Helen Redeemed and Other Poems | Page 6

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