Of burnt dead men the asphodel uprose

Like fleecy clouds flushed with the morning rose,

A holy pall to hide his folly and pain.

Thus upon earth hope fell like a new rain,

And by and by the pent folk within walls

Took heart and ploughed the glebe and from the stalls

Led out their kine to pasture. Goats and sheep

Cropt at their ease, and herd-boys now did keep

Watch, where before stood armèd sentinels;

And battle-grounds were musical with bells

Of feeding beasts. Afar, high-beacht, the ships

Loomed through the tender mist, their prows—like lips

Of thirsty birds which, lacking water, cry

Salvation out of Heaven—flung on high:

Which marking, Ilios deemed her worst of road

Was travelled, and held Paris for a God

Who winged the shaft that brought them all this peace.

He in their love went sunning, took his ease

In house and hall, at council or at feast,

Careless of what was greatest or what least

Of all his deeds, so only by his side

She lay, the blush-rose Helen, stolen bride,

The lovely harbour of his arms. But she,

A thrall, now her own thralldom plain could see,

And sick of dalliance, loathed herself, and him

Who had beguiled her. Now through eyes made dim

With tears she looked towards the salt sea-beach

Where stood the ships, and sought for sign in each

If it might be her people's, and so hers,

Poor alien!—Argive now herself she avers

And proudly slave of Paris and no wife:

Minion she calls herself; and when to strife

Of love he claims her, secret her heart surges

Back to her lord; and when to kiss he urges,

And when to play he woos her with soft words,

Secret her fond heart calleth, like a bird's,

Towards that honoured mate who honoured her,

Making her wife indeed, not paramour,

Mother, and sharer of his hearth and all

His gear. Thus every night: and on the wall

She watches every dawn for what dawn brings.

And the strong spirit of her took new wings

And left her lovely body in the arms

Of him who doted, conning o'er her charms,

And witless held a shell; but forth as light

As the first sigh of dawn her spirit took flight

Across the dusky plain to where fires gleamed

And muffled guards stood sentry; and it streamed

Within the hut, and hovered like a wraith,

A presence felt, not seen, as when gray Death

Seems to the dying man a bedside guest,

But to the watchers cannot be exprest.

So hovered Helen in a dream, and yearned

Over the sleeper as he moaned and turned,

Renewing his day's torment in his sleep;

Who presently starts up and sighing deep,

Searches the entry, if haply in the skies

The day begin to stir. Lo there, her eyes

Like waning stars! Lo there, her pale sad face

Becurtained in loose hair! Now he can trace

Athwart that gleaming moon her mouth's droopt bow

To tell all truth about her, and her woe

And dreadful store of knowledge. As one shockt

To worse than death lookt she, with horror lockt

Behind her tremulous tragic-moving lips:

"O love, O love," saith he, and saying, slips

Out of the bed: "Who hath dared do thee wrong?"

No answer hath she, but she looks him long

And deep, and looking, fades. He sleeps no more,

But up and down he pads the beaten floor,

And all that day his heart's wild crying hears,

And can thank God for gracious dew of tears

And tender thoughts of her, not thoughts of shame.

So came the next night, and with night she came,

Dream-Helen; and he knew then he must go

Whence she had come. His need would have it so—

And her need. Never must she call in vain.

Now takes he way alone over the plain

Where dark yet hovers like a catafalque

And all life swoons, and only dead thing walk,

Uneasy sprites denied a resting space,

That shudder as they flit from place to place,

Like bats of flaggy wing that make night blink

With endless quest: so do those dead, men think,

Who fall and are unserved by funeral rite.

These passes he, and nears the walls of might

Which Godhead built for proud Laomedon,

And knows the house of Paris built thereon,

Terraced and set with gadding vines and trees

And ever falling water, for the ease

Of that sweet indweller he held in store.

Thither he turns him quaking, but before

Him dares not look, lest he should see her there

Aglimmer through the dusk and, unaware,

Discover her fill some mere homely part

Intolerably familiar to his heart,

And deeply there enshrined and glorified,

Laid up with bygone bliss. Yet on he hied,

Being called, and ever closer on he came

As if no wrong nor misery nor shame

Could harder be than not to see her—Nay,

Even if within that smooth thief's arms she lay

Besmothered in his kisses—rather so

Had he stood stabbed to see, than on to go

His round of lonely exile!

Now he stands

Beneath her house, and on his spear his hands

Rest, and upon his hands he grounds his chin,

And motionless abides till day come in;

Pure of his vice, that he might ease her woe,

Not brand her with his own. Not yet the glow

Of false dawn throbbed, nor yet the silent town

Stood washt in light, clear-printed to the crown

In the cold upper air. Dark loomed the walls,

Ghostly the trees, and still shuddered the calls

Of owl to owl from unseen towers. Afar

A dog barked. High and hidden in the haar

Which blew in from the sea a heron cried

Honk! and he heard his wings, but not espied

The heavy flight. Slow, slow the orb was filled

With light, and with the light his heart was thrilled

With opening music, faint, expectant, sharp

As the first chords one picks out from the harp

To prelude paean. Venturing all, he lift

His eyes, and there encurtained in a drift

Of sea-blue mantle close-drawn, he espies

Helen above him watching, her grave eyes

Upon him fixt, blue homes of mystery

Unfathomable, eternal as the sea,

And as unresting.

So in that still place,

In that still hour stood those two face to face.

THIRD STAVE

MENELAUS SPEAKS WITH HELEN

But when he had her there, sharp root of ill

To him and his, safeguarded from him still,

Too sweet to be forgotten, too much marred

By usage to be what she seemed, bescarred,

Behandled, too much lost and too much won,

Mock image making horrible the sun

That once had shown her pure for his demesne,

And still revealed her lovely, and unclean—

Despair turned into stone what had been kind,

And bitter surged his griefs, to flood his mind.

"O ruinous face," said he, "O evil head,

Art thou so early from the wicked bed?

So prompt to slough the snugness of thy vice?

Or is it that in luxury thou art nice

Become, and dalliest?" Low her head she hung

And moved her lips. As when the night is young

The hollow wind presages storm, his moan

Came wailing at her. "Ten years here, alone,

And in that time to have seen thee thrice!"

But she:

"Often and often have I chanced to see

My lord pass."

His heart leapt, as leaps the child

Enwombed: "Hast thou—?"

Faintly her quick eyes smiled:

"At this time my house sleepeth, but I wake;

So have time to myself when I can take

New air, and old thought."

As a man who skills

To read high hope out of dark oracles,

So gleamed his eyes; so fierce and quick said he:

"Lady, O God! Now would that I could be

Beside thee there, breathing thy breath, thy thought

Gathering!" Silent stood she, memory-fraught,

Nor looked his way. But he must know her soul,

So harpt upon her heart. "Is this the whole

That thou wouldst have me think, that thou com'st here

Alone to be?"

She blushed and dared to peer

Downward. "Is it so wonderful," she said,

"If I desire it?" He: "Nay, by my head,

Not so; but wonderful I think it is

In any man to suffer it." The hiss

Of passion stript all vesture from his tones

And showed the King man naked to the bones,

Man naked to the body's utterance.

She turned her head, but felt his burning glance

Scorch, and his words leap up. "Dost thou desire

I leave thee then? Answer me that."

"Nay, sire,

Not so." And he: "Bid me to stay while sleeps

Thy house," he said, "so stay I." Her eyes' deeps

Flooded his soul and drowned him in despair,

Despair and rage. "Behold now, ten years' wear

Between us and our love! Now if I cast

My spear and rove the snow-mound of thy breast,

Were that a marvel?"

Long she lookt and grave,

Pondering his face and searching. "Not so brave

My lord as that would prove him. Nay, and I know

He would not do it." And the truth was so;

And well he knew the reason: better she.

Yet for a little in that vacancy

Of silence and unshadowing light they stood,

Those long-divided, speechless. His first mood

With bitter grudge was choked, but hers was mild,

As fearing his. At last she named the child,

Asking, Was all well? Short he told her, Yes,

The child was well. She fingered in her dress

And watched her hand at play there.

"Here," she said,

"There is no child," and sighed. Into his dead

And wasted heart there leaped a flame and caught

His hollow eyes. "Rememberest thou naught,

Nothing regrettest, nothing holdst in grief

Of all our joy together ere that thief

Came rifling in?" For all her answer she

Lookt long upon him, long and earnestly;

And misty grew her eyes, and slowly filled.

Slowly the great tears brimmed, and slowly rilled

Adown her cheeks. So presently she hid

Those wells of grief, and hung her lovely head;

And he had no more words, but only a cry

At heart too deep for utterance, and too high

For tears.

And now came Paris from the house

Into the sun, rosy and amorous,

As when the sun himself from the sea-rim

Lifteth, and gloweth on the earth grown dim

With waiting; and he piped a low clear call

As mellow as the thrush's at the fall

Of day from some near thicket. At whose sound

Rose up caught Helen and blushing turned her round

To face him; but in going, ere she met

The prince, her hand along the parapet

She trailed, palm out, for sign to who below

Rent at himself, nor had the wit to know

In that dumb signal eloquence, and hope

Therein beyond his sick heart's utmost scope.

Throbbing he stood as when a quick-blown peat,

Now white, now red, burns inly—O wild heat,

O ravenous race of men, who'd barter Space

And Time for one short snatch of instant grace!

Withal, next day, drawn by his dear desire,

When as the young green burned like emerald fire

In the cold light, back to the tryst he came;

But she was sooner there, and called his name

Softly as cooing dove her bosom's mate;

And showed her eyes to him, which half sedate

To be so sought revealed her, half in doubt

Lest he should deem her bold to meet the bout

With too much readiness. But high he flaunted

Her name towards the sky. "Thou God-enchanted,

Thou miracle of dawn, thou Heart of the Rose,

Hail thou!" On his own eloquence he grows

The lover he proclaims. "O love," he saith,

"I would not leave thee for a moment's breath,

Nor once these ten long years had left thy side

Had it been possible to stay!"

She sighed,

She wondered o'er his face, she looked her fill,

Museful, still doubting, smiling half, athrill,

All virgin to his praise. "O wonderful,"

She said, "Such store of love for one so foul

As I am now!"

O fatal hot-and-cold,

O love, whose iris wings not long can hold

The upper air! Sudden her thought smote hot

On him. "Thou sayest! True it is, God wot!

Warm from his bed, and tears for thy unworth;

Warm from his bed, and tears to meet my mirth;

Then back to his bed ere yet thy tears be dry!"

She heard not, but she knew his agony

Of burning vision, and kept back her tears

Until his pity moved in tune with hers

Towards herself. But he from thunderous brows

Frowned on. "No more I see thee by this house,

Except to slay thee when the hour decree

An end to this vile nest of cuckoldry

And holy vows made hateful, save thou speak

To each my question sooth. Keep dry thy cheek

From tears, hide up thy beauty with thy grief—

Or let him have his joy of them, thy thief,

What time he may. Answer me thou, or vain

Till thine hour strike to look for me again."

With hanging head and quiet hanging hands,

With lip atremble, as caught in fault she stands,

Scarce might he hear her whispered message:

"Ask,

Lord, and I answer thee."

Strung to his task:

"Tell me now all," he said, "from that far day

Whenas embracing thee, I stood to pray,

And poured forth wine unto the thirsty earth

To Zeus and to Poseidon, in whose girth

Lie sea and land; to Gaia next, their spouse,

And next to Heré, mistress of my house,

Traitress, and thine, for grace upon my faring:

For thou wert by to hear me, false arm bearing

Upon my shoulder, glowing, lying cheek

Next unto mine. Ay, and thou prayedst, with meek

Fair seeming, prosperous send-off and return.

Tell me what then, tell all, and let me learn

With what pretence that dog-souled slaked his thirst

In thy sweet liquor. Tell me that the first."

Then Helen lifted up her head, and beamed

Clear light upon him from her eyes, which seemed

That blue which, lying on the white sea-bed

And gazing up, the sunbeam overhead

Would show, with green entinctured, and the warp

Inwoven of golden shafts, blended yet sharp;

So that a glory mild and radiant

Transfigured them. Upon him fell aslant

That lovely light, while in her cheeks the hue

Of throbbing dawn came sudden. So he knew

Her best before she spoke; for when she spoke

It was as if the nightingale should croak

In April midst the first young leaves, so bleak,

So harsh she schooled her throat, that it should speak

Dry matter and hard logic—as if she

Were careful lest self-pity urged a plea

Which was not hers to make; or as one faint

And desperate lays down all his argument

Like bricks upon a field, let who will make

A house of them; so drily Helen spake

With a flat voice. "Thou hadst been nine days gone,

Came my lord Alexandros, Priam's son,

And hailed me in the hall whereas I sat,

And claimed his guest-right, which not wondering at

I gave as fitting was. Then came the day

I was beguiled. What more is there to say?"

Fixt on her fingers playing on the wall

Her eyes were. But the King said: "Tell me all.

Thou wert beguiled: by his desire beguiled,

Or by thine own?" She shook her head and smiled

Most sadly, pitying herself. "Who knoweth

The ways of Love, whence cometh, whither goeth

The heart's low whimper? This I know, he loved

Me then, and pleasured only where I moved

About the house. And I had pleasure too

To know of me he had it. Then we knew

The day at hand when he must take the road

And leave me; and its eve we close abode

Within the house, and spake not. But I wept."

She stayed, and whispering down her next word crept:

"I was beguiled, beguiled." And then her lip

She bit, and rueful showed her partnership

In sinful dealing.

But he, in his esteem

Bleeding and raw, urged on. "To Kranai's deme

He took thee then?"

Speechless she bent her head

Towards her tender breasts whereon, soft shed

As upon low quiet hills, the dawn light played,

And limned their gentle curves or sank in shade.

So gazing, stood she silent, but the King

Urged on. "From thence to Ilios, thou willing,

He took thee?"

Then, "I was beguiled," again

She said; and he, who felt a worthier strain

Stir in his gall compassion, and uplift

Him out of knowledge, saw a blessed rift

Upon his dark horizon, as tow'rds night

The low clouds break and shafted shows the light.

"Ten years beguiled!" he said, "but now it seems

Thou art——" She shook her head. "Nay, now come dreams;

Nay, now I think, remember, now I see."

"What callest thou to mind?" "Hermione,"

She said, "our child, and Sparta my own land,

And all the honour that lay to my hand

Had I but chosen it, as now I would"—

And sudden hid her face up in her hood,

Her courage ebbed in grief, all hardness drowned

In bitter weeping.

Noble pity crowned

The greater man in him; so for a space

They wept together, she for loss; for grace

Of gain wept he. "No more," he said, "my sweet,

Tell me no more."

"Ah, hear the whole of it

Before my hour is gone," she cried. But he

Groaning, "I dare not stay here lest I see

Him take thee again."

Both hands to fold her breast,

She shook her head; like as the sun through mist

Shone triumph in her eyes. "Have no more fear

Of him or any——" Then, hearing a stir

Within the house, her finger toucht her lip,

And one fixt look she gave of fellowship

Assured—then turned and quickly went her way;

And his light vanisht with her for that day.

FOURTH STAVE

THE APOLOGY OF HELEN

O singing heart, O twice-undaunted lover!

O ever to be blest, twice blest moreover!

Twice over win the world in one girl's eyes,

Twice over lift her name up to the skies;

Twice to hope all things, so to be twice born—

For he lives not who cannot front the morn

Saying, "This day I live as never yet

Lived striving man on earth!" What if the fret

Of loss and ten years' agonizing snow

Thy hairs or leave their tracery on thy brow,

Each line beslotted by the demon hounds

Hunting thee down o' nights? Laugh at thy wounds,

Laugh at thy eld, strong lover, whose blood flows

Clear from the fountain, singing as it goes,

"She loves, and so I live and shall not die!

Love on, love her: 'tis immortality."

Once more before the sun he greeted her:

She glowed her joy; her mood was calm and clear

As mellow evening's whenas, like a priest,

Rain has absolved the world, and golden mist

Hangs over all like benediction.

In her proud eyes sat triumph on a throne,

To know herself beloved, her lover by,

So near the consummation. Womanly

She dallied with the moment when, all wife,

Upon his breast she'd lie and cast her life,

Cast body, soul and spirit in one gest

Supreme of giving. Glorying in his quest

Of her, now let her hide what he must glean,

But not know yet. Ah, sweet to feel his keen

Long eye-search, like the touch of eager fingers,

And sweet to thrill beneath such hot blush-bringers;

To fence with such a swordsman hazardous

And sweet. "Belov'd, thou art glad of me!" Then thus

Antiphonal to him she breathes, "Thou sayest!"

"I see thy light and hail it!"

"Thou begayest

My poor light."

"Knowest thou not that thou art loved?"

"And am I loved then?"

"If thou'ldst have it proved,

Look in my eyes. Would thine were open book!"

"Palimpsest I," she said, and would not look.

But he was grappling now with truth, would have it,

What though it cost him all his gain. She gave it,

Looking him along. "O lady mine," he said,

"Now are my clouds disperséd every shred;

For thou art mine; I think thou lovest me.

Speak, is that true?"

She could not, or may be

She would not hold her gaze, but let it fall,

And watched her fingers idling on the wall,

And so remained; but urged to it by the spell

He cast, she whispered down, "I cannot tell

Thee here, and thus apart"—which when he had

In its full import drove him well-nigh mad

With longing. "Call me and I come!"

But fear

Flamed in her eyes: "No, no, 'tis death! He's here

At hand. 'Tis death for thee, and worse than death—"

She ended so—"for both of us."

And breath

Failed him, for well he knew now what she meant,

And sighed his thanks to Gods beneficent.

Thereafter in sweet use of lovers' talk,

In boon spring weather, whenas lovers walk

Handfasted through the meadows pied, and wet

With dew from flower and leaf, these lovers met—

Two bodies separate, one wild heart between,

Day after day, these two long-severed been;

And of this mating of the eye and tongue

There grew desire passionate and strong

For body's mating and its testimony,

Hearts' intimacy, perfect, full and free.

And Helen for her heart's ease did deny

Her girdled Goddess of the beamy eye,

Saying, "Come you down, Mistress of sleek loves

And panting nights: your service of bought doves

And honey-hearted wine may cost too dear.

What hast thou done for me since first my ear

With thy sly music thou didst sign and seal

Apprentice to thy mystery, teach me feel

Thy fierce divinity in the trembling touch

Of open lips? Served I not thee too much

In Kranai and in Sparta my demesne,

Too much in wide-wayed Ilios, Eastern Queen?

Yes, but it was too much a thousandfold,

For what was I but leman bought and sold?

"For woman craved what mercy hath man brought,

What face a woman for a woman sought?

What mercy or what face? And what saith she,

The hunted, scornéd wretch? Boast that she be

Coveted, hankered, spat on? One to gloat,

The rest to snarl without! If man play goat,

What must she play? Her glory is it to draw

On greedy eye, sting greedy lip and paw,

And find the crown of her desire therein?

Hath she no rarer bliss than all this sin,

Is she for dandling, kissing, hidden up

For hungry hands to stroke or lips to sup?

Hath she then nothing of her own, no mirth

In honesty, nor eyes to worship worth,

Nor pride except in that which makes men dogs,

Nor loathing for the vice wherein, like logs

That float beneath the sun, lie fair women

Submiss, inert receptacles for sin?

Is this her all? Hath she no heart, nor care

Therefor? No womb, nor hope therein to bear

Fruit of her heart's insurgence? Is her face,

Are these her breasts for fondling, not to grace

Her heart's high honour, swell to nurture it,

That it too grow? Hath she no mother-wit,

Nor sense for living things and innocent,

Nor leap of joy for this good world's content

Of sun and wind, of flower and leaf, and song

Of bird, or shout of children as they throng

The world of mated men and women? Nay,

Persuade me not, O Kypris; but I say

Evil hath been the lore which thou hast taught—

For many have loved my face, and many sought

My breast, and thought it joy supping thereat

Sweetness and dear delight; but out of that

What hath there come to them, to me and all

Mine but hot shame? Not milk, but bitter gall."

