Helen Redeemed and Other Poems | Page 4

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