| WHERE hast thou been since round the walls of Troy | |
| The sons of God fought in that great emprise? | |
| Why dost thou walk our common earth again? | |
| Hast thou forgotten that impassioned boy, | |
| His purple galley, and his Tyrian men, | 5 |
| And treacherous Aphrodite’s mocking eyes? | |
| For surely it was thou, who, like a star | |
| Hung in the silver silence of the night, | |
| Didst lure the Old World’s chivalry and might | |
| Into the clamorous crimson waves of war! | 10 |
| |
| Or didst thou rule the fire-laden moon? | |
| In amorous Sidon was thy temple built | |
| Over the light and laughter of the sea? | |
| Where, behind lattice scarlet-wrought and gilt, | |
| Some brown-limbed girl did weave thee tapestry, | 15 |
| All through the waste and wearied hours of noon; | |
| Till her wan cheek with flame of passion burned, | |
| And she rose up the sea-washed lips to kiss | |
| Of some glad Cyprian sailor, safe returned | |
| From Calpé and the cliffs of Herakles! | 20 |
| |
| No! thou art Helen, and none other one! | |
| It was for thee that young Sarpedôn died, | |
| And Memnôn’s manhood was untimely spent; | |
| It was for thee gold-crested Hector tried | |
| With Thetis’ child that evil race to run, | 25 |
| In the last year of thy beleaguerment; | |
| Ay! even now the glory of thy fame | |
| Burns in those fields of trampled asphodel, | |
| Where the high lords whom Ilion knew so well | |
| Clash ghostly shields, and call upon thy name. | 30 |
| |
| Where hast thou been? in that enchanted land | |
| Whose slumbering vales forlorn Calypso knew, | |
| Where never mower rose to greet the day | |
| But all unswathed the trammelling grasses grew, | |
| And the sad shepherd saw the tall corn stand | 35 |
| Till summer’s red had changed to withered gray? | |
| Didst thou lie there by some Lethæan stream | |
| Deep brooding on thine ancient memory, | |
| The crash of broken spears, the fiery gleam | |
| From shivered helm, the Grecian battle-cry. | 40 |
| |
| Nay, thou wert hidden in that hollow hill | |
| With one who is forgotten utterly, | |
| That discrowned Queen men call the Erycine; | |
| Hidden away that never mightst thou see | |
| The face of Her, before whose mouldering shrine | 45 |
| To-day at Rome the silent nations kneel; | |
| Who gat from Love no joyous gladdening, | |
| But only Love’s intolerable pain, | |
| Only a sword to pierce her heart in twain, | |
| Only the bitterness of child-bearing. | 50 |
| |
| The lotos-leaves which heal the wounds of Death | |
| Lie in thy hand; O, be thou kind to me, | |
| While yet I know the summer of my days; | |
| For hardly can my tremulous lips draw breath | |
| To fill the silver trumpet with thy praise, | 55 |
| So bowed am I before thy mystery; | |
| So bowed and broken on Love’s terrible wheel, | |
| That I have lost all hope and heart to sing, | |
| Yet care I not what ruin time may bring | |
| If in thy temple thou wilt let me kneel. | 60 |
| |
| Alas, alas, thou wilt not tarry here, | |
| But, like that bird, the servant of the sun, | |
| Who flies before the northwind and the night, | |
| So wilt thou fly our evil land and drear, | |
| Back to the tower of thine old delight, | 65 |
| And the red lips of young Euphorion; | |
| Nor shall I ever see thy face again, | |
| But in this poisonous garden must I stay, | |
| Crowning my brows with the thorn-crown of pain, | |
| Till all my loveless life shall pass away. | 70 |
| |
| O Helen! Helen! Helen! yet awhile, | |
| Yet for a little while, O, tarry here, | |
| Till the dawn cometh and the shadows flee! | |
| For in the gladsome sunlight of thy smile | |
| Of heaven or hell I have no thought or fear, | 75 |
| Seeing I know no other god but thee: | |
| No other god save him, before whose feet | |
| In nets of gold the tired planets move, | |
| The incarnate spirit of spiritual love | |
| Who in thy body holds his joyous seat. | 80 |
| |
| Thou wert not born as common women are! | |
| But, girt with silver splendour of the foam, | |
| Didst from the depths of sapphire seas arise! | |
| And at thy coming some immortal star, | |
| Bearded with flame, blazed in the Eastern skies, | 85 |
| And waked the shepherds on thine island-home. | |
| Thou shalt not die: no asps of Egypt creep | |
| Close at thy heels to taint the delicate air; | |
| No sullen-blooming poppies stain thy hair, | |
| Those scarlet heralds of eternal sleep. | 90 |
| |
| Lily of love, pure and inviolate! | |
| Tower of ivory! red rose of fire! | |
| Thou hast come down our darkness to illume: | |
| For we, close-caught in the wide nets of Fate, | |
| Wearied with waiting for the World’s Desire, | 95 |
| Aimlessly wandered in the house of gloom, | |
| Aimlessly sought some slumberous anodyne | |
| For wasted lives, for lingering wretchedness, | |
| Till we beheld thy re-arisen shrine, | |
| And the white glory of thy loveliness. | 100 |
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