So in her high passion she rent herself

And rocked, or hid her face upon the shelf

Of the grim wall, lest he should see the whole

Inexpiable sorrow of her soul.

But he by pity pure made bountiful

Lent her excuse, by every means to lull

Her agony. Said he, "Of mortals who

Can e'er withstand the way she wills them to,

Kypris the forceful Goddess? Nay, dear child,

Thou wert constrained."

She said, "I was beguiled

And clung to him until the day-dawn broke

When I could read as in the roll of a book

His open heart. And then my own heart reeled

To know him craven, dog, not man, revealed

A panting drudge of lust, who held me here

Caged vessel. Nay, come close. I loved him dear,

Too dear, I know; but never till he came

Had known the leap of joy, the fire of flame

Upon the heart he gave me, Paris the bright,

Whose memory was music and his sight

Fragrance, whose nearness made my footfall dance,

Whose touch was fever, and his burning glance

Faintness and blindness; in whose light my life

Centred; who was the sun, and I, false wife,

The foolish flower that turns whereso he wheels

Over the broad earth's canopy, and steals

Colour from his strong beam, but at the last

Whenas the night comes and the day is past

Droops, burnt at the heart. So loved I him, and so

Waxed bold to dare the deed that brought this woe."

And there she changed, and bitter was her cry:

"Ah, lord, far better had it been to die

Ere I had cast this pain on thee, and shame

On me, and wrought such outrage on our name.

Natheless I live——"

"Ay, and give life!" he said;

"Yet this thing more I'd have thee tell—what led

Thy thought to me? From him, what turned thy troth—

Such troth as there could be?"

She cried, "The oath!

The oath ye sware before the Lords of Heaven,

The sacrifice, the pledges taken and given

When thou and Paris met upon the plain,

And all the host sat down to watch you twain

Do battle, which should have me. For my part,

They took me forth to watch; as in the mart

A heifer feels the giver of the feast

Pinch in her flank, and hears the chaffer twist

This way and that for so much fat or lean—

Even so was I, a queen, child of a queen."

She bit her lip until the blood ran free,

And in her eyes he markt deep injury

Scald as the salt tears welled; but "Listen yet,"

She said: "Ye fought, and Paris fell beset

Under thy spurning heel, yet felt no whit

The bitterness as I must come to it;

For she, his Goddess, hid him up in mists

And brought him beat and broken from the lists

Here to his chamber. But I stood and burned,

Shameful to be by one lost, by one earned,

A prize for games, a slave, a bandied thing—

Since as the oath was made so must I swing

From bed to bed. But while I stood and wept,

Melted in fruitless sorrow, up she crept

For me, his Goddess, gliding like a snake,

Who wreathed her arms and whispering me go make

The nuptial couch, 'What oath binds love?' did say.

Loathing him, I must go. He had his way,

As well he might who paid that goodly price,

Honour, truth, courage, all, to have his vice:

The which forsook him when those fair things fled;

For though my body hath lain in his bed,

My heart abhors it. And now in truth I wis

My lord's true heart is where my own heart is,

The two together welded and made whole;

And I will go to him and give my soul

And shamed and faded body to his nod,

To spurn or take; and he shall be my God."

Whereat made virgin, as all women are

By love's white purging fire which leaves no scar

Where all was soiled and seamed before the torch

Of Eros toucht the heart, and the keen scorch

Lickt up the foul misuse of vase so fair

As woman's body, Helen flusht and fair

Leaned from the wall a fire-hued seraph's face

And in one rapt long look gave and took Grace.

Deep in her eyes he saw the light divine,

Quick in him ran fierce joy of it like wine:

Light unto light made answer, as a flag

Answers when men tell tidings from one crag

Unto another, and from peak to peak

The good news flashes. Scarcely could he speak

Measurable words, so high his wild thought whirled:

"Bride, Goddess, Helen, O Wonder of the World,

Shall I come for thee?"

Her tender words came soft

As dropping rose petals on garden croft

Down from the wall's sheer height—"Come soon, come soon."

And homing to the lines those drummed his tune.

FIFTH STAVE

A COUNCIL OF THE ACHAIANS: THE EMBASSY OF ODYSSEUS

Now calleth he assembly of the chiefs,

Princes and kings and captains, them whose griefs

To ease his own like treasure had been lent;

Who came and sat at board within the tent

Of him they hailed host-father and their lord

For this adventure, in aught else abhorred

Of all true men. He sits above the rest,

The fox-red Agamemnon, round his crest

The circlet of his kingship over kings,

And at his thigh the sword gold-hilted swings

Which Zeus gave Atreus once; and in his heart

That gnawing doubt which twice had checkt his start

For high emprise, having twice egged him to it,

As stout Odysseus knew who had to rue it.

Beside him Nestor sat, Nestor the old,

White as the winter moon, with logic cold

Instilled, as if the blood in him had fled

And in his veins clear spirit ran instead,

Which made men reasons and not fired their sprites.

And next Idomeneus of countless fights,

Shrewd leader of the Cretans; by his side

Keen-flashing Diomedes in his pride,

The young, the wild in onset, whose war-shrill,

Next after Peleus' son's, held all Troy still,

And stayed the gray crows at their ravelling

Of dead men's bones. Into debate full fling

Went he, adone with tapping of the foot

And drumming on the board. Had but his suit

Been granted—so he said—the war were done

And Troy a name ere full three years had gone:

For as for Helen and her daintiness,

Troy held a mort of women who no less

Than she could pleasure night when work was over

And men came home ready to play the lover;

And in housework would better her. Let Helen

Be laid by Paris, villain, and dead villain—

Dead long ago if he had taken the field

Instead of Menelaus. Then no shield

Had Kypris' golden body been, acquist

With his sword-arm already, near the wrist!

So Diomedes. Next him sat a man

With all his woe to come, the Lokrian

Aias, son of Oïleus, bearded swart,

Pale, with his little eyes, and legs too short

And arms too long, a giant when he sat,

Dwarf else, and in the fight a tiger-cat.

But mark his neighbour, mark him well: to him

Falleth the lot to lay a charge more grim

On woman fair than even Althaia felt

Like lead upon her heartstrings, when she knelt

And blew to flame the brand that held the life

Of her own son; or Procne with the knife,

Who slew and dressed her child to be a meal

To his own father. But this man's thews were steel,

And steely were the nerves about his heart,

As they had need. Mark him, and mark the part

He plays hereafter. Odysseus is his name,

The wily Ithacan, deathless in his fame

And in his substance deathless, since he goes

Immortal forth and back wherever blows

The thunder of thy rhythm, O blind King,

First of the tribe of them with songs to sing,

Fountain of storied music and its end—

For who the poet since who doth not tend

To essay thy leaping measure, or call down

Thy nodded approbation for his crown

And all his wages?

Other chiefs sat there

In order due: as Pyrrhos, very fair

And young, with high bright colour, and the hue

Of evening in his eyes of violet-blue—

Son of Achilles he, and new to war.

Then Antiklos and Teukros, best by far

Of all the bowmen in the host. And last

Menestheus the Athenian dikast,

Who led the folk from Pallas's fair home.

To them spake Menelaus, being come

Into assembly last, and taken in hand

The spokesman's staff: "Ye princes of our land,

Adventurous Achaians, stout of heart,

Good news I bring, that now we may depart

Each to his home and kindred, each to his hearth

And wife and children dear and well-tilled garth,

Contented with the honour he has brought

To me and mine, since I have what we've sought

With bitter pain and loss. Yea, even now

Hath Heré crowned your strife and earned my vow

Made these ten years come harvest, having drawn

The veil from off those eyes than which not dawn

Holds sweeter light nor holier, once they see.

Yea, chieftains, Helen's heart comes back to me;

And fast she watches now hard by the wall

Of the wicked house, and ere the cock shall call

Another morn I have her in my arms

Redeemed for Sparta, pure of Trojan harms,

Whole-hearted and clean-hearted as she came

First, before Paris and his deed of shame

Threatened my house with wreck, and on his own

Have brought no joy. This night, disguised, alone,

I stand within the city, waiting day;

Then when men sleep, all in the shadowless gray,

Robbing the robber, I drop down with her

Over the wall—and lo! the end of the war!"

Thus great of heart and high of heart he spake,

And trembling ceased. Awhile none cared to break

The silence, like unto that breathless hush

That holds a forest ere the great winds rush

Up from the sea-gulf, bringing furious rain

Like mist to drown all nature, blot the plain

In one great sheet of water without form.

So held the chiefs. Then Diomede brake in storm.

Ever the first he was to fling his spear

Into the press of battle; dread his cheer,

Like the long howling of a wolf at eve

Or clamour of the sea-birds when they grieve

And hanker the out-scouring of the net

Hidden behind the darkness and the wet

Of tempest-ridden nights. "Princes," he cried,

"What say ye to this wooer of his bride,

For whom it seems ten nations and their best

Have fought ten years to bring her back to nest?

Is this your meed of honour? Was it for this

You flung forth fortune—to ensure him his?

And he made snug at home, we seek our lands

Barer than we left them, with emptier hands,

And some with fewer members, shed that he

Might fare as soft and trim as formerly!

Not so went I adventuring, good friend;

Not so look I this business to have end:

Nay, but I fight to live, not live to fight,

And so will live by day as thou by night,

Sating my eyes with havoc on this race

Of robbers of the hearth; see their strong place

Brought level with the herbage and the weed,

That where they revelled once shrew-mice may feed,

And moles make palaces, and bats keep house.

And if thou art of spleen so slow to rouse

As quit thy score by thieving from a thief

And leave him scatheless else, thou art no chief

For Tydeus' son, who sees no end of strife

But in his own or in his foeman's life."

So he. Then Pyrrhos spake: "By that great shade

Wherein I stand, which thy false Paris made

Who slew my father, think not so to have done

With Troy and Priam; for Peleides' son

Must slake the sword that cries, and still the ghost

Of him that haunts the ingles of this coast,

Murdered and unacquit while that man's father

Liveth."

Then leapt up two, and both together

Cried, "Give us Troy to sack, give us our fill

Of gold and bronze; give us to burn and kill!"

And Aias said, "Are there no women then

In Troy, but only her? And are we men

Or virgins of Athené?" And the dream

Of her who served that dauntless One made gleam

His shifting eyes, and stretcht his fleshy lips

Behind his beard.

Then stood that prince of ships

And shipmen, great Odysseus; with one hand

He held the staff, with one he took command;

And thus in measured tones, with word intent

Upon the deed, fierce but not vehement,

Drave in his dreadful message. At his sight

Clamour died down, even as the wind at night

Falls and is husht at rising of the moon.

"Ye chieftains of Achaia, not so soon

Is strife of ten years rounded to a close,

Neither so are men seated, friends or foes.

For say thus lightly we renounced the meed

Of our long travail, gave so little heed

To our great dead as find in one man's joy

Full recompense for all we've sunk in Troy—

Wives desolate, children fatherless, lands, gear,

Stock without master, wasting year by year;

Youth past, age creeping on, friends, brothers, sons

Lost in the void, gone where no respite runs

For sorrow, but the darkness covers all—

What name should we bequeath our sons but thrall,

Or what beside a name, who let go by

Ilios the rich for others' usury?

And have the blessed Gods no say in this?

Think you they be won over by a kiss—

Heré the Queen, she, the unwearied aid

Of all our striving, Pallas the war-maid?

Have they not vowed, and will ye scant their hate,

Havoc on Ilios from gate to gate,

And for her towers abasement to the dust?

Behold, O King, lust shall be paid with lust,

And treachery with treachery, and for blood

Blood shall be shed. Therefore let loose the flood

Of our pent passion; break her gates in, raze

The walls of her, cumber her pleasant ways

With dead men; set on havoc, sate with spoil

Men ravening; get corn and wine and oil,

Women to clasp in love, gold, silken things,

Harness of flashing bronze, swords, meed of kings,

Chariots and horses swifter than the wind

Which, coursing Ida, leaves ruin behind

Of snapt tall trees: not faster shall they fall

Than Trojan spears once we are on the wall.

So only shall ye close this agelong strife,

Nor by redemption of a too fair wife,

Now smiling, now averse, now hot, now cold,

O Menelaus, may the tale be told!

Nay, but by slaying of Achilles' slayer,

By the betrayal of the bed-betrayer,

By not withholding from the spoils of war

Men freeborn, nor from them that beaten are

Their rueful wages. Ilios must fall."

He said, and sat, and heard the acclaim of all,

Save of the sons of Atreus, who sat glum,

One flusht, one white as parchment, and both dumb;

One raging to be contraried, one torn

By those two passions wherewith he was born,

The lust for body's ease and lust of gain.

Then slow he rose, Mykenai's king of men,

Gentle his voice to hear. "Laertes' son,"

He said, but 'twas Nestor he looked upon,

The wise old man who sat beside his chair,

Mild now who once, a lion, kept his lair

Untoucht of any, or if e'er he left it,

Left it for prey, and held that when he reft it

From foe, or over friend made stronger claim:

"Laertes' son," the king said, "all men's fame

Reports thee just and fertile in device;

And as the friend of God great is thy price

To us of Argos; for without the Gods

How should we look to trace the limitless roads

That weave a criss-cross 'twixt us and our home?

Go to now, some will stay and other some

Take to the sea-ways, hasty to depart,

Not warfaring as men fare to the mart,

To best a neighbour in some chaffering bout;

But honour is the prize wherefor they go out,

And having that, dishonoured are content

To leave the foe—that is best punishment.

Natheless since men there be, Argives of worth,

Who needs must shed more blood ere they go forth—

As if of blood enough had not been spilt!—

Devise thou with my brother if thou wilt,

Noble Odysseus, seeking how compose

His honour with thy judgment. Well he knows

Thy singleness of heart, deep ponderer,

Lover of a fair wife, and sure of her.

Come, let this be the sum of our debate."

"Content you," Menelaus said, "I wait

Upon thy word, thou fosterling of Zeus."

Then said Odysseus, "Be it as you choose,

Ye sons of Atreus. Then, advised, I say

Let me win into Troy as best I may,

Seek out the lovely lady of our land

And learn of her the watchwords, see how stand

The sentries, how the warders of the gates;

The strength, how much it is; what prize awaits

To crown our long endeavour. These things learned,

Back to the ships I come ere yet are burned

The watch-fires of the night, before the sun

Hath urged his steeds the course they are to run

Out of the golden gateways of the East."

Which all agreed, and Helen's lord not least.

SIXTH STAVE

HELEN AND PARIS; ODYSSEUS AND HELEN

Like as the sweet free air, when maids the doors

And windows open wide, wanders the floors

And all the passage ways about the house,

Keen marshal of the sun, or serious

The cool gray light of morning 'gins to peer

Ere yet the household stirs, or chanticlere

Calls hinds to labour but hints not the glee

Nor full-flood glory of the day to be

When round about the hill the sun shall swim

And burn a sea-path—so demure and slim

Went Helen on her business with swift feet

And light, yet recollected, and her sweet

Secret held hid, that she was loved where need

Called her to mate, and that she loved indeed—

Ah, sacred calm of wedlock, passion white

Of lovers knit in Heré's holy light!

But while in early morn she wonned alone

And Paris slept, shrill rose her singing tone,

And brave the light on kindled cheeks and eyes:

Brave as her hope is, brave the flag she flies.

Then, as the hour drew on when the sun's rim

Should burn a sheet of gold to herald him

On Ida's snowy crest, lithe as a pard

For some lord's pleasuring encaged and barred

She paced the hall soft-footed up and down,

Lightly and feverishly with quick frown

Peered shrewdly this way, that way, like a bird

That on the winter grass is aye deterred

His food-searching by hint of unknown snare

In thicket, holt or bush, or lawn too bare;

Anon stopped, lip to finger, while the tide

Beat from her heart against her shielded side—

Now closely girdled went she like a maid—

And then slipt to the window, where she stayed

But minutes three or four; for soon she past

Out to the terrace, there to be at last

Downgazing on her glory, which her king

Reflected up in every motioning

And flux of his high passion. Only here

She triumphed, nor cared she to ask how near

The end of Troy, nor hazarded a guess

What deeds must do ere that could come to pass.

To her the instant homage held all joy—

And what to her was Sparta, or what Troy

Beside the bliss of that?

Or Paris, what

Was he, who daily, nightly plained his lot

To have risked all the world and ten years loved

This woman, now to find her nothing moved

By what he had done with her, what desired

To do? And more she chilled the less he tired,

And more he ventured less she cared recall

What was to her of nothing worth, or all:

All if the King required it of her, nought

If he who now could take it. It was bought,

And his by bargain: let him have it then;

But let it be for giving once again,

And all the rubies in the world's deep heart

Could fetch no price beside it.

Yet apart

She brooded on the man who held her chained,

Minister to his pleasure, and disdained

Him more the more herself she must disparage,

Reflecting on him all her hateful carriage,

So old, incredible, so flat, so stale,

No more to be recalled than old wife's tale;

And scorned him, saw him neither high nor low,

Not villain and not hero, who would go

Midway 'twixt baseness and nobility,

And not be fierce, if fierceness hurt a flea

Before his eyes. The man loved one thing more

Than all the world, and made his mind a whore

To minister his heart's need, for a price.

All which she loathed, yet chose not to be nice

With the snug-revelling wretch, her master yet,

Whose leaguer, though she scorned it, was no fret;

But lift on wings of her exalted mood,

She let him touch and finger what he would,

Unconscious of his being—as he saw,

And with a groan, whipt sharp upon the raw

Of his esteem, "Ah, cruel art thou turned,"

Would cry, "Ah, frosty fire, where I am burned,

Yet dying bless the flame that is my bane!"

With which to clasp her closer was he fain,

To touch in love, and feast his eyes to see

Her quiver at his touch, and laugh to be

The plucker of such chords of such a rote;

And laughing stoop and kiss her milky throat,

Then see her shut eyes hide what he had done.

"Nay, shut them not upon me, nay, nor shun

My worship!" So he said; but she, "They fade,

But are not yet so old as thou hast made

The soul thou pinnest here beneath my breasts

Which you have loved too well." His hand he rests

Over one fair white bosom like a cup,

And leaning, of her lips his own must sup;

But she will not, but gently doth refuse it,

Without a reason, save she doth not choose it.

Then when he flung away, she sat alone

And nursed her hope and sorrow, both in one

Perturbéd bosom; and her fingers wove

White webs as far afield her wits did rove

Perpending and perpending. So frail, so fair,

So faint she seemed, a wraith you had said there,

A woman dead, and not in lovely flesh.

But all the while she writhed within the mesh

Of circumstance, and fiercely flamed her rage:

"O slave, O minion, thing kept in a cage

For this sleek master's handling!" So she fumed

What time her wide eyes sought all ways, or loomed

Like winter lakes dark in a field of snow,

And still; nor lifted they their pall of woe

Responsive to her heart, nor flashed the thrill

That knew, which said, "A true man loveth me still."

That same night, as she used, fair Helen went

Among the suppliants in the hall, and lent

To each who craved the bounty of her grace,

Her gentle touch on wounds, her pitiful face

To beaten eyes' dumb eloquence, that art

She above all could use, to stroke the heart

And plead compassion in bestowing it.

So with her handmaids busy did she flit

From man to man, 'mid outlaws, broken blades,

Robbed husbandmen, their robbers, phantoms, shades

Of what were men till hunger made them less

Than man can be and still know uprightness;

And whom she spake with kindly words and cheer

In him the light of hope began to peer

And glimmer in his eyes; and him she fed

And nourisht, then sent homeward comforted

A little, to endure a little more.

Now among these, hard by the outer door,

She marked a man unbent whose sturdy look

Never left hers for long, whose shepherd's hook

Seemed not a staff to prop him, whose bright eyes

Burned steadily, as fire when the wind dies.

