Helen Redeemed and Other Poems | Page 6

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