9. When Helen lived. Yeats, W. B. 1916. Responsibilities and Other Poems

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939). Responsibilities and Other Poems. 1916.

9. When Helen lived

WE have cried in our despair
That men desert,
For some trivial affair
Or noisy, insolent, sport,
Beauty that we have won	5
From bitterest hours;
Yet we, had we walked within
Those topless towers
Where Helen walked with her boy,
Had given but as the rest	10
Of the men and women of Troy,
A word and a jest.