Great in the girth was he, but not so tall

By a full hand as many whom the wall

Showed like gaunt channel-posts by an ebb tide

Left stranded in a world of ooze. Beside

His knees she kneeled, and to his wounded feet

Applied her balms; but he, from his low seat

Against the wall, leaned out and in her ear

Whispered, but so that no one else could hear,

"Other than my wounds are there for thy pains,

Lady, and deeper. One, a grievous, drains

The great heart of a king, and one is fresh,

Though ten years old, in the sweet innocent flesh

Of a young child."

Nothing said she, but stoopt

The closer to her task. He thought she droopt

Her head, he knew she trembled, that her shoulder

Twitcht as she wrought her task; so he grew bolder,

Saying, "But thou art pitiful! I know

That thou wilt wash their wounds."

She whispered "Oh,

Be sure of me!"

Then he, "Let us have speech

Secret together out of range or reach

Of prying ears, if such a chance may be."

Then she said, "Towards morning look for me

Here, when the city sleeps, before the sun."

So till the glimmer of dawn this hardy one

Keepeth the watch in Paris' house. All night

With hard unwinking eyes he sat upright,

While all about the sleepers lay, like stones

Littered upon a hill-top, save that moans,

Sighings and "Gods, have pity!" showed that they

By night rehearsed the miseries of day,

And by bread lived not but by hope deferred.

Grimly he suffered till such time he heard

Helen's light foot and faint and gray in the mist

Descried her slim veiled outline, saw her twist

And slip between the sleepers on the ground,

Atiptoe coming, swift, with scarce a sound,

Not faltering in fear. No fear she had.

From head to foot a sea-blue mantle clad

Her lovely shape, from which her pale keen face

Shone like the moon in frosty sky. No case

Was his to waver, for her eyes spake true

As Heaven upon the world. Him then she drew

To follow her, out of the house, to where

The ilex trees stood darkly, and the air

Struck sharp and chill before the dawn's first breath.

There stood a little altar underneath

An image: Artemis the quick deerslayer,

High-girdled and barekneed; to Whom in prayer

First bowed, then stood erect with lifted hands,

Palms upward, Helen. "Lady of open lands

And lakes and windy heights," prayed she, "so do

To me as to Amphion's wife when blew

The wind of thy high anger, and she stared

On sudden death that not one dear life spared

Of all she had—so do to me if false

I prove unto this Argive!"

Then the walls

And gates of Ilios she traced in the sand,

And told him of the watch-towers, and how manned

The gates at night; and where the treasure was,

And where the houses of the chiefs. But as

She faltered in the tale, "Show now," said he,

"Where Priam's golden palace is."

But she

Said, "Nay, not that; for since the day of shame

That brought me in, no word or look of blame

Hath he cast on me. Nay, when Hector died

And all the city turned on me and cried

My name, as to an outcast dog men fling

Howling and scorn, not one word said the King.

And when they hissed me in the shrines of the Gods,

And women egged their children on with nods

To foul the house-wall, or in passing spat

Towards it, he, the old King, came and sat

Daily with me, and often on my hair

Would lay a gentle hand. Him thou shalt spare

For my sake who betray him."

Odysseus said,

"Well, thou shalt speak no more of him. His bed

Is not of thy making, nor mine, but his

Who hath thee here a cageling, thy Paris.

Him he begat as well as Hector. Now

Let Priam look to reap what he did sow."

But when glad light brimmed o'er the cup of earth

And shrill birds called forth men to grief or mirth

As might afford their labour under the sun,

Helen advised how best to get him gone,

And fetched a roll of cord, the which made fast

About a stanchion, about him next she cast,

About and about until the whole was round

His body, and the end to his arm she bound:

Then showed him in the wall where best foothold

Might be, and watcht him down as fold by fold

He paid the cable out; and as he paid

So did she twist it, till the coil was made

As it had been at first. Then watcht she him

Stride o'er the plain until he twinkled dim

And sank into the mist.

That day came not

King Menelaus to the trysting spot;

But ere Odysseus left her she had ta'en

A crocus flower which on her breast had lain,

And toucht it with her lips. "Give this," said she,

"To my good lord who hath seen the flower in me."

SEVENTH STAVE

THEY BUILD THE HORSE AND ENTER IN

What weariness of wind and wave and foam

Was to be for Odysseus ere his home

Of scrub and crag and scanty pasturage

He saw again! What stress of pilgrimage

Through roaring waterways and cities of men,

What sojourn among folk beyond the ken

Of mortal seafarers in homelier seas,

More trodden lands! Sure, none had earned his ease

As he, that windless morning when he drew

Near silent Ithaca, gray in misty blue,

And wondered on the old familiar scene,

Which was to him as it had never been

Aforetime. Say, had he but had inkling

That in this hour all that long wandering

Of his was self-ensured, had he been bold

To plan and carry what must now be told

Of this too hardy champion? Solve it you

Whose chronicling is over. Mine's to do.

All day until the setting of the sun,

Devising how to use what he had won

Odysseus stood; for nothing within walls

Was hid, he knew the very trumpet-calls

Wherewith they turned the guard out, and the cries

The sentries used to hearten or advise

The city in the watches of the night.

Once in, no hope for Ilios; but his plight

No better stood for that, since no way in

Could he conceive, nor entry hope to win

For any force enough to seize the gate

And open for the host.

But then some Fate,

Or, some men say, Athené the gray-eyed,

Ever his friend, never far from his side,

Prompted him look about him. Then he heeds

A stork set motionless in the dry reeds

That lift their withered arms, a skeleton host,

Long after winter and her aching frost

Are gone, and rattle in the spring's soft breeze

Dry bones, as if to daunt the budding trees

And warn them of the summer's wrath to come.

Still sat the bird, as fast asleep or numb

With cold, her head half-buried in her breast,

With close-shut eyes: a dead bird on the nest,

Arrow-shot—for behold! a wound she bore

Mid-breast, which stooping to, to see the more,

Lo, forth from it came busy, one by one,

Light-moving ants! So she to her death had gone

These many days; and there where she lost life

Her carrion shell with it again was rife.

So teems the earth, that ere our clay be rotten

New hosts sweep clean the hearth, our deeds forgotten.

But stooping still, Odysseus saw her not

Nor her brisk tenantry; afar his thought,

And after it his vision, crossed the plain

And lit on Ilios, dim and lapt in rain,

Piled up like blocks which Titans rear to mark

Where hero of their breed sits stiff and stark,

Spear in dead hand, and dead chin on dead knees;

And "Ha," cried he, "proud hinderer of our ease,

Now hold I thee within my hollowed hand!"

Straightway returning, Troy's destruction planned,

He sends for one Epeios, craftsman good,

And bids him frame him out a horse in wood,

Big-bellied as a ship of sixty oars

Such as men use for traffic, not in wars,

Nor piracy, but roomy, deep in the hold,

Where men may shelter if needs be from cold,

Or sleep between their watches. "Scant not you,"

He said, "your timber not your sweat. Drive through

This horse for me, Epeios, as if we

Awaited it to give the word for sea

And Hellas and our wives and children dear;

For this is true, without it we stay here

Another ten-year shift, if by main force

We would take Troy, but ten days with my horse."

So to their task Epeios and his teams

Went valiantly, and heaved and hauled great beams

Of timber from far Ida, and hacked amain

And rought the framework out. Then to it again

They went with adzes and their smoothing tools,

And made all shapely; next bored for their dools

With augurs, and made good stock on to stock

With mortise and with dovetail. Last, they lock

The frames with clamps, the nether to the upper,

And body forth a horse from crest to crupper

In outline.

Now their ribbing must be shaped

With axe to take the round, first rought, then scraped

With adzes, then deep-mortised in the frame

To bear the weight of so much mass, whose fame

When all was won, the Earth herself might quake,

Supporting on her broad breast. Now they take

Planks sawn and smoothed, and set them over steam

Of cauldrons to be supple. These to the beam

Above they rivet fast, and bend them down

Till from the belly more they seem to have grown

Than in it to be ended, so well sunk

And grooved they be. There's for the horse's trunk.

But as for head and legs, these from the block

Epeios carved, and fixed them on the stock

With long pins spigotted and clamps of steel;

And then the tail, downsweeping to the heel,

He carved and rivetted in place. Yet more

He did; for cunningly he made a door

Beneath the belly of him, in a part

Where Nature lends her aid to sculptor's art,

And few would have the thought to look for it,

Or eyes so keen to find, if they'd the wit.

Greatly stood he, hogmaned, with wrinkled néck

And wrying jaw, as though upon the check

One rode him. On three legs he stood, with one

Pawing the air, as if his course to run

Was overdue. Almost you heard the champ

And clatter of the bit, almost the stamp

And scrape of hoof; almost his fretful crest

He seemed to toss on high. So much confest

The wondering host. "But where's the man to ride?"

They askt. Odysseus said, "He'll go inside.

Yet there shall seem a rider—nay, let two

Bespan so brave a back," Epeios anew

He spurred, and had his horsemen as he would,

Two noble youths, star-frontletted, but nude

Of clothing, and unarmed, who sat as though

Centaurs not men, and with their knees did show

The road to travel. Next Odysseus bid,

"Gild thou me him, Epeios"; which he did,

And burnisht after, till he blazed afar

Like that great image which men hail for a star

Of omen holy, image without peer,

Chryselephantine Athené with her spear,

Shining o'er Athens; to which their course they set

When homeward faring through the seaways wet

From Poros or from Nauplia, or some

From the Eubœan gulf, or where the foam

Washes the feet of Sounion, on whose brow

Like a white crown the shafts burn even now.

Such was the shaping of the Horse of Wood,

The bane of Ilios.

Ordered now they stood

Midway between the ships and Troy, and cast

The lots, who should go in from first to last

Of all the chieftains chosen. And the lot

Leapt out of Diomede, so in he got

And sat up in the neck. Next Aias went,

Clasping his shins and blinking as he bent,

Working the ridges of his villainous brow,

Like puzzled, patient monkey on a bough

That peers with bald, far-seeing eyes, whose scope

And steadfastness seem there to mock our hope;

Next Antiklos, and next Meriones

The Cretan; next good Teukros. After these

Went Pyrrhos, Agamemnon, King of men,

Menestheus and Idomeneus, and then

King Menelaus; and Odysseus last

Entered the desperate doorway, and made fast.

And all the Achaian remnant, seeing their best

To this great venture finally addrest,

Stood awed in silence; but Nestor the old

Bade bring the victims, and these on the wold

In sight of Troy he slew, and so uplift

The smoke of fire, and bloodsmoke, as a gift

Acceptable to Him he hailed by name

Kronion, sky-dweller, who giveth fame,

Lord of the thunder; to Heré next, and Her,

The Maid of War and holy harbinger

Of Father Zeus, who bears the Ægis dread

And shakes it when the storm peals overhead

And lightning splits the firmament with fire;

Nor yet forgat Poseidon, dark-haired sire

Of all the seas, and of great Ocean's flow,

The girdler of the world. So back with slow

And pondered steps they all returned, and dark

Swallowed up Troy, and Horse, and them who stark

Abode within it. And the great stars shone

Out over sea and land; and speaking none,

Nursing his arms, nursing within his breast

His enterprise, each hero sat at rest

Ignorant of the world of day and night,

Or whether he should live to see the light,

Or see it but to perish in this cage.

Only Odysseus felt his heart engage

The blithelier for the peril. He was stuff

That thrives by daring, nor can dare enough.

Three days, three nights before the Skaian Gate

Sat they within their ambush, apt for fate;

Three days, three nights, the Trojans swarmed the walls

And towers or held high council in their halls

What this portended, this o'erweening mass

Reared up so high no man stretching could pass

His hand over the crupper, of such girth

Of haunch, to span the pair no man on earth

Could compass with both arms. But most their eyes

Were for the riders who in godlike guise

Went naked into battle, as Gods use,

Untrammel'd by our shifts of shields and shoes,

As if we dread the earth whereof we are.

Sons of God, these: for bore not each a star

Ablaze upon his forelock? Lo, they say,

Kastor and Polydeukes, who but they,

Come in to save their sister at the last,

And war for Troy, and root King Priam fast

In his demesne, him and his heirs for ever!

Now call they soothsayers to make endeavour

With engines of their craft to read the thing;

But others urge them hale it to the King—

"Let him dispose," they say, "of it and us,

And order as he will, from Pergamos

To heave it o'er the sheer and bring to wreck;

Or burn with fire; or harbour to bedeck

The temple of some God: of three ways one.

Here it cannot abide to flout the sun

With arrogant flash for every beam of his."

Herewith agreed the men of mysteries,

Raking the bloodsick earth to have the truth,

And getting what they lookt for, as in sooth

A man will do. So then they all fell to't

To hale with cords and lever foot by foot

The portent; and as frenzy frenzy breeds,

And what one has another thinks he needs,

So to a straining twenty other score

Lent hands, and ever from the concourse more

Of them, who hauled as if Troy's life depended

On hastening forward that wherein it ended.

So came the Horse to Troy, so was filled up

With retribution that sweet loving-cup

Paris had drunk to Helen overseas—

The cup which whoso drains must taste the lees.

EIGHTH STAVE

THE HORSE IN TROY; THE PASSION OF KASSANDRA

High over Troy the windy citadel,

Pergamos, towereth, where is the cell

And precinct of Athené. There, till reived,

They kept the Pallium, sacred and still grieved

By all who held the city consecrate

To Her, as first it was, till she learned hate

For what had once been lovely, and let in

The golden Aphrodité, and sweet sin

To ensnare Prince Paris and send him awooing

A too-fair wife, to be his own undoing

And Troy's and all the line's of Dardanos,

That traced from Zeus to him, from him to Tros,

From Tros to Ilos, to Laomedon,

Who begat Priam as his second son.

But out of Troy Assarakos too came,

From whom came Kapys; and from him the fame

Of good Anchises, with whom Kypris lay

In love and got Aineias. He, that day

Of dreadful wrath, safe only out did come,

And builded great Troy's line in greater Rome.

Now to the forecourt flock the Trojan folk

To view the portent. Now they bring to yoke

Priam's white horses, that the stricken king

Himself may see the wonder-working thing,

Himself invoke with his frail trembling voice

The good Twin Brethren for his aid and Troy's.

So presently before it Priam stands,

Father and King of Troy, with feeble hands

And mild pale eyes wherein Grief like a ghost

Sits; and about him all he has not lost

Of all his children gather, with grief-worn

Andromaché and her first, and last, born,

The boy Astyanax. And there apart

The wise Aineias stands, of steadfast heart

But not acceptable—for some old grudge

Inherited—Aineias, silent judge

Of folly, as he had been since the sin

Of Paris knelled the last days to begin.

But he himself, that Paris, came not out,

But kept his house in these his days of doubt,

Uncertain of his footing, being of those

On whom the faintest breath of censure blows

Chill as the wind that from the frozen North

Palsies the fount o' the blood. He dared not forth

Lest men should see—and how not see? he thought—

That Helen held him lightlier than she ought.

But Helen came there, gentle as of old,

Self-held, sufficient to herself, not bold,

Not modest nor immodest, taking none

For judge or jury of what she may have done;

But doing all she was to do, sedate,

Intent upon it and deliberate.

As she had been at first, so was she now

When she had put behind her her old vow

And had no pride but thinking of her new.

But she was lovelier, of more burning hue,

And in her eyes there shone, for who could see,

A flickering light, half scare and half of glee,

Which made those iris'd orbs to wax and wane

Like to the light of April days, when rain

And sun contend the sovereignty. She kept

Beside the King, and only closer crept

To let him feel her there when some harsh word

Or look made her heart waver. Many she heard,

And much she saw, but knew the King her friend,

Him only since great Hector met his end.

And while so pensive and demure she stood,

With one thin hand just peeping at her hood,

The which close-folded her from head to knee,

Her heart within her bosom hailed her—"Free!

Free from thy thralldom, free to save, to give,

To love, be loved again, and die to live!"

So she—yet who had said, to see her there,

The sweet-faced woman, blue-eyed, still and fair

As windless dawn in some quiet mountain place,

To such a music let her passion race?

Now hath the King his witless welcome paid,

And now invoked the gods, and the cold shade

Which once was Hector; now, being upheld

By two his sons, with shaking hands of eld

The knees of those two carved and gilded youths

He touches while he prays, and praying soothes

The crying heart of Helen. But not so

Kassandra views him pray, that well of woe

Kassandra, she whom Loxias deceived

With gift to see, and not to be believed;

To read within the heart of Time all truth

And see men blindly blunder, to have ruth,

To burn, to cry, "Out, haro!" and be a mock—

Ah, and to know within this gross wood-block

The fate of all her kindred, and her own,

Unthinkable! Now with her terror blown

Upon her face, to blanch it like a sheet,

Now with bare frozen eyes which only greet

The viewless neighbours of our world she strips

The veil and shrieketh Troy's apocalypse:

"Woe to thee, Ilios! The fire, the fire! And rain,

Rain like to blood and tears to drown the plain

And cover all the earth up in a shroud,

One great death-clout for thee, Ilios the proud!

Touch not, handle not——" Outraged then she turned

To Helen—"O thou, for whom Troy shall be burned,

O ruinous face, O breasts made hard with gall,

Now are ye satisfied? Ye shall have all,

All Priam's sons and daughters, all his race

Gone quick to death, hailing thee, ruinous face!"

Her tragic mask she turned upon all men:

"The lion shall have Troy, to make his den

Within her pleasant courts, in Priam's high seat

Shall blink the vulture, sated of his meat;

And in the temples emptied of their Gods

Bats shall make quick the night, and panting toads

Make day a loathing to the light it brings.

Listen! Listen! they flock out; heed their wings.

The Gods flee forth of this accursèd haunt,

And leave the memory of it an old chant,

A nursery song, an idle tale that's told

To children when your own sons are grown old

In Argive bonds, and have no other joy

Than whispering to their offspring tales of Troy."

Whereat she laught—O bitter sound to hear!

And struggled with herself, and grinned with fear

And misery lest even now her fate

Should catch her and she be believed too late.

"Is't possible, O Gods! Are ye so doomed

As not to know this Horse a mare, enwombed

Of men and swords? Know ye not there unseen

The Argive princes wait their dam shall yean?

Anon creeps Sparta forth, to find his balm

In that vile woman; forth with itching palm

Mykenai creeps, snuffing what may be won

By filching; forth Pyrrhos the braggart's son

That dared do violence to Hector dead,

But while he lived called Gods to serve his stead;

Forth Aias like a beast, to mangle me—

These things ye will not credit, but I see."

Then once again, and last, she turned her switch

On Helen, hissing, "Out upon thee, witch,

Smooth-handed traitress, speak thy secrets out

That we may know thee, how thou goest about

Caressing, with a hand that hides a knife,

That which shall prove false paramour, false wife,

Fair as the sun is fair that smiles and slays"—

And then, "O ruinous face, O ruinous face!"

But nothing more, for sudden all was gone,

Spent by her passion. Muttering, faint and wan

Down to the earth she sank, and to and fro

Rocking, drew close her hood, and shrouded so,

Her wild voice drowning, died in moans away.

But Helen stood bright-eyed as glancing day,

Near by the Horse, and with a straying hand

Did stroke it here and there, and listening stand,

Leaning her head towards its gilded flank,

And strain to hear men's breath behind the plank;

And she had whispered if she dared some word

Of promise; but afraid to be o'erheard,

Leaned her head close and toucht it with her cheek,

Then drew again to Priam, schooled and meek.

But Menelaus felt her touch, and mum

Sat on, nursing his mighty throw to come;

And Aias started, with some cry uncouth

And vile, but fast Odysseus o'er his mouth

Clapt hand, and checkt his foul perseverance

To seek in every deed his own essence.

Now when the ways were darkened, and the sun

Sank red to sea, and homeward all had gone

Save that distraught Kassandra, who still served

The temple whence the Goddess long had swerved,

Athené, hating Troy and loving them

Who craved to snatch and make a diadem

Of Priam's regal crown for other brows—

She, though foredoomed she knew, held to her vows,

And duly paid the thankless evening rite—

There came to Paris' house late in the night

Deïphobus his brother, young and trim,

For speech with fair-tressed Helen, for whose slim

And budded grace long had he sighed in vain;

And found her in full hall, and showed his pain

And need of her. To whom when she draws close

In hot and urgent crying words he shows

His case, hers now, that here she tarry not

Lest evil hap more dread than she can wot:

"For this," he says, "is Troy's extremest hour."

