Part 12 (2/2)

XXIII.

”Beloved one that dost not love me, wake!

Helen, the night is over, the dawn is near, And safely shalt thou fare with me, and take Thy way through fire and blood, and have no fear: A little hour, and ended is the drear Tale of thy sorrow and thy wandering.

Nay, long hast thou to live in happy cheer, By fair Eurotas, with thy lord, the King.”

XXIV.

Then Helen rose, and in a cloud of gold, Unseen amid the vapour of the fire, Did Aphrodite veil her, fold on fold; And through the darkness, thronged with faces dire, And o'er men's bodies fallen in a mire Of new spilt blood and wine, the twain did go Where l.u.s.t and Hate were mingled in desire, And dreams and death were blended in one woe.

XXV.

Fire and the foe were masters now: the sky Flared like the dawn of that last day of all, When men for pity to the sea shall cry, And vainly on the mountain tops shall call To fall and end the horror in their fall; And through the vapour dreadful things saw they, The maidens leaping from the city wall, The sleeping children murder'd where they lay.

XXVI.

Yea, cries like those that make the hills of h.e.l.l Ring and re-echo, sounded through the night, The screams of burning horses, and the yell Of young men leaping naked into fight, And shrill the women shriek'd, as in their flight Shriek the wild cranes, when overhead they spy Between the dusky cloud-land and the bright Blue air, an eagle stooping from the sky.

XXVII.

And now the red glare of the burning shone On deeds so dire the pure G.o.ds might not bear, Save Ares only, long to look thereon, But with a cloud they darken'd all the air.

And, even then, within the temple fair Of chaste Athene, did Ca.s.sandra cower, And cried aloud an unavailing prayer; For Aias was the master in that hour.

XXVIII.

Man's l.u.s.t won what a G.o.d's love might not win, And heroes trembled, and the temple floor Shook, when one cry went up into the din, And shamed the night to silence; then the roar Of war and fire wax'd great as heretofore, Till each roof fell, and every palace gate Was shatter'd, and the King's blood shed; nor more Remain'd to do, for Troy was desolate.

XXIX.

Then dawn drew near, and changed to clouds of rose The dreadful smoke that clung to Ida's head; But Ilios was ashes, and the foes Had left the embers and the plunder'd dead; And down the steep they drove the prey, and sped Back to the swift s.h.i.+ps, with a captive train,-- While Menelaus, slow, with drooping head, Follow'd, like one lamenting, through the plain.

x.x.x.

Where death might seem the surest, by the gate Of Priam, where the spears raged, and the tall Towers on the foe were falling, sought he fate To look on Helen once, and then to fall, Nor see with living eyes the end of all, What time the host their vengeance should fulfil, And cast her from the cliff below the wall, Or burn her body on the windy hill.

x.x.xI.

But Helen found he never, where the flame Sprang to the roofs, and Helen ne'er he found Where flock'd the wretched women in their shame The helpless altars of the G.o.ds around, Nor lurk'd she in deep chambers underground, Where the priests trembled o'er their hidden gold, Nor where the armed feet of foes resound In shrines to silence consecrate of old.

x.x.xII.

So wounded to his hut and wearily Came Menelaus; and he bow'd his head Beneath the lintel neither fair nor high; And, lo! Queen Helen lay upon his bed, Flush'd like a child in sleep, and rosy-red, And at his footstep did she wake and smile, And spake: ”My lord, how hath thy hunting sped, Methinks that I have slept a weary while!”

x.x.xIII.

For Aphrodite made the past unknown To Helen, as of old, when in the dew Of that fair dawn the net was round her thrown: Nay, now no memory of Troy brake through The mist that veil'd from her sweet eyes and blue The dreadful days and deeds all over-past, And gladly did she greet her lord anew, And gladly would her arms have round him cast.

x.x.xIV.

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