But when to that she bowed her head, the power

Of his high vision made him vehement:

"Dark sets the sun," he cried, "and day is spent";

But she said, "Nay, the sun will rise with day,

And I shall bathe in light, lift hands and pray."

"Thou lift up hands, bound down to a new lord!"

He mocked; then whispered, "Lady, with a sword

I cut thy bonds if so thou wilt."

Apart

She moved: "No sword, but a cry of the heart

Shall loose me."

Then he said, "Hear what I cry

From my heart unto thine: fly, Helen, fly!"

Whereat she shook her head and sighed, "Even so,

Brother, I fly where thou canst never go.

Far go I, out of ken of thee and thy peers."

He knew not what she would, but said, "Thy fears

Are of the Gods and holy dooms and Fate,

But mine the present menace in the gate.

This I would save thee."

"I fear it not," said she,

"But wait it here."

He cried, "Here shalt thou see

Thy Spartan, and his bitter sword-point feel

Against thy bosom."

"I bare it to the steel,"

Saith she. He then, "If ever man deserved thee

By service, I am he, who'd die to serve thee."

Glowing she heard him, being quickly moved

By kindness, loving ever where she was loved.

But now her heart was fain for rest; the night

Called her to sleep and dreams. So with a light

And gentle hand upon him, "Brother, farewell,"

She said, "I stay the issue, and foretell

Honour therein at least."

Then at the door

She kissed him. And she saw his face no more.

NINTH STAVE

THE GODS FORSAKE TROY

Now Dawn came weeping forth, and on the crest

Of Ida faced a chill wind from the West.

Forth from the gray sea wrack-laden it blew

And howled among the towers, and stronger grew

As crept unseen the sun his path of light.

Then she who in the temple all that night

Had kept her rueful watch, the prophetess

Kassandra, peering sharply, heard the press

And rush of flight above her, and with sick

Foreboding waited; and the air grew thick

With flying shapes immortal overhead.

As in late Autumn, when the leaves are shed

And dismal flit about the empty ways,

And country folk provide against dark days,

And heap the woodstack, and their stores repair,

Attent you know the quickening of the air,

And closer yet the swish and sweep and swing

Of wings innumerable, emulous to bring

The birds to broader skies and kindlier sun,

And know indeed that winter is begun—

So seeing first, then hearing, she knew the hour

Was come when Troy must fall, and not a tower

Be left to front the morrow. And she covered

Her head and mourned, while one by one they hovered

Above their shrines, then flockt and faced the dawn.

First, in her car of shell and amber, drawn

By clustering doves with burnisht wings, a-throng,

Passes Queen Aphrodité, and her song

Is sweet and sharp: "I gave my sacred zone

To warm thy bosom, Helen which by none

That live by labour and in tears are born

And sighing go their ways, has e'er been worn.

It kindled in thine eyes the lovelight, showed

Thy burning self in his. Thy body glowed

With beauty like to mine: mine thy love-laughter

Thy cooing in the night, thy deep sleep after,

Thy rapture of the morning, love renewed;

And all the shadowed day to sit and brood

On what has been and what should be again:

Thou wilt not? Nay, I proffer not in vain

My gifts, for I am all or will be nought.

Lo, where I am can be no other thought."

Thus to the wooded heights of Ida she

Was drawn, hid in that pearly galaxy

Of snow-white pigeons.

Next upon the height

Of Pergamos uplift a beam of light

That for its core enshrined a naked youth,

Golden and fierce. She knew the God sans ruth,

Him who had given woeful prescience to her,

Apollo, once her lover and her wooer;

Who stood as one stands glorying in his grace

And strength, full in the sun, though on her place

Within the temple court no sun at all

Shone, nor as yet upon the topmost wall

Was any tinge of him, but all showed gray

And sodden in the wind and blown sea-spray.

Not to him dared she lift her voice in prayer,

Nor scarce her eyes to see him.

To him there

Came swift a spirit in shape of virgin slim,

With snooded hair and kirtle belted trim,

Short to the knee; and in her face the gale

Had blown bright sanguine colour. Free and hale

She was; and in her hand she held a bow

Unstrung, and o'er her shoulders there did go

A baldrick that made sharp the cleft betwixt

Her sudden breasts—to that a quiver fixt,

Showing gold arrow-points. No God there is

In Heaven more swift than Delian Artemis,

The young, the pure health-giver of the Earth,

Who loveth all things born, and brings to birth,

And after slays with merciful sudden death—

In whom is gladness all and wholesome breath,

And to whom all the praise of him who writes,

Ever.

These two she saw like meteorites

Flare down the wind and burn afar, then fade.

And Leto next, a mother grave and staid,

Drave out her chariot, which two winged stags drew,

Swift following, robed in gown of inky blue,

And hooded; and her hand which held the hood

Gleamed like a patch of snow left in a wood

Where hyacinths bring down to earth the sky.

And in her wake a winging company,

Dense as the cloud of gulls which from a rock

At sea lifts up in myriads, if the knock

Of oars assail their peace, she saw, and mourned

The household gods. For outward they too turned,

The spirits of the streams and water-brooks,

And nymphs who haunt the pastures, or in nooks

Of woodlands dwell. There like a lag of geese

Flew in long straying lines the Oreades

That in wild dunes and commons have their haunt;

There sped the Hamadryads; there aslant,

As from the sea, but wheeling ere they crost

Their sisters, thronged the river-nymphs, a host;

And now the Gods of homestead and the hearth,

Like sad-faced mourning women, left the garth

Where each had dwelt since Troy was stablishéd,

And been the holy influence over bed

And board and daily work under the sun

And nightlong slumber when day's work was done:

They rose, and like a driven mist of rain

Forsook the doomed high city and the plain,

And drifted eastaway; and as they went

Heaviness spread o'er Ilios like a tent,

And past not off, but brooded all day long.

But ever coursed new spirits to the throng

That packt the ways of Heaven. From the plain,

From mere and holt and hollow rose amain

The haunters of the silence; from the streams

And wells of water, from the country demes,

From plough and pasture, bottom, ridge and crest

The rustic Gods rose up and joined the rest.

Like a long wisp of cloud from out his banks

Streamed Xanthos, that swift river, to the ranks

Of flying shapes; and driven by that same mind

That urged him to it came Simoeis behind,

And other Gods and other, of stream and tree

And hill and vale—for nothing there can be

On earth or under Heaven, but hath in it

Essence whereby alone its form may hit

Our apprehension, channelled in the sense

Which feedeth us, that we through vision dense

See Gods as trees walking, or in the wind

That singeth in the bents guess what's behind

Its wailing music.

And now the unearthly flock,

Emptying every water, wood, bare rock

And pasture, beset Ida, and their wings

Beat o'er the forest which about her springs

And makes a sea of verdure, whence she lifts

Her soaring peaks to bathe them in the drifts

Of cloud, and rare reveal them unto men—

For Zeus there hath his dwelling, out of ken

Of men alike and gods. But now the brows,

The breasting summits, still eternal snows,

And all the faces of the mountain held

A concourse like in number to the field

Of Heaven upon some breathless summer night

Printed with myriad stars, some burning bright,

Some massed in galaxy, a cloudy scar,

And others faint, as infinitely far.

There rankt the Gods of Heaven, Earth, and Sea,

Brethren of them now hastening from the fee

Of stricken Priam. Out of his deep cloud

Zeus flamed his levin, and his thunder loud

Volleyed his welcome. With uplifted hands

Acclaiming, God's oncoming each God stands

To greet. And thus the Hierarchy at one

Sits to behold the bitter business done

Which Paris by his luxury bestirred.

But in the city, like a stricken bird

Grieving her desolation and despair,

As voiceless and as lustreless, astare

For imminent Death, Kassandra croucht beneath

Her very doom, herself the bride of Death;

For in the temple's forecourt reared the mass

Of that which was to bring the woe to pass,

And hidden in him both her murderers

Wrung at their nails.

And slow the long day wears

While all the city broods. The chiefs keep house,

Or gather on the wall, or make carouse

To simulate a freedom they feel not;

And at street corners men in shift or plot

Whisper together, or in the market-place

Gather, and peer each other in the face

Furtively, seeking comfort against care;

Whose eyes, meeting by chance, shift otherwhere

In haste. But in the houses, behind doors

Shuttered and barred, the women scrub their floors,

Or ply their looms as busily: for they

Ever cure care with care, and if a day

Be heavy lighten it with heavier task;

And for their griefs wear beauty like a mask,

And answer heart's presaging with a song

On their brave lips, and render right for wrong.

Little, by outward seeming, do they know

Of doom at hand, of fate or blood or woe,

Nor how their children, playing by their knees,

Must end this day of busyness-at-ease

In shrieking night, with clamour for their bread,

And a red bath, and a cold stone for a bed

Under the staring moon.

Now sinks the sun

Blood-red into the heavy sea and dun,

And forth from him, as he were stuck with swords,

Great streams of light go upward. Then the lords

Of havoc and unrest prepare their storms,

And o'er the silent city, vulture forms—

Eris and Enyo, Alké, Ioké,

The biter, the sharp-bitten, the mad, the fey—

Hover and light on pinnacle and tower:

The gray Erinnyes, watchful for the hour

When Haro be the wail. And down the sky

Like a white squall flung Até with a cry

That sounded like the wind in a ship's shrouds,

As shrill and wild at once. The driving clouds

Surging together, blotted out the sea,

The beachéd ships, the plain with mound and tree,

And slantwise came the sheeted rain, and fast

The darkness settled in. Kassandra cast

Her mantle o'er her head, and with slow feet

Entered her shrine deserted, there to greet

Her fate when it should come; and merciful Sleep

Befriended her.

Now from his lair did creep

Odysseus forth unarmed, his sword and spear

There in the Horse, and warily to peer

And spy his whereabouts the Ithacan

Went doubtful. Then his dreadful work began,

As down the bare way of steep Pergamos

Under the dark he sought for Paris' house.

TENTH STAVE

ODYSSEUS COMES AGAIN TO PARIS' HOUSE

There in her cage roamed Helen light and fierce,

Unresting, with bright eyes and straining ears,

Nor ever stayed her steps; but first the hall

She ranged, touching the pillars; next to the wall

Went out and shot her gaze into the murk

Whereas the ships should lie; then to her work

Upon the great loom turned and wove a shift,

But idly, waiting always for some lift

In the close-wrapping fog that might discover

The moving hosts, the spearmen of her lover—

Lover and husband, master and lord of life,

Coming at last to take a slave to wife.

And as wide-eyed she stared to feel her heart

Leap to her side, she felt the warm tears start,

And thankt the Goddess for the balm they brought.

Yet to her women, withal so highly wrought

By hope and care and waiting, she was mild

And gentle-voiced, and playful as a child

That sups the moment's joy, and nothing heeds

Time past or time to come, but fills all needs

With present kindness. She would laugh and talk,

Take arms, suffer embraces, even walk

The terrace 'neath the eyes of all her fate,

And seem to heed what they might show or prate,

As if her whole heart's heart were in this house

And not at fearful odds and perilous.

And should one speak of Paris, as to say,

"Would that our lord might see thee go so gay

About his house!" Gently she'd bend her head

Down to her breast and pluck a vagrant thread

Forth from her tunic's hem, and looking wise,

Gaze at her hand which on her bosom's rise

Lit like a butterfly and quivered there.

Now in the dusk, with Paris otherwhere

At council with the chieftains, into the hall

To Helen there, was come, adventuring all,

Odysseus in the garb of countryman,

A herdsman from the hills, with stain of tan

Upon his neck and arms, with staff and scrip,

And round each leg bound crosswise went a strip

Of good oxhide. Within the porch he came

And louted low, and hailed her by her name,

Among her maidens easy to be known,

Though not so tall as most, and not full blown

To shape and flush like a full-hearted rose;

But like a summer wave her bosom flows

Lax and most gentle, and her tired sweet face

Seems pious as the moon in a blue space

Of starless heaven, and in her eyes the hue

Of early morning, gray through mist of blue.

Not by a flaunted beauty is she guessed

Queen of them all, but by the right expressed

In her calm gaze and fearless, and that hold

Upon her lips which Gods have. Nay, not cold,

Thou holy one, not cold thy lips, which say

All in a sigh, and with one word betray

The passion of thy heart! But who can wis

The fainting piercing message of thy kiss?

O blest initiate—let him live to tell

Thy godhead, show himself thy miracle!

But when she saw him there with his head bowed

And humble hands, deeply her fair face glowed,

And broad across the iris swam the black

Until her eyes showed darkling. "Friend, your lack

Tell me," she said, "and what is mine to give

Is yours; but little my prerogative

Here in this house, where I am not the queen

You call me, but another name, I ween,

Serves me about the country you are of,

Which Ilios gives me too, but not in love.

Yet are we all alike in evil plight,

And should be tender of each other's right,

And of each other's wrongdoing, and wrongs done

Upon us. Have you wife and little one

Hungry at home? Have you a son afield?

Or do you mourn? Alas, I cannot wield

The sword you lack, nor bow nor spear afford

To serve...."

He said, "Nay, you can sheathe the sword,

Slack bowstring, and make spear a hunter's toy.

Lady, I come to end this war of Troy

In your good pleasure."

With her steady eyes

Unwinking fixt, "Let you and me devise,"

Said she, "this happy end of bow and spear,

So shall we serve the land. You have my ear;

Speak then."

"But so," he said, "these maidens have it.

But we save Troy alone, or never save it."

Turning she bid them leave her with a nod,

And they obeyed. Swift then and like a God

She seemed, with bright all-knowing eyes and calm

Gesture of high-held head, and open palm

To greet. "Laertes' son, what news bringst thou?"

"Lady," he said, "the best. The hour is now.

We stand within the heaven-establisht walls,

We gird the seat. Within an hour it falls,

The seat divine of Dardanos and Tros,

After our ten years' travail and great loss

Of heroes not yet rested, but to rest

Soon."

Then she laid her hand upon her breast

To stay it. "Who are ye that stand here-by?"

"Desperate men," he said, "prepared to die

If thou wilt have it so. Chief is there none

Beside the ships but Nestor. All are gone

Forth in the Horse. Under thy covering hand

Thou holdest all Achaia. Here we stand,

Epeios, Pyrrhos, Antiklos, with these

Cretan Idomeneus, Meriones,

Aias the Lokrian, Teukros, Diomede

Of the loud war-cry, next thy man indeed,

Golden-haired Menelaus the robbed King,

And Agamemnon by him, and I who bring

This news and must return to take what lot

Thou choosest us; for all is thine, God wot,

To end or mend, to make or mar at will."

A weighty utterance, but she heard the thrill

Within her heart, and listened only that—

To know her love so near. So near he sat

Hidden when she that toucht the Horse's flank

Could have toucht him! "Odysseus!" her voice sank

To the low tone of the soft murmuring dove

That nests and broods, "Odysseus, heard my love

My whisper of his name when close I stood

And stroked the Horse?"

"I heard and understood,"

He said, "and Lokrian Aias would have spoken

Had I not clapt a hand to his mouth—else broken

By garish day had been our house of dream,

And our necks too. I heard a woman scream

Near by and cry upon the Ruinous Face,

But none made answer to her."

Nought she says

To that but "I am ready; let my lord

Come when he will. Humbly I wait his word."

"That word I bring," Odysseus said, "he comes.

Await him here."

Her wide eyes were the homes

Of long desire. "Ah, let me go with thee

Even as I am; from this dark house take me

While Paris is abroad!"

He shook his head.

"Not so, but he must find thee here abed—

And Paris here."

The light died out; a mask

Of panic was her face, what time her task

Stared on a field of white horror like blood:

"Here! But there must be strife then!"

"Well and good,"

Said he.

Then she, shivering and looking small,

"And one must fall?" she said; he, "One must fall."

Reeling she turned her pincht face other way

And muttered with her lips, grown cold and gray,

Then fawning came at him, and with her hands

Besought him, but her voice made no demands,

Only her haunted eyes were quick, and prayed,

"Ah, not to fall through me!"

"By thee," he said,

"The deed is to be done."

She droopt adown

Her lovely head; he heard her broken moan,

"Have I not caused enough of blood-shedding,

And enough women's tears? Is not the sting

Sharp enough of the knife within my side?"

No more she could.

Then he, "Think not to avoid

The lot of man, who payeth the full price

For each deed done, and riddeth vice by vice:

Such is the curse upon him. The doom is

By God decreed, that for thy forfeit bliss

In Sparta thou shalt pay the price in Troy,

Dishonour for lost honour, pain for joy;

By what hot thought impelled, by that alone

Win back; by violence violence atone.

If by chicane thou fleddest, by chicane

Win back thy blotted footprints. Out again

With all thine arts of kisses slow and long,

Of smiles and stroking hands, and crooning song

Whenas full-fed with love thou lulledst asleep;

Renew thine eyebright glances, whisper and creep

And twine about his neck thy wreathing arms:

As we with spears so do thou with thy charms,

Arm thee and wait the hour of fire and smoke

To purge this robbery. Paris by the stroke

Of him he robbed shall wash out his old cheat

In blood, and thou, woman, by new deceit

Of him redeem thy first. For thus God saith,

Traitress, thou shalt betray thy thief to death."

He ceased, and she by misery made wild

And witless, shook, and like a little child

Gazed piteous, and asked, "What must I do?"

He answered, "Hold him by thee, falsely true,

Until the King stand armed within the house

Ready to take his blood-price. Even thus,

By shame alone shalt thou redeem thy shame."

And now she claspt his knee and cried his name:

"Mercy! I cannot do it. Let me die

Sooner than go to him so. What, must I lie

With one and other, make myself a whore,

And so go back to Sparta, nevermore

To hold my head up level with my slaves,

Nor dare to touch my child?"

Said he, "Let knaves

Deal knavishly till freedom they can win;

And so let sinners purge themselves of sin."

Then fiercely looking on her where she croucht

Fast by his knees, his whole mind he avoucht:

"How many hast thou sent the way of death

By thy hot fault? What ghosts like wandering breath

Shudder and wail unhouseled on the plain,

Shreds of Achaian honour? What hearts in pain

Cry the night through? What souls this very night

Fare forth? Art thou alone to sup delight,

Alone to lap in pleasantness, who first

And only, with thy lecher and his thirst,

Wrought all the harm? Only for thy smooth sake

Did Paris reive, and Menelaus ache,

And Hector die ashamed, and Peleus' son

Stand to the arrow, and Aias Telamon

Find madness and self-murder for the crown

Of all his travail?" He eyed her up and down

Sternly, as measuring her worth in scorn.

"Not thus may traffic any woman born

While men endure cold nights and burning days,

Hunger and wretchedness."

She stands, she says,

"Enough—I cannot answer. Tell me plain

What I must do."

"At dark," he said, "we gain

The Gates and open them. A trumpet's blast

Will sound the entry of the host. Hold fast

Thy Paris then. We storm the citadel,

High Pergamos; that won, the horn will tell

The sack begun. But hold thou Paris bound

Fast in thine arms. Once more the horn shall sound.

That third is doom for him. Release him then."

All blank she gazed. "Unarmed to face armed men?"

"Unarmed," he said, "to meet his judgment day."

Now was thick silence broken; now no way

For her to shift her task nor he his fate.

Keenly she heeds. "'Tis Paris at the gate!

What now? Whither away? Where wilt thou hide?"

He lookt her in the face. "Here I abide

What he may do. Was it not truth I spake

That all Hellas lay in thy hand? Now take

What counsel or what comfort may avail."

Paris stood in the door and cried her Hail.

"Hail to thee, Rose of the World!" then saw the man,

And knit his brows upon him, close to scan

His features; but Odysseus had his hood

Shadowing his face. Some time the Trojan stood

Judging, then said, "Thou seek'st? What seekest thou?"

"A debt is owed me. I seek payment now."

So he was told; but he drew nearer yet.

"I would know more of thee and of thy debt,"

He said.

And then Odysseus, "This thy strife

Hath ruined all my fields which are my life,

Brought murrain on my beasts, cold ash to my hearth,

Emptiness to my croft. Hunger and dearth,

Are these enough? Who pays me?"

Then Paris,

"I pay, but first will know what man it is

I am to pay, and in what kind." So said,

Snatching the hood, he whipt it from his head

And lookt and knew the Ithacan. "Now by Zeus,

Treachery here!" He swung his sword-arm loose

Forth of his cloak and set hand to his sword;

But Helen softly called him: "Hath my lord

No word of greeting for his bondwoman?"

Straightway he went to her, and left the man,

And took her in his arms, and held her close.

And light of foot, Odysseus quit the house.

ELEVENTH STAVE

THE BEGUILING OF PARIS

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.

1911-12.

HYPSIPYLE

Queen of the shadows, Maid and Wife,

Twifold in essence, as in life,

The lamp of Death, the star of Birth,

Half cradled and half mourned by Earth,

By Hell half won, half lost! aid me

To sing thy fond Hypsipyle,

Thy bosom's mate who, unafraid,

Renounced for thee what part she had

In sun and wind upon the hill,

In dawn about the mere, in still

Woodlands, in kiss of lapping wave,

In laughter, in love—all this she gave!—

And shared thy dream-life, visited

The sunless country of the dead,

There to abide with thee, their Queen,

In that gray region, shadow-seen

By them that cast no shadows, yet

Themselves are shadows. Nor forget,

Koré, her love made manifest

To thee, familiar of her breast

And partner of her whispering mouth.

Thee too, Our Lady of the South,

Uranian Kypris, I invoke,

Regent of starry space, with stroke

Of splendid wing, in whose white wake

Stream those who, filled with thee, forsake

Their clinging shroudy clots, and rise,

Lover and loved, to thy pure skies,

To thy blue realm! O lady, touch

My lips with rue, for she loved much.

What poet in what cloistered nook,

Indenting in what roll of a book

His rhymes, can voice the tides of love?

Nay, thrilling lark, nay, moaning dove,

The nightingale's full-chargéd throat

That cheereth now, and now doth gloat,

And now recordeth bitter-sweet

Longing, too wise to image it:

These be your minstrels, lovers! Choose

From their winged choir your urgent Muse;

Let her your speechless joys relate

Which men with words sophisticate,

Striving by reasons make appear

To head what heart proclaims so clear

To heart; as if by wit to wis

What mouth to mouth tells in a kiss,

Or in their syllogisms dry

Freeze a swift glance's cogency.

Nay, but the heart's so music-fraught,

Music is all in love, words naught.

One heart's a rote, with music stored

Though mute; but two hearts make a chord

Of piercing music. One alone

Is nothing: two make the full tone.

I

On Enna's uplands, on a lea

Between the mountains and the sea,

Shadowed anon by wandering cloud,

Or flickering wings of birds a-crowd,

And now all golden in the sun,

See Koré, see her maidens run

Hither and thither through those hours

Of dawn among the wide-eyed flowers,

While gentian, crocus, asphodel

(With rosy star in each white bell),

Anemone, blood-red with rings

Of paler fire, that plant that swings

A crimson cluster in the wind

They pluck, or sit anon to bind

Of these earth-stars a coronet

For their smooth-tresséd Queen, who yet

Strays with her darling interlaced,

Hypsipyle the grave, the chaste—

Her whose gray shadow-life with his

Who singeth now for ever is.

She, little slim thing, Koré's mate,

Child-faced, gray-eyed, of sober gait,

Of burning mind and passion pent

To image-making, ever went

Where wonned her Mistress; for those two

By their hearts' grace together grew,

The one to need, the one to give

(As women must if they would live,

Who substance win by waste of self

And only spend to hoard their pelf:

"O heart, take all of mine!" "O heart,

That which thou tak'st of thee is part—

No robbery therefore: mine is thine,

Take then!"): so she and Proserpine

Intercommunion'd each bright day,

And when night fell together lay

Cradled in arms, or cheek to cheek

Whispered the darkness out. Thou meek

And gentle vision! let me tell

Thy beauties o'er I love so well:

Thy sweet low bosom's rise and fall,

Pulsing thy heart's clear madrigal;

Or how the blue beam from thine eyes

Imageth all love's urgencies;

Thy lips' frail fragrance, as of flowers

Remembered in penurious hours

Of winter-exile; of thy brow,

Not written as thy breast of snow

With love's faint charact'ry, for his wing

Leaves not the heart long! Last I sing

Thy thin quick fingers, in whose pleaching

Lieth all healing, all good teaching—

Wherewith, touching my discontent,

I know how thou art eloquent!

Remember'd joy, Hypsipyle!

Now may that serve to comfort me,

While I, O Maiden dedicate,

Seek voice for singing thy gray Fate!

Now, as they went, one heart in two,

Brusht to the knees by flowers, by dew

Anointed, by the wind caressed,

By the light kissed on eyes and breast,

'Twas Koré talked; Hypsipyle

Listened, with eyes far-set, for she

Of speech was frugal, voicing low

And rare her heart's deep underflow—

Content to lie, like fallow sweet

For rain or sun to cherish it,

Or scattered seed substance to find

In her deep-funded, quiet mind.

And thus the Goddess: "Blest art thou,

Hypsipyle, who canst not know

Until the hour strikes what must come

To pass! But I foresee the doom

And stay to meet it. Even here

The place, and now the hour!" Then fear

Took her who spake so fearless, cold

Threaded her thronging veins—behold!

A hand on either shoulder stirs

That slim, sweet body close to hers,

And need fires need till, lip with lip,

They seal and sign their fellowship,

While Koré, godhead all forgot,

Clings whispering, "Child, leave me not

Whenas to darkness and the dead

I go!" And clear the answer sped

From warm mouth murmuring kiss and cheer,

"Never I leave thee, O my dear!"

Thereafter stand they beatingly,

Not speaking; and the hour draws nigh.

And all the land shows passing fair,

Fair the broad sea, the living air,

The misty mountain-sides, the lake

Flecked blue and purple! To forsake

These, and those bright flower-gatherers

Scattered about this land of theirs,

That stoop or run, that kneel to pick,

That cry each other to come quick

And see new treasure, unseen yet!

Remembered joy—ah, how forget!

But mark how all must come to pass

As was foreknowledged. In the grass

Whereas the Goddess and her mate

Stood, one and other, prompt for fate—

Listless the first and heavy-eyed,

Astrain the second—she espied

That strange white flower, unseen before,

With chalice pale, which thin stalk bore

And swung, as hanging by a hair,

So fine it seemed afloat in air,

Unlinkt and wafted for the feast

Of some blest mystic, without priest

Or acolyte to tender it:

Whereto the maid did stoop and fit

Her hand about its silken cup

To close it, that her mouth might sup

The honey-drop within. The bloom

Saw Koré then, and knew her doom

Foretold in it; and stood in trance

Fixéd and still. No nigromance

Used she, but read the fate it bore

In seedless womb and petals frore.

Chill blew the wind, waiting stood She,

Waiting her mate, Hypsipyle.

Then in clear sky the thunder tolled

Sudden, and all the mountains rolled

The dreadful summons round, and still

Lay all the lands, only the rill

Made tinkling music. Once more drave

Peal upon peal—and lo! a grave

Yawned in the Earth, and gushing smoke

Belched out, as driven, and hung, and broke

With sullen puff; like tongues the flame

Leapt following. Thence Aïdoneus came,

Swart-bearded king, with iron crown'd,

In iron mailed, his chariot bound

About with iron, holding back

Amain two steeds of glistering black

And eyeballs white-rimmed fearfully,

And nostrils red, and crests flying free;

Who held them pawing at the verge,

Tossing their spume up, as the surge

Flung high against some seaward bluff.

Nothing he spake, or smooth or gruff,

But drave his errand, gazing down

Upon the Maid, whose blown back gown

Revealed her maiden. Still and proud

Stood she among her nymphs, unbowed

Her comely head, undimmed her eye,

Inseparate her lips and dry,

Facing his challenge of her state,

Neither denying, nor desperate,

Pleading no mercy, seeing none,

Her wild heart masked in face of stone.

But they, her bevy, clustered thick

As huddled sheep, set their eyes quick,

And held each other, hand or waist,

Paling or flushing as fear raced

Thronging their veins—they knew not, they,

The gathered fates that broke this day,

And all the land seemed passing fair

To one who knew, and waited there.

"Goddess and Maid," then said the King,

"Long have I sought this day should bring

An end of torment. Know me thou

God postulant, with whom below

A world awaits her queen, while here

I seek and find one without peer;

Nor deem her heedless nor unschooled

In what in Heaven is writ and ruled.

Decreed of old my bride-right was,

Decreed thy Mother's pain and loss,

Decreed thy loathing, and decreed

That which thou shunnest to be thy need;

For thou shalt love me, Lady, yet,

Though little liking now, and fret

Of jealous care shall grave thy heart

And draw thee back when time's to part—

If fond Demeter have her will

Against thine own."

The Maid stood still

And guarded watched, and her proud eyes'

Scrutiny bade his own advise

Whether indeed their solemn stare

Saw Destiny and read it there

Beyond her suitor, or within

Her own heart heard the message ring.

Awhile she gazed: her stern aspect,

Young and yet fraught with Godhead, checkt

Both Him who claimed, and her who'd cling,

And them who wondered. "O great King,"

She said, and mournful was her crying

As when night-winds set pine-trees sighing,

"King of the folk beyond the tide

Of sleep, behold thy chosen bride

Not shunning thee, nor seeking. Take

That which Gods neither mar nor make,

But only They, the Three, who spin

The threads which hem and mesh us in,

Both Gods and men, till she who peers

The longest cuts them with her shears.

Take, take, Aïdoneus, and take her,

My fosterling."

Then He, "O star

Of Earth, O Beacon of my days,

Light of my nights, whose beamy rays

Shall pierce the foggy cerement

Wherein my dead grope and lament

Beyond all loss the loss of light,

Come! and be pleasant in my sight

This thy beloved. Perchance she too

Shall find a suitor come to woo;

For love men leave not with their bones—

That is the soul's, and half atones

And half makes bitterer their loss,

Remembering what their fortune was."

Trembling Hypsipyle uplift

Her eyes towards the hills, where swift

The shadows flew, but no more fleet

Than often she with flying feet

And flying raiment, she with these

Her mates, whom now estranged she sees—

As if the shadow-world had spread

About her now, and she was dead—

Her mates no more! cut off by fear

From these two fearless ones. A tear

Welled up and hovered, hung a gem

Upon her eyelid's dusky hem,

As raindrops linkt and strung arow

Broider with stars the winter bough.

This was her requiem and farewell

To them, thus rang she her own knell;

Nor more gave she, nor more asked they,

But took and went the fairy way.

For thus with unshed tears made blind

Went she: thus go the fairy kind

Whither fate driveth; not as we

Who fight with it, and deem us free

Therefore, and after pine, or strain

Against our prison bars in vain.

For to them Fate is Lord of Life

And Death, and idle is a strife

With such a master. They not know

Life past, life coming, but life now;

Nor back look they to long, nor forth

To hope, but sup the minute's worth

With draught so quick and keen that each

Moment gives more than we could reach

In all our term of three-score years,

Whereof full score we give to fears

Of losing them, and other score

Dreaming how fill the twenty more.

Now is the hour, Bride of the Night!

The chariot turns, the great steeds fight

The rocky entry; flies the dust

Behind the wheels at each fierce thrust

Of giant shoulder, at each lunge

Of giant haunch. Down, down they plunge

Into the dark, with rioting mane,

And the earth's door shuts-to again.

Now fly, ye Oreads, strain your arms,

Let eyes and hair voice your alarms—

Hair blown back, mouths astretch for fear,

Strained eyeballs—cry that Mother dear

Her daughter's rape; fly like the gale

That down the valleys drives the hail

In scurrying sheets, and lays the corn

Flat, which when man of woman born

Seeth, he bows him to the grass,

Whispering in hush, The Oreads pass.

(In shock he knows ye, and in mirth,

Since he is kindred of that earth

Which bore ye in her secret stress,

Images of her loveliness,

To her dear paramour the Wind.)

Follow me now that car behind.

II

O ye that know the fairy throng,

And heed their secret under-song;

In flower or leaf's still ecstasy

Of birth and bud their passion see,

In wind or calm, in driving rain

Or frozen snow discern them strain

To utter and to be; who lie

At dawn in dewy brakes to spy

The rapture of their flying feet—

Follow me now those coursers fleet,

Sucked in their wake, down ruining

Through channelled night, where only sing

The shrill gusts streaming through the hair

Of them who sway and bend them there,

And peer in vain with shielded eyes

To rend the dark. Clinging it lies,

Thick as wet gossamer that shrouds

October brushwoods, or low clouds

That from the mountain tops roll down

Into the lowland vales, to drown

Men's voices and to choke their breath

And make a silence like to death.

But this was hot and dry; it came

And smote them, like the gush of flame

Fanned in a smithy, that outpours

And floods with fire the open doors.

Downward their course was, swift as flight

Of meteor flaring through the night,

Steady and dreadful, with no sound

Of wheels or hoofs upon the ground,

Nor jolt, nor jar; for once past through

Earth's portals, steeds and chariot flew

On wings invisible and strong

And even-oaring, such as throng

The nights when birds of passage sweep

O'er cities and the folk asleep:

Such was their awful flight. Afar

Showed Hades glimmering like a star

Seen red through fog: and as they sped

To that, the frontiers of the dead

Revealed their sullen leagues and bare,

And sad forms flitting here and there,

Or clustered, waiting who might come

Their empty ways with news of home.

Yet all one course at length must hold,

Or late or soon, and all be tolled

By Charon in his dark-prowed boat.

Thither was swept the chariot

And crossed dry-wheeled the coiling flood

Of Styx, and o'er the willow wood

And slim gray poplars which do hem

The further shore, Hell's diadem—

So by the tower foursquare and great

Where King Aïdoneus keeps his state

And rules his bodyless thralls they stand.

Dark ridge and hollow showed the land

Fold over fold, like waves of soot

Fixt in an anguish of pursuit

For evermore, so far as eye

Could range; and all was hot and dry

As furnace is which all about

Etna scorcheth in days of drouth,

And showeth dun and sinister

That fair isle linked to main so fair.

Nor tree nor herbage grew, nor sang

Water among the rocks: hard rang

The heel on metal, or on crust

Grew tender, or went soft in dust;

Neither for beast nor bird nor snake

Was harbourage; nor could such slake

Their thirst, nor from the bitter heat

Hide, since the sun not furnished it;

But airless, shadowless and dense

The land lay swooning, dead to sense

Beneath that vault of stuprous black,

Motionless hanging, without wrack

Of cloud to break and pass, nor rent

To hint the blue. Like the foul tent

A foul night makes, it sagged; for stars

Showed hopeless faces, with two scars

In each, their eyes' immortal woe,

Ever to seek and never know:

In all that still immensity

These only moved—these and the sea,

Which dun and sullen heaved, with surge

And swell unseen, save at the verge

Where fainted off the black to gray

And showed such light as on a day

Of sun's eclipse men tremble at.

Here the dead people moved or sat,

Casting no shadow, hailing none

Boldly; but in fierce undertone

They plied each other, or on-sped

Their way with signal of the head

For answer, or arms desperate

Flung up, or shrug disconsolate.

And this the quest of every one:

"What hope have ye?" And answer, "None."

Never passed shadow shadow but

That answer got to question put.

In that they lived, in that, alas!

Lovely and hapless, Thou must pass

Thy days, with this for added lot—

Aching, to nurse things unforgot.

Remember'd joy, Hypsipyle!

The Oread choir, the Oread glee:

The nimble air of quickening hills,

The sweet dawn light that floods and fills

The hollowed valleys; the dawn wind

That bids the world wake, and on blind

Eyelids of sleeping mortals lays

Cool palms that urge them see and praise

The Day-God coming with the sun

To hearten toil! He warned you run

And hide your beauties deep in brake

Of fern or briar, or reed of lake,

Or in wet crevice of the rock,

There to abide until the clock

You reckon by, with shadowy hands,

Lay benediction on the lands

And landsmen, and the eve-jar's croak

Summon ye, lightfoot fairy folk,

To your activity full tide

Over the empty earth and wide.

Here be your food, fair nymph, and coy

Of mortal ken—remember'd joy!

Remember'd joy! Ah, stormy nights,

Ah, the mad revel when wind fights

With wind, and slantwise comes the rain

And shatters at the window-pane,

To wake the hind, who little knows

Whose fingers drum those passionate blows,

Nor what swift indwellers of air

Ye be who hide in forms so fair

Your wayward motions, cruel to us,

While lovely, and dispiteous!

Ah, nights of flying scud and rout

When scared the slim young moon rides out

In her lagoon of open sky,

Or older, marks your revelry

As calm and large she oars above

Your drifting lives of ruth or love.

Boon were those nights of dusted gold

And glint of fireflies! Boon the cold

And witching frost! All's one, all's one

To thee, whose nights and days go on

Now in one span of changeless dusk

On one earth, crackling like the husk

Of the dropt mast in winter wood:

Remember'd joy—'tis all thy food,

Hypsipyle, to whose fond sprite

I vow my praise while I have light.

Dumbly she wandered there, as pale

With lack of light, with form as frail

As those poor hollow congeners

Whose searching eyes encountered hers,

Petitioning as mute as she

Some grain of hope, where none might be,

Daring not yet to voice their moan

To her whose case was not their own;

For where they go like breath in a shell

That wails, my love goes quick in Hell.

Alas, for her, the sweet and slim!

Slowly she pines; her eyes grow dim

With seeking; her smooth, sudden breasts

Hang languidly; those little nests

For kisses which her dimples were,

In cheeks graved hollow now by care

Vanish, and sharply thrusts her chin,

And sharp her bones of arm and shin.

Reproach she looks, about, above,

Denied her light, denied her love,

Denied for what she sacrificed,

Doomed to be fruitless agonist.

(O God, and I must see her fade,

Must see and anguish—in my shade!)

Nor help nor comfort gat she now

From her whose need called forth her vow;

For close in arms Queen Koré dwelt

In that great tower Aïdoneus built

To cherish her; deep in his bed,

Loved as the Gods love whom they wed;

Turned from pale maiden to pale wife,

Pale now with love's insatiate strife

First to appease, and then renew

The wild desire to mingle two

Natures, to long, to seek, to shun,

To have, to give, to make two one

That must be two if they would each

Learn all the lore that love can teach.

So strove the mistress, while the maid

Went alien among the dead,

Unspoken, speaking none, but watcht

By them who knew themselves outmatcht

By her, translated whole, nor guessed

What miseries gnawed within that breast,

Which could be toucht, which could give meat

To babe; which was not eye-deceit

As theirs, poor phantoms. So went she

Grudged but unscathed beside the sea,

Or sat alone by that sad strand

Nursing her worn cheek in her hand;

And did not mark, as day on day

Lengthened the arch of changeless gray,

How she was shadowed, how to her

Stretcht arms another prisoner;

Nor knew herself desirable

By any thankless guest of Hell—

Withal each phantom seemed no less

Whole-natured to her heedlessness.

Midway her round of solitude

She used to haunt a dead sea-wood

Where among boulders lifeless trees

Stuck rigid fingers to the breeze—

That stream of faint hot air that flits

Aimless at noon. 'Tis there she sits

Hour after hour, and as a dove

Croons when her breast is ripe for love,

So sings this exile, quiet, sad chants

Of love, yet knows not what she wants;

And singing there in undertone,

Is one day answered by the moan

Of hidden mourner; but no fear

Hath she for sound so true, though near;

Nay, but sings out her elegy,

Which, like an echo, answers he.

Again she sings; he suits her mood,

Nor breaks upon her solitude:

So she, choragus, calls the tune,

And as she leads he follows soon.

As bird with bird vies in the brake,

She sings no note he will not take—

As when she pleads, "Ah, my lost love,

The night is dark thou art not of,"

Quick cometh answering the phrase,

"O love, let all our nights be days!"

This, rapt, with beating heart, she heeds

And follows, "Sweet love, my heart bleeds!

Come, stay the wound thyself didst give";

Then he, "I come to bid thee live."

And so they carol, and her heart

Swells to believe his counterpart,

And strophé striketh clear, which he

Caps with his brave antistrophe;

And as a maiden waxes bold,

And opens what should not be told

When all her auditory she sees

Within her mirror, so to trees

And rocks, and sullen sounding main

She empties all her passioned pain;

And "love, love, love," her burden is,

And "I am starving for thee," his.

Moved, melted, all on fire she stands,

Holding abroad her quivering hands,

Raises her sweet eyes faint with tears

And dares to seek him whom she hears;

And from her parted lips a sigh

Stealeth, as knowing he is nigh

And her fate on her—then she'd shun

That which she seeks; but the thing's done.

Hollow-voiced, dim, spake her a shade,

"O thou that comest, nymph or maid—

If nymph, then maiden, since for aye

Virgin is immortality,

Nor love can change what Death cannot—

Look on me by love new-begot;

Look on me, child new-born, nor start

To see my form who knowest my heart;

For it is thine. O Mother and Wife,

Take then my love—thou gavest it life!"

So spake one close: to whom she lent

The wonder of her eyes' content—

That lucent gray, as if moonlight

Shone through a sapphire in the night—

And saw him faintly imaged, rare

As wisp of cloud on hillside bare,

A filamental form, a wraith

Shaped like that man who in the faith

Of one puts all his hope: who stood

Trembling in her near neighbourhood,

A thing of haunted eyes, of slim

And youthful seeming; yet not dim,

Yet not unmanly in his fashion

Of speech, nor impotent of passion—

The which his tones gave earnest of

And his aspéct of hopeless love;

Who, drawing nearer, came to stand

So close beside her that one hand

Lit on her shoulder—yet no touch

She felt: "O maiden overmuch,"

He grieved, "O body far too sweet

For such as I, frail counterfeit

Of man, who yet was once a man,

Cut off before the midmost span

Of mortal life was but half run,

Or ere to love he had found one

Like thee—yet happy in that fate,

That waiting, he is fortunate:

For better far in Hell to fare

With thee than commerce otherwhere,

Sharing the snug and fat outlook

Of bed and board and ingle-nook

With earth-bound woman, earth-born child.

Nay, but high love is free and wild

And centreth not in mortal things;

But to the soul giveth he wings,

And with the soul strikes partnership,

So may two let corruption slip

And breasting level, with far eyes

Lifted, seek haven in the skies,

Untrammel'd by the earthly mesh.

O thou," said he, "of fairy flesh,

Immortal prisoner, take of me

Love! 'tis my heritage in fee;

For I am very part thereof,

And share the godhead."

So his love

Pled he with tones in love well-skilled

Which on her bosom beat and thrilled,

And pierced. No word nor look she had

To voice her heart, or sad or glad.

Rapt stood she, wooed by eager word

And by her need, whose cry she heard

Above his crying; but she guessed

She was desired, beset, possessed

Already, handfasted to sight,

And yielding so, her heart she plight.

Thus was her mating: of the eyes

And ears, and her love half surmise,

Detected by her burning face

Which saw, not felt, his fierce embrace.

For on her own she knew no hand

When caging it he seemed to stand,

And round her waist felt not the warm

Sheltered peace of the belting arm

She saw him clasp withal. When rained

His words upon her, or eyes strained

As though her inmost shrine to pierce

Where hid her heart of hearts, her ears

Conceived, although her body sweet

Might never feel a young life beat

And leap within it. Ah, what cry

That mistress e'er heard poet sigh

Could voice thy beauty? Or what chant

Of music be thy ministrant?

Since thou art Music, poesy

Must both thy spouse and increase be!

In the hot dust, where lizards crouch

And pant, he made her bridal couch;

Thither down drew her to his side

And, phantom, taught her to be bride

With words so ardent, looks so hot

She needs must feel what she had not,

Guess herself in beleaguered bed

And throb response. Thus she was wed.

As she whom Zeus loved in a cloud,

So lay she in her lover's shroud,

And o'er her members crept the chill

We know when mist creeps up a hill

Out of the vale at eve. As grows

The ivy, rooting as it goes,

In such a quick close envelope

She lay aswoon, nor guessed the scope

Nor tether of his hot intent,

Nor what to that inert she lent,

Save when at last with half-turned head

And glimmering eyes, encompasséd

She saw herself, a bride possest

By ghostly bridegroom, held and prest

To unfelt bosom, saw his mouth

Against her own, which to his drouth

Gave no allay that she could sense,

Nor took of her sweet recompense.

So moved by pity, stirred by rue,

Out of their onslaught young love grew.

Love that with delicate tongues of fire

Can kindle hearts inflamed desire

In her for him who needed it;

And so she claimed and by eyes' wit

Had what she would: and now made war,

Being, as all sweet women are,

Prudes till Love calls them, and then fierce

In love's high calling. Thus with her ears

She fed on love, and to her eyes

Lent deeds of passionate emprise—

Till at the last, the shadowy strife

Ended, she owned herself all wife.

High mating of the mind! O love,

Since this must be, on this she throve!

Remember'd joy, Hypsipyle,

Since this must be, O love, let be!

1911.

OREITHYIA

Oreithyia, by the North Wind carried

To stormy Thrace from Athens where you tarried

Down by Ilissus all a blowy day

Among the asphodels, how rapt away

Thither, and in what frozen bed wert married?

"I was a King's tall daughter still unwed,

Slim and desirable my locks to shed

Free from the fillet. He my maiden belt

Undid with busy fingers hid but felt,

And made me wife upon no marriage bed.

"As idly there I lay alone he came

And blew upon my side, and beat a flame

Into my cheeks, and kindled both my eyes.

I suffered him who took no bodily guise:

The light clouds know whether I was to blame.

"Into my mouth he blew an amorous breath;

I panted, but lay still, as quiet as death.

The whispering planes and sighing grasses know

Whether it was the wind that loved me so:

I know not—only this, 'O love,' he saith,

"'O long beset with love, and overloved,

O easy saint, untempted and unproved,

O walking stilly virgin ways in hiding,

Come out, thou art too choice for such abiding!

She never valued ease who never roved.

"'Thou mayst not see thy lover, but he now

Is here, and claimeth thy low moonlit brow,

Thy wonderful eyes, and lips that part and pout,

And polished throat that like a flower shoots out

From thy dark vesture folded and crossed low.'

"With that he had his way and went his way;

For Gods have mastery, and a maiden's nay

Grows faint ere it is whispered all. I sped

Homeward with startled face and tiptoe tread,

And up the stair, and in my chamber lay.

"Crouching I lay and quaked, and heard the wind

Wail round the house like a mad thing confined,

And had no rest; turn wheresoe'er I would

This urgent lover stormed my solitude

And beat against the haven of my mind.

"And over all a clamour and dis-ease

Filled earth and air, and shuddered in my knees

So that I could not stand, but by the wall

Leaned pitifully breathing. Still his call

Volleyed against the house and tore the trees.

"Then out my turret-window as I might

I leaned my body to the blind wet night;

That eager lover leapt me, circled round,

Wreathed, folded, held me prisoner, wrapt and bound

In manacles of terror and delight.

"That night he sealed me to him, and I went

Thenceforth his leman, submiss and content;

So from the hall and feast, whenas I heard

His clear voice call, I flitted like a bird

That beats the brake, and garnered what he lent.

"I was no maid that was no wife; my days

Went by in dreams whose lights are golden haze

And skies are crimson. Laughing not, nor crying,

I strayed all witless with my loose hair flying,

Bearing that load that women think their praise.

"And felt my breasts grow heavy with that food

That women laugh to feel and think it good;

But I went shamefast, hanging down my head,

With girdle all too strait to serve my stead,

And bore an unguessed burden in my blood.

"There was a winter night he came again

And shook the window, till cried out my pain

Unto him, saying, 'Lord, I dare not live!

Lord, I must die of that which thou didst give!

Pity me, Lord!' and fell. The winter rain

"Beat at the casement, burst it, and the wind

Filled all the room, and swept me white and blind

Into the night. I heard the sound of seas

Beleaguer earth, I heard the roaring trees

Singing together. We left them far behind.

"And so he bore me into stormy Thrace,

Me and my load, and kissed back to my face

The sweet new blood of youth, and to my limbs

The wine of life; and there I bore him twins,

Zethes and Calaïs, in a rock-bound place."

Oreithyia, by the North Wind carried

To stormy Thrace, think you of how you tarried

And let him woo and wed? "Ah, no, for now

He's kissed all Athens from my open brow.

I am the Wind's wife, wooed and won and married."

1897.

CLYTIÉ

Hearken, O passers, what thing

Fortuned in Hellas. A maid,

Lissom and white as the roe,

Lived recess'd in a glade.

Clytié, Hamadryad,

She was called that I sing—

Flower so fair, so frail, that to bring her a woe,

Surely a pitiful thing!

A wild bright creature of trees,

Brooks, and the sun among leaves,

Clytié, grown to be maid:

Ah, she had eyes like the sea's

Iris of green and blue!

White as sea-foam her brows,

And her hair reedy and gold:

So she grew and waxt supple and fit to be spouse

In a king's palace of old.

All in a kirtle of green,

With her tangle of red-gold hair,

In the live heart of an oak,

Clytié, harbouring there,

Thronéd there as a queen,

Clytié wondering woke:

Ah, child, what set thee too high for thy sweet demesne,

And who ponder'd the doleful stroke?

For the child that was maiden grown,

The queen of the forest places,

Clytié, Hamadryad,

Tired of the joy she had,

And the kingdom that was her own;

And tired of the quick wood-races,

And joy of herself in the pool when she wonder'd down,

And tired of her budded graces.

And the child lookt up to the Sun

And the burning track of his car

In the broad serene above her:

"O King Sun, be thou my lover,

For my beauty is just begun.

I am fresh and fair as a star;

Come, lie where the lilies are:

Behold, I am fair and dainty and white all over,

And I waste in the wood unknown!"

Rose-flusht, daring, she strain'd

Her young arms up, and she voiced

The wild desire of her heart.

The woodland heard her, the faun,

The satyr, and things that start,

Peering, heard her; the dove, crooning, complain'd

In the pine-tree by the lawn.

Only the runnel rejoiced

In his rushy hollow apart

To see her beauty flash up

White and red as the dawn.

Sorrow, ye passers-by,

The quick lift of her word,

The crimson blush of her pride!

Heard her the heavens' lord

In his flaming seat in the sky:

"Overbold of her years that will not be denied;

She would be the Sun-God's bride!"

His brow it was like the flat of a sword,

And levin the glance of his side.

And he bent unto her, and his mouth

Burnt her like coals of fire;

He gazed with passionate eyes,

Like flame that kindles and dries,

And his breath suckt hers as the white rage of the South

Draws life; his desire

Was like to a tiger's drouth.

What shall the slim maiden avail?

Alas, and alas for her youth!

Tremble, O maids, that would set

Your love-longing to the Sun!

For Clytié mourn, and take heed

How she loved her king and did bleed

Ere kissing had yet begun.

For lo! one shaft from his terrible eyes she met,

And it burnt to her soul, and anon

She paled, and the fever-fret

Did bite to her bones; and wan

She fell to rueing the deed.

Mark ye, maidens, and cower!

Lo, for an end of breath,

Clytié, hardy and frail,

Anguisht after her death.

For the Sun-flower droops and is pale

When her king hideth his power,

And ever draggeth the woe of her piteous tale,

As a woman that laboureth

Yet never reacheth the hour:

So Clytié yearns to the Sun, for her wraith

Moans in the bow'd sunflower.

Clytié, Hamadryad,

Called was she that I sing:

Flower so fair and frail that to work her this woe,

Surely a pitiful thing!

1894.

LAI OF GOBERTZ[1]

Of courteous Limozin wight,

Gobertz, I will indite:

From Poicebot had he his right

Of gentlehood;

Made monk in his own despite

In San Léonart the white,

Withal to sing and to write

Coblas he could.

Learning had he, and rare

Music, and gai saber:

No monk with him to compare

In that monast'ry.

Full lusty he was to bear

Cowl and chaplet of hair

God willeth monks for to wear

For sanctity.

There in dortoir as he lay,

To this Gobertz, by my fay,

Came fair women to play

In his sleep;

Then he had old to pray,

Fresh and silken came they,

With eyen saucy and gray

That set him weep.

May was the month, and soft

The singing nights; up aloft

The quarter moon swam and scoffed

His unease.

Rose this Gobertz, and doffed

His habit, and left that croft,

Crying Eleison oft

At Venus' knees.

Heartly the road and the town

Mauléon, over the down,

Sought he, and the renown

Of Savaric;

To that good knight he knelt down,

Asking of him in bown

Almesse of laurel crown

For his music.

Fair him Savaric spake,

"If coblas you know to make,

Song and music to wake

For your part,

Horse and lute shall you take

Of Jongleur, lightly forsake

Cloister for woodland brake

With good heart."

Down the high month of May

Now rideth Gobertz his way

To Aix, to Puy, to Alais,

To Albi the old;

In Toulouse mindeth to stay

With Count Simon the Gay,

There to abide what day

Love shall hold.

Shrill riseth his song:

Cobla, lai, or tenzon,

None can render him wrong

In that meinie—

Love alone, that erelong

Showed him in all that throng

Of ladies Tibors the young,

None but she.

She was high-hearted and fair,

Low-breasted, with hair

Gilded, and eyes of vair

In burning face:

On her Gobertz astare,

Looking, stood quaking there

To see so debonnair

Hold her place.

Proud donzela and free,

To clip nor to kiss had she

Talént, nor for minstrelsy

Was she fain;

Mistress never would be,

Nor master have; but her fee

She vowed to sweet Chastity,

Her suzerain.

Then this Gobertz anon

Returneth to Mauléon,

To Savaric maketh moan

On his knees.

Other pray'r hath he none

Save this, "Sir, let me begone

Whence I came, since fordone

My expertise."

Quod Savaric, "Hast thou sped

So ill in amors?" Answeréd

This Gobertz, "By my head,

She scorneth me."

"Hauberc and arms then, instead

Of lute and begarlanded

Poll, take you," he said,

"For errantry."

Now rides he out, a dubbed knight,

The Spanish road, for to fight

Paynimry; day and night

Urgeth he;

In Saragoza the bright,

And Pampluna with might

Seeketh he what respite

For grief there be.

War-dimmed grew his gear,

Grim his visage; in fear

Listened Mahound his cheer

Deep in Hell.

Fled his legions to hear

Gobertz the knight draw near.

Now he closeth the year

In Compostell.

Offering there hath he made

Saint James, candles him paid,

Gold on the shrine hath laid;

Now Gobertz

Is for Toulouse, where that maid

Tibors wonned unafraid

Of Love and his accolade

That breaketh hearts.

He rode north and by east,

Nor rider spared he nor beast,

Nor tempered spur till at least

Forth of Spain;

Not for mass-bell nor priest,

For fast-day nor yet for feast

Stayed he, till voyage ceased

In Aquitaine.

Now remaineth to tell

What this Gobertz befell

When that he sought hostel

In his land.

Dined he well, drank he well,

Envy then had somedeal

With women free in bordel

For to spend.

In poor alberc goeth he

Where bought pleasure may be,

Careless proffereth fee

For his bliss.

O Gobertz, look to thee.

Such a sight shalt thou see

Will make the red blood to flee

Thy heart, ywis.

Fair woman they bring him in

Shamefast in her burning sin,

All afire is his skin

Par amors.

Look not of her look to win,

Dare not lift up her chin,

Gobertz; in that soiled fond thing

Lo, Tibors!

"O love, O love, out, alas!

That it should come to this pass,

And thou be even as I was

In green youth,

Whenas delight and solace

Served I with wantonness,

And burned anon like the grass

To this ruth!"

But then lift she her sad eyes,

Gray like wet morning skies,

That wait the sun to arise,

Tears to amend.

"Gobertz, amic," so she cries,

"By Jesus' agonies

Hither come I by lies

Of false friend.

"Sir Richart de Laund he hight,

Who fair promised me plight

Of word and ring, on a night

Of no fame;

So then evilly bright

Had his will and delight

Of me, and fled unrequite

For my shame!

"Alas, and now to my thought

Flieth the woe that I wrought

Thee, Gobertz, that distraught

Thou didst fare.

Now a vile thing of nought

Fare I that once was so haught

And free, and could not be taught

By thy care."

But Gobertz seeth no less

Her honour and her sweetness,

Soon her small hand to kiss

Taketh he,

Saying, "Now for that stress

Drave thee here thou shalt bless

God, for so ending this

Thy penury."

Yet she would bid him away,

Seeking her sooth to say,

In what woful array

She was cast.

"Nay," said he, "but, sweet may,

Here must we bide until day:

Then to church and to pray

Go we fast."

Now then to all his talént,

Seeing how he was bent,

Him the comfort she lent

Of her mind.

Cried Gobertz, well content,

"If love by dreariment

Cometh, that was well spent,

As I find."

Thereafter somewhat they slept,

When to his arms she had crept

For comfort, and freely wept

Sin away.

Up betimes then he leapt,

Calling her name: forth she stept

Meek, disposed, to accept

What he say.

By hill road taketh he her

To the gray nuns of Beaucaire,

There to shred off her hair

And take veil.

Himself to cloister will fare

Monk to be, with good care

For their two souls. May his pray'r

Them avail!

1911.

[1] I owe the substance of this lai to my friend Ezra Pound, who unearthed it, ψαμάθῳ εἰλυμένα πολλῇ, in some Provençal repertory.

THE SAINTS' MAYING

Since green earth is awake

Let us now pastime take,

Not serving wantonness

Too well, nor niggardness,

Which monks of men would make.

But clothed like earth in green,

With jocund hearts and clean,

We will take hands and go

Singing where quietly blow

The flowers of Spring's demesne.

The cuckoo haileth loud

The open sky; no cloud

Doth fleck the earth's blue tent;

The land laughs, well content

To put off winter shroud.

Now, since 'tis Easter Day,

All Christians may have play;

The young Saints, all agaze

For Christ in Heaven's maze,

May laugh who wont to pray.

Then welcome to our round

They light on homely ground:—

Agnes, Saint Cecily,

Agatha, Dorothy,

Margaret, Hildegonde;

Next come with Barbara

Lucy and Ursula;

And last, queen of the Nine,

Clear-eyed Saint Catherine

Joyful arrayeth her.

Then chooseth each her lad,

And after frolic had

Of dance and carolling

And playing in a ring,

Seek all the woodland shade.

And there for each his lass

Her man a nosegay has,

Which better than word spoken

Might stand to be her token

And emblem of her grace.

For Cecily, who bent

Her slim white neck and went

To Heaven a virgin still,

The nodding daffodil,

That bends but is not shent.

Lucy, whose wounded eyes

Opened in Heaven star-wise,

The lady-smock, whose light

Doth prank the grass with white,

Taketh for badge and prize.

Because for Lord Christ's hest

Men shore thy warm bright breast,

Agatha, see thy part

Showed in the burning heart

Of the white crocus best.

What fate was Barbara's

Shut in the tower of brass,

We figure and hold up

Within the stiff king-cup

That crowns the meadow grass.

Agnes, than whose King Death

Stayed no more delicate breath

On earth, we give for dower

Wood-sorrel, that frail flower

That Spring first quickeneth.

Dorothy, whose shrill voice

Bade Heathendom rejoice,

The sweet-breath'd cowslip hath;

And Margaret, who in death

Saw Heaven, her pearly choice.

Then she of virgin brood

Whom Prince of Britain woo'd,

Ursula, takes by favour

The hyacinth whose savour

Enskies the sunny wood.

Hildegonde, whose spirit high

The Cross did not deny,

Yet blusht to feel the shame,

Anemones must claim,

Whose roses early die.

Last, she who gave in pledge

Her neck to the wheel's edge,

Taketh the fresh primrose

Which (even as she her foes)

Redeems the wintry hedge.

So garlanded, entwined,

Each as may prompt her mind,

The Saints renew for Earth

And Heaven such seemly mirth

As God once had design'd.

And when the day is done,

And veil'd the goodly Sun,

Each man his maid by right

Doth kiss and bid Good-night;

And home goes every one.

The maids to Heaven do hie

To serve God soberly;

The lads, their loves in Heaven,

What lowly work is given

They do, to win the sky.

1896.

THE ARGIVE WOMEN[2]

CHTHONOË

MYRTILLA

RHODOPE

PASIPHASSA

GORGO

SITYS

SCENE

The women's house in the House of Paris in Troy.

TIME.—The Tenth year of the War.

Helen's women are lying alone in the twilight hour. Chthonoë presently rises and throws a little incense upon the altar flame. Then she begins to speak to the Image of Aphrodite in a low and tired voice.

CHTHONOË

Goddess of burning and little rest,

By the hand swaying on thy breast,

By glancing eye and slow sweet smile

Tell me what long look or what guile

Of thine it was that like a spear

Pierced her heart, who caged me here

In this close house, to be with her

Mistress at once and prisoner!

Far from earth and her pleasant ways

I lie, whose nights are as my days

In this dim house, where on the wall

I watch the shadows rise and fall

And know not what is reckt or done

By men and horses out in the sun,

Nor heed their traffic, nor their cheer

As forth they go or back, but hear

The fountain plash into the pond,

The brooding doves, and sighs of fond

Lovers whose lips yearn as they sever

For longer joy, joy such as never

Hath man but in the mind. But what

Men do without, that I know not

Who see them but as shadows thrown

Upon a screen. I see them blown

Like clouds of flies about the plain

Where the winds sweep them and make vain

Their panoplies. They hem the verge

Of this high wall to guard us—urge

Galloping horses into war

And meet in shock of battle, far

Below us and our dreams: withal

Ten years have past us in this thrall

Since Helen came with eyes agleam

To Troy, and trod the ways of dream.

GORGO

Men came about us, crying, "The Greeks!

Ships out at sea with high-held peaks

Like questing birds!" But I lay still

Kissing, nor turned.

RHODOPE

So I, until

The herald broke into my sleep,

Crying Agamemnon on the deep

With ships from high Mykenai. Then

I minded he was King of Men—

But not of women in the arms

They loved.

MYRTILLA

I heard their shrill alarms

Faint and far off, like an old fame.

Below this guarded house men came—

Chariots and horses clasht; they cried

King Agamemnon in his pride,

Or Hector, or young Diomede;

But I was kissing, could not heed

Aught save the eyes that held mine bound.

Anon a hush—anon the sound

Of hooves resistless, pounding—a cry,

"Achilles! Save yourselves!" But I—

Clinging I lay, and sighed in sign

That love must weary at last, even mine—

Even mine, Sweetheart!

PASIPHASSA

Who watcht when flared

Lord Hector like a meteor, dared

The high stockade and fired the ships?

I watcht his lips who had had my lips.

SITYS

And when he slew Menoikios' son,

Sister, what then?

PASIPHASSA

My cheek was wan

For lack of kissing—so I blew

On slumbering lids to draw anew

The eyes of him who had loved me well,

But now was faint.

CHTHONOË

O Kypris, tell

The deeds of men, not lovers!

RHODOPE

Here

Came one all palsied in his fear,

Chattering and white, to Paris abed,

Flusht in his sleep—told Hector dead,

Dead and dishonoured, while he slept.

He sighed and turned. But Helen wept.

GORGO

Not I. I turned and felt warm draught

Of breath upon my cheek, and laught

Softly, and snuggling, slept.

CHTHONOË

Fie, fie!

Goddess, drugged in thy dreams we lie,

Logs, not women, logs in the sun!

SITYS

Thou art sated. So fretteth One,

The very fount of Love's sweet well,

The chord of Love made visible,

Sickened of her own loveliness,

Haggard as hawk too long in jess,

Aching for flight.

MYRTILLA

Recall the bout

When Paris armed him and went out

Into the lists, and all men thronged

To see——

SITYS

Lord Paris and him he wronged

Fight for her, who should have her! We stood

Upon the walls, and she with her hood

Close to her cheek. But I saw the flicker

In her blue eyes!

PASIPHASSA

But I was quicker,

And saw the man she looked upon,

And after what her blue eyes shone

Like cyanus in morning light.

GORGO

Husband and lover she saw fight,

Man to man, with death between.

RHODOPE

Hatred coucht, as long and lean

As a lone wolf, on her man's crest—

PASIPHASSA

And bit the Trojan!

CHTHONOË

Thine was the rest,

Goddess! And Helen lit the fire,

With her disdain, of his desire.

MYRTILLA

Her eyes burned like the frosty stars

Of winter midnight.

PASIPHASSA

His the scars!

Bitten in his wax-pale cheek.

CHTHONOË

Nay, in his heart——

SITYS

Nay, in his bleak

And writhen smile you see it!

GORGO

Nay!

In his sick soul.

RHODOPE

Let him go his way!

Hear my thought of a happier thing—

Sparta's trees in flood of spring

Where Eurotas' banks abrim

Drown the reeds, and foam-clots swim

Like a scattered brood of duck!

MYRTILLA

Flowers anod! White flowers to pluck,

Stiffened in the foamy curds!

Ah, the green thickets quick with birds!

SITYS

Calling Itys! Itys! Itys!

PASIPHASSA

She calls not here—her house it is

In Sparta!

RHODOPE (with a sob)

Peace!

CHTHONOË

From my heart a cry—

Send me back, Goddess, ere I die

To those dear places and clean things—

To see my people, feel the wings

Of the gray night fold over me,

And touch my mother's knees, and be

Her child, as long ago I was

Before I lay burning in Ilios!

[They hide their faces in their knees.

Then one by one they sing.]

Let me sing an old sweet air,

Mother of Argos, to Thee,

For hope in my heart is fair

As light on the hills seen from afar at sea;

And my weary eyes turn there

As to the haven where my soul would be.

RHODOPE

I will arise and make choice

The house of my tumbled breast,

For she cometh, I hear the voice

Of her wings of healing, and she shall be my guest;

And my joys shall be her joys,

And my home her home, O wind of the South West!

GORGO

As a bird that listens and thrills,

Hidden deep in the night,

For the sound of the little rills

That run musically towards the light;

As a hart to the high hills

Turneth his dying eyes, my soul takes flight.

MYRTILLA

Ah, to be folded deep

In the shade of Taygetus,

In my mother's arms to sleep

Even as a child when I lay harboured thus!

Oh, that I were as thy sheep,

Lacedaemon, my land, cradle and nurse of us!

PASIPHASSA

In Argos they sow the grain,

In Troy blood is their sowing;

There a green mantle covers the plain

Where the sweet green corn and sweet short grass are growing;

But here passion and pain—

Blood and dust upon earth, and a hot wind blowing.

SITYS

To the hold on the far red hill

From the hold on the wide green lea,

Over the running water, follow who will

Therapnae's hawk with the dove of Amyklae.

But I would lie husht and still,

And feel the new grass growing quick over me!

[The scene grows dark as they sit.

Their eyes are full of tears.

Presently one looks up, listening,

then another, then another. They

are all alert.]

CHTHONOË

Who prayeth peace? I feel her peace

Steal through me as a quiet air

Enters the house with sweet increase

Of light to healing, praise to prayer!

RHODOPE

What do I know of guiltiness

When she is here, and with grave eyes

Seeketh the ways of quietness

And lampeth them?

GORGO

Arise, arise!

[They all stand waiting.]

MYRTILLA

Hark! Her footfall like the dew—

PASIPHASSA

As a flower by frost made sere

Long before the sun breaks through,

Feeleth him, I know her near.

[Helen stands in the doorway.]

CHTHONOË

This is she, the source of light,

Source of light and end of it,

Argive Helen, slim and sweet,

For whose bosom and delight,

For whose eyes, those wells of peace,

Paris wrought, as well he might,

Ten years' woe for Troy and Greece.

RHODOPE

Starry wonder that she was,

Caged like sea-bird in his arms,

See her passion thrill, then pass

From him who, doting on her charms,

So became abominable.

Watch her bosom dip and swell,

See her nostrils fan and curve

At his touch who loved not well,

But loved too much, who broke the spell;

Watch her proud head stiffen and swerve.

GORGO

Upon the wall with claspt white hands

See her vigil keep intent,

Argive Helen, lo! she stands

Looking seaward where the fires

Hem the shore innumerable;

Sign of that avenging host,

All Achaia's chivalry,

Past the tongue of man to tell,

Peers and kindred of her sires

Come to win back Helen lost.

MYRTILLA

There to her in that gray hour,

That gray hour before the sun,

Cometh he she waiteth for,

Menelaus like a ghost,

Like a dry leaf tempest-tost,

Stalking restless, her reproach.

PASIPHASSA

There alone, those two, long severed been,

Eye each other, one wild heart between.

SITYS

"O thou ruinous face,

O thou fatally fair,

O the pity of thee!

What dost thou there,

Watching the madness of me?"

CHTHONOË

Him seemed her eyes were pools of dark

To drown him, yet no word she spake;

But gazing, grave as a lonely house,

All her wonder thrilled to wake.

RHODOPE

"By thy roses and snow,

By thy sun-litten hair,

By thy low bosom and slow

Pondered kisses, O hear!

"By thy glimmering eyes,

By thy burning cheek,

By thy murmuring sighs,

Speak, Helen, O speak!

"Ruinous Face, O Ruinous Face,

Art thou come so early," he said,

"So early forth from the wicked bed?"

GORGO

Him she pondered, grave and still,

Stirring not from her safe place:

He marked the glow, he felt the thrill,

He saw the dawn new in her face.

MYRTILLA

Within her low voice wailed the tone

Of one who grieves and prays for death:

"Lord, I am come to be alone,

Alone here with my sorrow," she saith.

PASIPHASSA

"False wife, what pity was thine

For hearth and altar, for man and child?

What is thy sorrow worth unto mine?"

She rocked, moaning, "I was beguiled!"

SITYS

Ten years' woe for Troy and Greece

By her begun, the slim, the sweet,

Ended by her in final peace

Of him who loved her first of all;

Nor ever swerved from his high passion,

But through misery and shame

Saw her spirit like a flame

Eloquent of her sacred fashion—

Hers whose eyes are homes of light,

To which she tends, from which she came.

1912.

[2] Helen Redeemed, the first poem in this book, was originally conceived as a drama. Here is a scene from it, the first after the Prologue, which would have been spoken by Odysseus. The action of the play would have begun with the entry of Helen.

GNATHO

Gnatho, Satyr, homing at dusk,

Trotting home like a tired dog,

By mountain slopes 'twixt the junipers

And flamed oleanders near the sea,

Found a girl-child asleep in a fleece,

Frail as wax, golden and rose;

Whereat at first he skipt aside

And stayed him, nosing and peering, whereto

Next he crept, softly breathing,

Blinking his fear. None was there

To guard; the sun had dipt in the sea,

Faint fire empurpled the flow

Of heaving water; no speck, no hint

Of oar or wing on the main, on the deep

Sky, empty as a great shell,

Fainting in its own glory. This thing,

This rare breath, this miracle—

Alone with him in the world! His

To wonder, fall to, with craning eyes

Fearfully daring; next, since it moved not,

Stooping, to handle, to stroke, to peer upon

Closely, nosing its tender length,

Doglike snuffing—at last to kiss

In reverence wonderful, lightlier far

Than thistledown falls, brushing the Earth.

But the child awoke and, watching him, cried not,

Cruddled visage, choppy hands,

Blinking eyes, red-litten, astare,

Horns and feet—nay, crowed and strained

To reach this wonder.

As one a glass

Light as foam, hued like the foam,

A breath-bubble of fire, will carry,

He in arms lifted his freight,

Looking wonderfully upon it

With scarce a breath, and humbleness

To be so brute ebbed to the flood

Of pride in his new assuréd worth—

Trusted so, who could be vile?

So to his cave in the wood he bore her,

Fleeting swift as a fear thro' the dark trees.

There in the silence of tall trees,

Under the soaring shafts,

Far beneath the canopied leafage,

In the forest whisper, the thick silences;

Or on the wastes

Of sheltered mountains where the spires

Of solemn cypress frame the descent

Upon the blue, and open to sea—

Here grew Ianthe maiden slim

With none to spy but this gnarled man-brute;

Most fair, most hid, like a wood-flower

Slim for lack of light; so she grew

In flowering line of limb

And flower of face, retired and shy,

Urged by the bland air; unknown,

Lonely and lovely, husbanding

Her great possessions—hers now,

Another's when he cared to claim them.

For thus went life: to lead the herds

Of pricking deer she saw the great stags

Battle in empty glades, then mate;

Thus on the mountains chose the bears,

And in the woods she heard the wolves

Anguishing in their loves

Thro' the dense nights, far in the forest.

And so collected went she, and sure

Her time would come and with it her master.

But Gnatho watcht her under his brows

When she lay heedless, spilling beauty—

How ever lovelier, suppler, sleeker,

How more desirable, how near;

How rightly his, how surely his—

Then gnaw'd his cheek and turn'd his head.

For unsuspect, some dim forbidding

Rose within him and knockt at his heart

And said, Not thine, but for reverence.

And some wild horror desperate drove him,

Suing a pardon from unknown Gods

For untold trespass, to seek the sea,

Upon whose shore, to whose cool breathing

He'd stretch his arms, broken with strife

Of self and self; and all that water

Steadfast lapt and surged. Came tears

To furrow his cheeks, came strength to return

To her, and bear with longer breath

Her sweet familiarities, blind

Obedience to nascent blind desire—

Till again he lookt and burn'd again.

Thus his black ferment boil'd. O' nights

He'd dream and revel frenziedly

As with the love-stung nymphs. Awake,

In a chill sweat, he'd tear at himself,

Claw at his flesh and leap in the brook,

Drench the red embers of his vice

Into a mass abhorred. Clean then,

He'd seek his bed and pass unscath'd

The bower of fern where the sleek limbs

Of white Ianthe, mesht in her hair,

Lay lax in sleep. But Gnatho now

Saw only God, as on some still peak

Snowy and lonely under the stars

We look, and see God in all that calm.

One night of glamour, under a moon

That seemed to steep the air with gold,

They two sat stilly and watcht the sea

Tremulously heaving over a path

Of light like a river of molten gold.

Warm blew the breeze to land; she lean'd

Her idle head, idly played

Her fingers in his belt, and he

Embracing held her, yielding, subdued;

Sideways saw the curve of her cheek,

Downcast lashes, droopt lip

Which seem'd to court his pleasure—

Then

On waves of fire came racing his needs

With zest of rage to possess and tear

That which his frenzy, maskt as love,

Courted: so he lean'd to her ear,

Thrilled in torrents hoarse his case—

"Love, I burn, I burn!

Slake me, love!" He raved in whisper.

And she lookt up with her wide full eyes,

Saying, "My love!" and yielded herself.

Deep night settled on hill and plain,

The moon went out, the concourse of stars

Lay strewn above, and with golden eyes

Peered on them lockt. Far and faint

The great stags belled; far and faint

Quested the wolves; the leopards' howling

Lent desolation to night; and low

The night-jar purr'd. At sea one light

Swayed restlessly, and on the rocks

Sounded the tireless lapping deep.

Lockt they lay thro' all the silences.

Dawn stole in with whimper of rain

And a wailing wind from the sea—

Gray sea, gray dawn and scurrying clouds

And scud of rain. The fisher boat,

The sands, the headlands fringed with broom

And tamarisk were blotted.

Alone,

Caged in the mist of earth

That beat his torment back to himself,

So that in vain he sought for the Gods,

And lifted up hands in vain

To witness this white wreck prone and still—

Gnatho the Satyr blinkt on his work.

1898-1912.

TO THE GODS OF THE COUNTRY

Sun and Moon, shine upon me;

Make glad my days and clear my nights!

O Earth, whose child I am,

Grant me thy patience!

O Heaven, whose heir I may be,

Keep quick my hope!

Your steadfastness I need, O Hills;

O Rain, thy kindness!

Snow, keep me pure;

O Fire, teach me thy pride!

From you, ye Winds, I ask your blitheness!

1909.

FOURTEEN SONNETS

1896

ALMA SDEGNOSA

Not that dull spleen which serves i' the world for scorn,

Is hers I watch from far off, worshipping

As in remote Chaldaea the ancient king

Adored the star that heralded the morn.

Her proud content she bears as a flag is borne

Tincted the hue royal; or as a wing

It lifts her soaring, near the daylight spring,

Whence, if she lift, our days must pass forlorn.

The pure deriving of her spirit-state

Is so remote from men and their believing,

They shrink when she is cold, and estimate

That hardness which is but a God's dismay:

As when the Heaven-sent sprite thro' Hell sped cleaving,

Only the gross air checkt him on his way.

THE WINDS' POSSESSION

When winds blow high and leaves begin to fall,

And the wan sunlight flits before the blast;

When fields are brown and crops are garnered all,

And rooks, like mastered ships, drift wide and fast;

Maid Artemis, that feeleth her young blood

Leap like a freshet river for the sea,

Speedeth abroad with hair blown in a flood

To snuff the salt west wind and wanton free.

Then would you know how brave she is, how high

Her ancestry, how kindred to the wind,

Mark but her flashing feet, her ravisht eye

That takes the boist'rous weather and feels it kind:

And hear her eager voice, how tuned it is

To Autumn's clarion shrill for Artemis.

ASPETTO REALE

That hour when thou and Grief were first acquainted

Thou wrotest, "Come, for I have lookt on death."

Piteous I held my indeterminate breath

And sought thee out, and saw how he had painted

Thine eyes with rings of black; yet never fainted

Thy radiant immortality underneath

Such stress of dark; but then, as one that saith,

"I know Love liveth," sat on by death untainted.

O to whom Grief too poignant was and dry

To sow in thee a fountain crop of tears!

O youth, O pride, set too remote and high

For touch of solace that gives grace to men!

Thy life must be our death, thy hopes our fears:

We weep, thou lookest strangely—we know thee then!

KIN CONFESSED

Long loving, all our love was husbanded

Until one morning on the brown hillside,

One misty Autumn morn when Sun did hide

His radiance, yet was felt. No words we said,

But in one flash transfigured, glorified,

All her heart's tumult beating white and red,

She fell prone on her face and hid her wide

Over-brimmed eyes in dewy fern.

I prayed,

Then spake, "In us two now is manifest

That throbbing kindred whereof thou art graft

And I the grafted, in this holy place."

She, turning half, with sober shame confest

Discovery, then hid her rosy face.

I read her wilding heart, and my heart laught.

QUEL GIORNO PIÙ ...

That day—it was the last of many days,

Nor could we know when such days might be given

Again—we read how Dante trod the ways

Of utmost Hell, and how his heart was riven

By sad Francesca, whose sin was forgiven

So far that, on her Paolo fixing gaze,

She supt on his again, and thought it Heaven,

She knew her gentler fate and felt it praise.

We read that lovers' tale; each lookt at each;

But one was fearless, innocent of guile;

So did the other learn what she could teach:

We read no more, we kiss'd not, but a smile

Of proud possession flasht, hover'd a while

'Twixt soul and soul. There was no need for speech.

ABSENCE

When she had left us but a little while

Methought I sensed her spirit here and there

About my house: upon the empty stair

Her robe brusht softly; o'er her chamber still

There lay her fragrant presence to beguile

Numb heart, dead heart. I knelt before her chair,

And praying felt her hand laid on my hair,

Felt her sweet breath, and guess'd her wistful smile.

Then thro' my tears I lookt about the room,

But she was gone. I heard my heart beat fast;

The street was silent; I could not see her now.

Sorrow and I took up our load, and past

To where our station was with heads bent low,

And autumn's death-moan shiver'd thro' the gloom.

PRESENCE

When she had left us but a little while,

I still could hear the ringing of her voice,

Still see athwart the dusk her shy half-smile

And that sweet trust wherein I most rejoice.

Then in her self-same tones I heard, "Go thou,

Set to that work appointed thee to do,

Remembering I am with thee here and now,

Watchful as ever. See, my eyes shine true!"

I lookt, and saw the concourse of clear stars,

Steadfast, of limpid candour, and could discover

Her soul look on me thro' the prison-bars

Which slunk like sin from such an honest Lover:

And thro' the vigil-pauses of that night

She beam'd on me; and my soul felt her light.

DREAM ANGUISH

My thought of thee is tortured in my sleep—

Sometimes thou art near beside me, but a cloud

Doth grudge me thy pale face, and rise to creep

Slowly about thee, to lap thee in a shroud;

And I, as standing by my dead, to weep

Desirous, cannot weep, nor cry aloud.

Or we must face the clamouring of a crowd

Hissing our shame; and I who ought to keep

Thine honour safe and my betrayed heart proud,

Knowing thee true, must watch a chill doubt leap

The tired faith of thee, and thy head bow'd,

Nor budge while the gross world holdeth thee cheap!

Or there are frost-bound meetings, and reproach

At parting, furtive snatches full of fear;

Love grown a pain; we bleed to kiss, and kiss

Because we bleed for love; the time doth broach

Shame, and shame teareth at us till we tear

Our hearts to shreds—yet wilder love for this!

HYMNIA-BEATRIX

Before you pass and leave me gaunt and chill

Alone to do what I have joyed in doing

In your glad sight, suffer me, nor take ill

If I confess you prize and me pursuing.

As the rapt Tuscan lifted up his eyes

Whither his Lady led, and lived with her,

Strong in her strength, and in her wisdom wise,

Love-taught with song to be her thurifer;

So I, that may no nearer stand than he

To minister about the holy place,

Am well content to watch my Heaven in thee

And read my Credo in thy sacred face.

For even as Beatrix Dante's wreath did bind,

So, Hymnia, hast thou imparadised my mind.

LUX E TENEBRIS

I thank all Gods that I can let thee go,

Lady, without one thought, one base desire

To tarnish that clear vision I gained by fire,

One stain in me I would not have thee know.

That is great might indeed that moves me so

To look upon thy Form, and yet aspire

To look not there, rather than I should mire

That wingéd Spirit that haunts and guards thy brow.

So now I see thee go, secure in this

That what I have is thee, that whole of thee

Whereof thy fair infashioning is sign:

For I see Honour, Love, and Wholesomeness,

And striving ever to reach them, and to be

As they, I keep thee still; for they are thine.

DUTY

Oh, I am weak to serve thee as I ought;

My shroud of flesh obscures thy deity,

So thy sweet Spirit that should embolden me

To shake my wings out wide, serves me for nought,

But receives tarnish, vile dishonour, wrought

By that thou earnest to bless—O agony

And unendurable shame! that, loving thee,

I dare not love, fearing my poisonous thought!

Man is too vile for any such high grace,

For that he seeks to honour he can but mar;

So had I rather shun thy starry face

And fly the exultation to know thee near—

For if one glance from me wrought thee a scar

'Twould not be death, but life that I should fear.

WAGES

Sometimes the spirit that never leaves me quite

Taps at my heart when thou art in the way,

Saying, Now thy Queen cometh: therefore pray,

Lest she should see thee vile, and at the sight

Shiver and fly back piteous to the light

That wanes when she is absent. Then, as I may,

I wash my soilèd hands and muttering, say,

Lord, make me clean; robe Thou me in Thy white!

So for a brief space, clad in ecstasy,

Pure, disembodied, I fall to kiss thy feet,

And sense thy glory throbbing round about;

Whereafter, rising, I hold thee in a sweet

And gentle converse that lifts me up to be,

When thou art gone, strange to the gross world's rout.

EYE-SERVICE

Meseems thine eyes are two still-folded lakes

Wherein deep water reflects the guardian sky,

Searching wherein I see how Heaven is nigh

And our broad Earth at peace. So my Love takes

My soul's thin hands and, chafing them, she makes

My life's blood lusty and my life's hope high

For the strong lips and eyes of Poesy,

To hold the world well squandered for their sakes.

I looked thee full this day: thine unveiled eyes

Rayed their swift-searching magic forth; and then

I felt all strength that love can put in men

Whenas they know that loveliness is wise.

For love can be content with no less prize,

To lift us up beyond our mortal ken.

CLOISTER THOUGHTS

(AT WESTMINSTER)

Within these long gray shadows many dead

Lie waiting: we wait with them. Do you believe

That at the last the threadbare soul will give

All his shifts over, and stand dishevellèd,

Naked in truth? Then we shall hear it said,

"Ye two have waited long, daring to live

Grimly through days tormented; now reprieve

Awaiteth you with all these ancient dead!"

The slope sun letteth down thro' our dark bars

His ladder from the skies. Hand fast in hand,

With quiet hearts and footsteps quiet and slow,

Like children venturous in an unknown land

We will come to the fields whose flowers are stars,

And kneeling ask, "Lord, wilt Thou crown us now?"

THE CHAMBER IDYLL

The blue night falleth, the moon

Is over the hill; make fast,

Fasten the latch, I am tired: come soon,

Come! I would sleep at last

In your bosom, my love, my love!

The airy chamber above

Has the lattice ajar, that night

May breathe upon you and me, my love,

And the moon bless our marriage-rite—

Come, lassy, to bed, to bed!

The roof-thatch overhead

Shall cover the stars' bright eyes;

The fleecy quilt shall be coverlid

For your meek virginities,

And your wedding, my bride, my bride!

See, we are side to side,

Virgin in deed and name—

Come, for love will not be denied,

Tarry not, have no shame:

Are we not man and bride?

1894.

EPIGRAMMATA

1910

THE OLD HOUSE

Mossy gray stands the House, four-square to the wind,

Embosomed in the hills. The garden old

Of yew and box and fishpond speaks her mind,

Sweet-ordered, quaint, recluse, fold within fold

Of quietness; but true and choice and kind—

A sober casket for a heart of gold.

BLUE IRIS

Blue is the Adrian sea, and darkly blue

The Ægean; and the shafted sun thro' them,

That fishes grope to, gives the beamy hue

Rayed from her iris's deep diadem.

THE ROSEBUD

In June I brought her roses, and she cupt

One slim bud in her hand and cherisht it,

And put it to her mouth. Rose and she supt

Each other's sweetness; but the flower was lit

By her kind eyes, and glowed. Then in her breast

She laid it blushing, warm and doubly blest.

SPRING ON THE DOWN

When Spring blows o'er the land, and sunlight flies

Across the hills, we take the upland way.

I have her waist, the wooing wind her eyes

And lips and cheeks. His kissing makes her gay

As flowers. "Thou hast two lovers, O my dear,"

Say I; and she, "He takes what thou dost fear."

SNOWY NIGHT

The snow lies deep, ice-fringes hem the thatch;

I knock my shoes, my Love lifts me the latch,

Shows me her eyes—O frozen stars, they shine

Kindly! I clasp her. Quick! her lips are mine.

EVENING MOOD

Late, when the sun was smouldering down the west,

She took my arm and laid her cheek to me;

The fainting twilight held her, and I guess'd

All she would tell, but could not let me see—

Wonder and joy, the rising of her breast,

And confidence, and still expectancy.

THE PARTING

Breathless was she and would not have us part:

"Adieu, my Saint," I said, "'tis come to this."

But she leaned to me, one hand at her heart,

And all her soul sighed trembling in a kiss.

DEDICATION OF A BOOK

To the Fountain of my long Dream,

To the Chalice of all my Sorrow,

To the Lamp held up, and the Stream

Of Light that beacons the Morrow;

To the Bow, the Quiver and Dart,

To the Bridle-rein, to the Yoke

Proudly upborne, to the Heart

On Fire, to the Mercy-stroke;

To Apollo herding his Cattle,

To Proserpina grave in Dis;

To the high Head in the Battle,

And the Crown—I consecrate this.

1911.

Printed by R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, Edinburgh.

BY MAURICE HEWLETT

THE AGONISTS

A TRILOGY OF GOD AND MAN

MINOS KING OF CRETE, ARIADNE IN NAXOS,

THE DEATH OF HIPPOLYTUS

Crown 8vo. 4s. 6d. net.

SPECTATOR.—"The three plays have throughout a high level of dramatic interest, and they have moments of great tragic beauty.... It is not a book of sporadic beauties, for its most remarkable quality is its unity of interest and effect. The chorus has many passages of lyrical charm ... but it is the great story which moves us most deeply, the stress of dramatic and logical sequence, so that we have no time to notice the art of it all. This is a high tribute to Mr. Hewlett's technical skill. At its best the irregular verse has a sharp freshness which the more orthodox metres could scarcely give."

DAILY TELEGRAPH.—"The poetry is full of music, yet refreshingly free from monotony, and in passages when swift broken phrases are of the essence of the atmosphere the effect is splendidly dramatic and austere. Mr. Hewlett is to be congratulated upon a high success in a field of the worthiest enterprise."

OBSERVER.—"There is no single passage that can fail to charm when read aloud, woven with magic of rhythm, and music of phrase. It is a great heroic subject, nobly conceived, and finely and thoughtfully executed."

BLACK AND WHITE.—"The Agonists is more than fine verse; it is literature impregnated with the purest fragrance of the classic spirit."

DAILY EXPRESS.—"There is real drama in The Agonists, and there is much splendid beauty."

PALL MALL GAZETTE.—"Of the beauty of a great deal of the poetry it is difficult to speak too highly."

STANDARD.—"The imaginative grasp of these dramas, as well as their lyric charm, is unquestionable, and so also is the rare skill with which the strife of elemental passions is described and the action of the relentless laws which made men of old regard life as the sport of the gods."

MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.

BY MAURICE HEWLETT

Crown 8vo. 6s. each.

THE FOREST LOVERS: A ROMANCE.

SPECTATOR.—"The Forest Lovers is no mere literary tour de force, but an uncommonly attractive romance, the charm of which is greatly enhanced by the author's excellent style."

DAILY TELEGRAPH.—"Mr. Maurice Hewlett's The Forest Lovers stands out with conspicuous success.... There are few books of this season which achieve their aim so simply and whole-heartedly as Mr. Hewlett's ingenious and enthralling romance."

THE SONG OF RENNY.

EVENING STANDARD.—"Mr. Hewlett has produced a remarkable series of historical novels, and The Song of Renny is one of the best of them.... An admirable romance, full of 'go' and colour and good temper."

DAILY TELEGRAPH.—"Mr. Hewlett is mounted upon his Pegasus again, riding full tilt against a rushing wind, with the moonlight of imagination playing glorious tricks upon all the marvellous sights around him."

THE QUEEN'S QUAIR: OR, THE SIX YEARS' TRAGEDY.

ATHENÆUM.—"A fine book, fine not only for its extraordinary wealth of incidental beauties, but also for the consistency of conception and the tolerant humanity with which its main theme is put before you."

WESTMINSTER GAZETTE.—"That Mr. Maurice Hewlett would give us a flaming, wonderful picture of Queen Mary was a foregone conclusion."

RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY.

Mr. FREDERIC HARRISON in THE FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW.—"Such historic imagination, such glowing colour, such crashing speed, set forth in such pregnant form, carry me away spell-bound."

DAILY TELEGRAPH.—"The story carries us along as though throughout we were galloping on strong horses. There is a rush and fervour about it all which sweeps us off our feet till the end is reached, and the tale is done. It is very clever, very spirited."

LITTLE NOVELS OF ITALY.

DAILY CHRONICLE.—"And even such as fail to understand, will very certainly enjoy—enjoy the sometimes gay and sometimes biting humour, the deft delineation, the fine quality of colour, the delicately-flavoured phrasing."

DAILY TELEGRAPH.—"The most finished studies which have appeared since some of the essays of Walter Pater."

OPEN COUNTRY: A COMEDY WITH A STING.

DAILY TELEGRAPH.—"Open Country is a beautiful bit of work, a work that is inspired through and through with a genuine love for what is pure and beautiful. Mr. Hewlett's main figures have not only a wonderful charm in themselves, but they are noble, simple, and true-hearted creatures. Sanchia, the heroine, is a divine creation."

EVENING STANDARD.—"Open Country is an important book and a fine novel."

REST HARROW: A COMEDY OF RESOLUTION.

DAILY NEWS.—"Rest Harrow has not only the effect of providing an æsthetically logical conclusion to the motives of Open Country, but it throws back a radiant retrospective influence, enhancing the value of what has preceded it.... In many ways the best piece of work Mr. Hewlett has done."

PALL MALL GAZETTE.—"The present book certainly sustains the charm of Open Country without any faltering of dramatic movement."

THE STOOPING LADY.

DAILY TELEGRAPH.—"A wondrously beautiful piece of fiction, gallant and romantic, a high treat for lovers of good reading."

WORLD.—"A rarely picturesque and beautiful production."

EVENING STANDARD.—"A story which fascinates him who reads."

MRS. LANCELOT: A COMEDY OF ASSUMPTIONS.

DAILY TELEGRAPH.—"The story, as a whole, sustains a lofty level of creative vigour, and is dignified, moreover, with something of the epic flavour, as the old order is seen breaking up under the advance of new ideas and revolutionary enthusiasms.... Among the best books that the present age is likely to produce."

DAILY GRAPHIC.—"The best work of its kind since Meredith."

FOND ADVENTURES: TALES OF THE YOUTH OF THE WORLD.

SPECTATOR.—"The materials for romance provided by this period (the Renaissance) are inexhaustibly rich, and Mr. Maurice Hewlett is admirably equipped for the task of reconstituting many of its phases."

EVENING STANDARD.—"The present volume is a rich mine of beauty. It contains four fine romantic tales."

NEW CANTERBURY TALES.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.

NEW TWO-SHILLING EDITION

OF

THE NOVELS OF

MAURICE HEWLETT

In Cloth binding. Crown 8vo. 2s. net each.

- THE FOREST LOVERS.

- THE QUEEN'S QUAIR.

- LITTLE NOVELS OF ITALY.

- RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY.

- THE STOOPING LADY.

- FOND ADVENTURES.

- NEW CANTERBURY TALES.

- HALFWAY HOUSE.

- OPEN COUNTRY: A COMEDY WITH A STING.

- REST HARROW: A COMEDY OF RESOLUTION.

ATHENÆUM.—"The Two-shilling Series deserves exceptional praise for its handiness and excellent type."

PALL MALL GAZETTE.—"An enterprise to be welcomed by all lovers of good literature."

DAILY MAIL.—"This cheap and handsome edition is very welcome."

WORLD.—"Extremely attractive edition.... Notable examples of what can nowadays be achieved in the way of handsome book-production at surprisingly moderate prices."

MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.

BY MAURICE HEWLETT

A MASQUE OF DEAD FLORENTINES.

WHEREIN SOME OF DEATH'S CHOICEST PIECES, AND THE GREAT GAME THAT HE PLAYED THEREWITH, ARE FRUITFULLY SET FORTH. 4to. 10s. net.

THE FOREST LOVERS.

With 16 Illustrations in Colour by A. S. HARTRICK. 8vo. 5s. net.

LETTERS TO SANCHIA UPON THINGS AS THEY ARE.

EXTRACTED FROM THE CORRESPONDENCE OF MR. JOHN MAXWELL SENHOUSE. Crown 8vo. 1s. 6d. net.

THE ROAD IN TUSCANY: A COMMENTARY.

Illustrated by JOSEPH PENNELL. Extra Crown 8vo. 8s. 6d. net.

TIMES.—"Its vividness is extraordinary; there is no one quite like Mr. Hewlett for seizing all the colour and character of a place in half a dozen words.... An admirable book.... Mr. Pennell's profuse illustrations to this book are very attractive."

EARTHWORK OUT OF TUSCANY.

BEING IMPRESSIONS AND TRANSLATIONS OF MAURICE HEWLETT. Globe 8vo. 4s. net.

OBSERVER.—"This re-issue of Mr. Hewlett's beautiful book comes to us as one of the pleasant Eversley Series—a form in which it may be hoped, for the sake of the reading world, that it is to make many new friends."

Pott 8vo. Cloth. 7d. net each.

THE FOREST LOVERS.

THE STOOPING LADY.

Medium 8vo. Sewed. 6d. each.

THE FOREST LOVERS.

RICHARD YEA-AND-NAY.

THE QUEEN'S QUAIR.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.

COMPLETE EDITIONS OF THE POETS.

Uniform Edition. In Green Cloth. Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. each.

THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.

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THE POETICAL WORKS OF MATTHEW ARNOLD.

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THE POETICAL WORKS OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

With Introduction by THOMAS HUGHES, and a Portrait.

THE POETICAL WORKS OF PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

Edited by Professor DOWDEN. With a Portrait.

THE POETICAL WORKS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

Edited, with a Biographical Introduction, by J. DYKES CAMPBELL. Portrait as Frontispiece.

THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

With Introduction by JOHN MORLEY, and a Portrait.

THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF T. E. BROWN.

With a Portrait; and an Introduction by W. E. HENLEY.

THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.

With Introduction, Memoir, and Notes, by W. M. ROSSETTI.

THE DYNASTS. An Epic-Drama of the War with Napoleon.

By THOMAS HARDY. Three Parts in One Vol.

THE BAB BALLADS, with which are included Songs of a Savoyard.

By Sir W. S. GILBERT. Sixth Edition. Illustrated.

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Table of Contents

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Helen Redeemed and Other Poems, by Maurice Hewlett

HELEN REDEEMED AND OTHER POEMS

MAURICE HEWLETT

DEDICATION

CONTENTS

NOTE

HELEN REDEEMED

PROEM

FIRST STAVE

THE DEATH OF ACHILLES

SECOND STAVE

MENELAUS' DREAM: HELEN ON THE WALL

THIRD STAVE

MENELAUS SPEAKS WITH HELEN

FOURTH STAVE

THE APOLOGY OF HELEN

FIFTH STAVE

A COUNCIL OF THE ACHAIANS: THE EMBASSY OF ODYSSEUS

SIXTH STAVE

HELEN AND PARIS; ODYSSEUS AND HELEN

SEVENTH STAVE

THEY BUILD THE HORSE AND ENTER IN

EIGHTH STAVE

THE HORSE IN TROY; THE PASSION OF KASSANDRA

NINTH STAVE

THE GODS FORSAKE TROY

TENTH STAVE

ODYSSEUS COMES AGAIN TO PARIS' HOUSE

ELEVENTH STAVE

THE BEGUILING OF PARIS

ENVOY

HYPSIPYLE

I

II

OREITHYIA

CLYTIÉ

LAI OF GOBERTZ[1]

THE SAINTS' MAYING

THE ARGIVE WOMEN[2]

GNATHO

TO THE GODS OF THE COUNTRY

FOURTEEN SONNETS1896

ALMA SDEGNOSA

THE WINDS' POSSESSION

ASPETTO REALE

KIN CONFESSED

QUEL GIORNO PIÙ ...

ABSENCE

PRESENCE

DREAM ANGUISH

HYMNIA-BEATRIX

LUX E TENEBRIS

DUTY

WAGES

EYE-SERVICE

CLOISTER THOUGHTS

(AT WESTMINSTER)

THE CHAMBER IDYLL

EPIGRAMMATA1910

THE OLD HOUSE

BLUE IRIS

THE ROSEBUD

SPRING ON THE DOWN

SNOWY NIGHT

EVENING MOOD

THE PARTING

DEDICATION OF A BOOK

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE