HELEN
And next I knew
A woman perfect as a young man's dream,
And breathing as it seemed the old sweet air
Of the fair days of old, when man was young
And life an Epic. Round the lips a smile
Subtle and deep and sweet as hers who looks
From the old painter's canvas, and derides
Life and the riddle of things, the aimless strife,
The folly of Love, as who has proved it all,
Enjoyed and suffered. In the lovely eyes
A weary look, no other than the gaze
Which ofttimes as the rapid chariot whirls,
And ofttimes by the glaring midnight streets,
Gleams out and chills our thought. And yet not guilt
Nor sorrow was it; only weariness,
No more, and still most lovely. As I named
Her name in haste, she looked with half surprise,
And thus she seemed to speak:
"What? Dost thou know
Thou too, the fatal glances which beguiled
Those strong rude chiefs of old? Has not the gloom
Of this dim land withdrawn from out mine eyes
The glamour which once filled them? Does my cheek
Retain the round of youth and still defy
The wear of immemorial centuries?
And this low voice, long silent, keeps it still
The music of old time? Aye, in thine eyes
I read it, and within thine eyes I see
Thou knowest me, and the story of my life
Sung by the blind old bard when I was dead,
And all my lovers dust. I know thee not,
Thee nor thy gods, yet would I soothly swear
I was not all to blame for what has been,
The long fight, the swift death, the woes, the tears
The brave lives spent, the humble homes uptorn
To gain one poor fair face. It was not I
That curved these lips into this subtle smile,
Or gave these eyes their fire, nor yet made round
This supple frame. It was not I, but Love,
Love mirroring himself in all things fair,
Love that projects himself upon a life,
And dotes on his own image.
Ah! the days,
The weary years of Love and feasts and gold,
The hurried flights, the din of clattering hoofs
At midnight, when the heroes dared for me,
And bore me o'er the hills; the swift pursuits
Baffled and lost; or when from isle to isle
The high-oared galley spread its wings and rose
Over the swelling surges, and I saw,
Time after time, the scarce familiar town,
The sharp-cut hills, the well-loved palaces,
The gleaming temples fade, and all for me,
Me the dead prize, the shell, the soulless ghost,
The husk of a true woman; the fond words
Wasted on careless ears, that seemed to hear,
Of love to me unloving; the rich feasts,
The silken dalliance and soft luxury,
The fair observance and high reverence
For me who cared not, to whatever land
My kingly lover snatched me. I have known
How small a fence Love sets between the king
And the strong hind, who breeds his brood, and dies
Upon the field he tills. I have exchanged
People for people, crown for glittering crown,
Through every change a queen, and held my state
Hateful, and sickened in my soul to lie
Stretched on soft cushions to the lutes' low sound,
While on the wasted fields the clang of arms
Rang, and the foemen perished, and swift death,
Hunger, and plague, and every phase of woe
Vexed all the land for me. I have heard the curse
Unspoken, when the wife widowed for me
Clasped to her heart her orphans starved for me;
As I swept proudly by. I have prayed the gods,
Hating my own fair face which wrought such woe,
Some plague divine might light on it and leave
My curse a ruin. Yet I think indeed
They had not cursed but pitied, those true wives
Who mourned their humble lords, and straining felt
The innocent thrill which swells the mother's heart
Who clasps her growing boy; had they but known
The lifeless life, the pain of hypocrite smiles,
The dead load of caresses simulated,
When Love stands shuddering by to see his fires
Lit for the shrine of gold. What if they felt
The weariness of loveless love which grew
And through the jealous palace portals seized
The caged unloving woman, sick of toys,
Sick of her gilded chains, her ease, herself,
Till for sheer weariness she flew to meet
Some new unloved seducer? What if they knew
No childish loving hands, or worse than all,
Had borne them sullen to a sire unloved,
And left them without pain? I might have been,
I too, a loving mother and chaste wife,
Had Fate so willed.
For I remember well
How one day straying from my father's halls
Seeking anemones and violets,
A girl in Spring-time, when the heart makes Spring
Within the budding bosom, that I came
Of a sudden through a wood upon a bay,
A little sunny land-locked bay, whose banks
Sloped gently downward to the yellow sand,
Where the blue wave creamed soft with fairy foam,
And oft the Nereids sported. As I strayed
Singing, with fresh-pulled violets in my hair
And bosom, and my hands were full of flowers,
I came upon a little milk-white lamb,
And took it in my arms and fondled it,
And wreathed its neck with flowers, and sang to it
And kissed it, and the Spring was in my life,
And I was glad.
And when I raised my eyes
Behold, a youthful shepherd with his crook
Stood by me and regarded as I lay,
Tall, fair, with clustering curls, and front that wore
A budding manhood. As I looked a fear
Came o'er me, lest he were some youthful god
Disguised in shape of man, so fair he was;
But when he spoke, the kindly face was full
Of manhood, and the large eyes full of fire
Drew me without a word, and all the flowers
Fell from me, and the little milk-white lamb
Strayed through the brake, and took with it the white
Fair years of childhood. Time fulfilled my being
With passion like a cup, and with one kiss
Left me a woman.
Ah! the lovely days,
When on the warm bank crowned with flowers we sate
And thought no harm, and his thin reed pipe made
Low music, and no witness of our love
Intruded, but the tinkle of the flock
Came from the hill, and 'neath the odorous shade
We dreamed away the day, and watched the waves
Steal shoreward, and beyond the sylvan capes
The innumerable laughter of the sea!
Ah youth and love! So passed the happy days
Till twilight, and I stole as in a dream
Homeward, and lived as in a happy dream,
And when they spoke answered as in a dream,
And through the darkness saw, as in a glass,
The happy, happy day, and thrilled and glowed
And kept my love in sleep, and longed for dawn
And scarcely stayed for hunger, and with morn
Stole eager to the little wood, and fed
My life with kisses. Ah! the joyous days
Of innocence, when Love was Queen in heaven,
And nature unreproved! Break they then still,
Those azure circles, on a golden shore?
Smiles there no glade upon the older earth
Where spite of all, gray wisdom, and new gods,
Young lovers dream within each other's arms
Silent, by shadowy grove, or sunlit sea?
Ah days too fair to last! There came a night
When I lay longing for my love, and knew
Sudden the clang of hoofs, the broken doors.
The clash of swords, the shouts, the groans, the stain
Of red upon the marble, the fixed gaze
Of dead and dying eyes,—that was the time
When first I looked on death,—and when I woke
From my deep swoon, I felt the night air cool
Upon my brow, and the cold stars look down,
As swift we galloped o'er the darkling plain;
And saw the chill sea glimpses slowly wake,
With arms unknown around me. When the dawn
Broke swift, we panted on the pathless steeps,
And so by plain and mountain till we came
To Athens, where they kept me till I grew
Fairer with every year, and many wooed,
Heroes and chieftains, but I loved not one.
And then the avengers came and snatched me back
To Sparta. All the dark high-crested chiefs
Of Argos wooed me, striving king with king
For one fair foolish face, nor knew I kept
No heart to give them. Yet since I was grown
Weary of honeyed words and suit of love,
I wedded a brave chief, dauntless and true.
But what cared I? I could not prize at all
His honest service. I had grown so tired
Of loving and of love, that when they brought
News that the fairest shepherd on the hills,
Having done himself to death for his lost love,
Lay, like a lovely statue, cold and white
Upon the golden sand, I hardly knew
More than a passing pang. Love, like a flower,
Love, springing up too tall in a young breast,
The growth of morning, Life's too scorching sun
Had withered long ere noon. Love, like a flame
On his own altar offering up my heart,
Had burnt my being to ashes.
Was it love
That drew me then to Paris? He was fair,
I grant you, fairer than a summer morn,
Fair with a woman's fairness, yet in arms
A hero, but he never had my heart,
Not love for him allured me, but the thirst
For freedom, if in more than thought I erred,
And was not rapt but willing. For my child,
Born to an unloved father, loved me not,
The fresh sea called, the galleys plunged, and I
Fled willing from my prison and the pain
Of undesired caresses, and the wind
Was fair, and on the third day as we sailed,
My heart was glad within me when I saw
The towers of Ilium rise beyond the wave.
Ah, the long years, the melancholy years,
The miserable melancholy years!
For soon the new grew old, and then I grew
Weary of him, of all, of pomp and state
And novel splendour. Yet at times I knew
Some thrill of pride within me as I saw
From those high walls, a prisoner and a foe,
The swift ships flock at anchor in the bay,
The hasty landing and the flash of arms,
The lines of royal tents upon the plain,[132]
The close-shut gates, the chivalry within
Issuing in all its pride to meet the shock
Of the bold chiefs without; so year by year
The haughty challenge from the warring hosts
Rang forth, and I with a divided heart
Saw victory incline, now here, now there,
And helpless marked the Argive chiefs I knew,
The spouse I left, the princely loves of old,
Now with each other strive, and now with Troy:
The brave pomp of the morn, the fair strong limbs,
The glittering panoply, the bold young hearts,
Athirst for fame of war, and with the night
The broken spear, the shattered helm, the plume
Dyed red with blood, the ghastly dying face,
And nerveless limbs laid lifeless. And I knew
The stainless Hector whom I could have loved,
But that a happy love made blind his eyes
To all my baleful beauty; fallen and dragged
His noble, manly head upon the sand
By young Achilles' chariot; him in turn
Fallen and slain; my fair false Paris slain;
Plague, famine, battle, raging now within,
And now without, for many a weary year,
Summer and winter, till I loathed to live,
Who was indeed, as well they said, the Hell
Of men, and fleets, and cities. As I stood
Upon the walls, ofttimes a longing came,
Looking on rage, and fight, and blood, and death,
To end it all, and dash me down and die;
But no god helped me. Nay, one day I mind
I would entreat them. 'Pray you, lords, be men.
What fatal charm is this which Até gives
To one poor foolish face? Be strong, and turn
In peace, forget this glamour, get you home
With all your fleets and armies, to the land
I love no longer, where your faithful wives
Pine widowed of their lords, and your young boys
Grow wild to manhood. I have nought to give,
No heart, nor prize of love for any man,
Nor recompense. I am the ghost alone
Of the fair girl ye knew; she still abides,
If she still lives and is not wholly dead,
Stretched on a flowery bank upon the sea
In fair heroic Argos. Leave this form
That is no other than the outward shell
Of a once loving woman.'
As I spake,
My pity fired my eyes and flushed my cheek
With some soft charm; and as I spread my hands,
The purple, glancing down a little, left
The marble of my breasts and one pink bud
Upon the gleaming snows. And as I looked
With a mixed pride and terror, I beheld
The brute rise up within them, and my words
Fall barren on them. So I sat apart,
Nor ever more looked forth, while every day
Brought its own woe.
The melancholy years,
The miserable melancholy years,
Crept onward till the midnight terror came,
And by the glare of burning streets I saw
Palace and temple reel in ruin and fall,
And the long-baffled legions, bursting in
By gate and bastion, blunted sword and spear
With unresisted slaughter. From my tower
I saw the good old king; his kindly eyes
In agony, and all his reverend hairs
Dabbled with blood, as the fierce foeman thrust
And stabbed him as he lay; the youths, the girls,
Whom day by day I knew, their silken ease
And royal luxury changed for blood and tears,
Haled forth to death or worse. Then a great hate
Of life and fate seized on me, and I rose
And rushed among them, crying, 'See, 'tis I,
I who have brought this evil! Kill me! kill
The fury that is I, yet is not I!
And let my soul go outward through the wound
Made clean by blood to Hades! Let me die,
Not these who did no wrong!' But not a hand
Was raised, and all shrank backward as afraid,
As from a goddess. Then I swooned and fell
And knew no more, and when I woke I felt
My husband's arms around me, and the wind
Blew fair for Greece, and the beaked galley plunged;
And where the towers of Ilium rose of old,
A pall of smoke above a glare of fire.
What then in the near future?
Ten long years
Bring youth and love to that deep summer-tide
When the full noisy current of our lives
Creeps dumb through wealth of flowers. I think I knew
Somewhat of peace at last, with my good Lord
Who loved too much, to palter with the past,
Flushed with the present. Young Hermione
Had grown from child to woman. She was wed;
And was not I her mother? At the pomp
Of solemn nuptials and requited love,
I prayed she might be happy, happier far
Than ever I was; so in tranquil ease
I lived a queen long time, and because wealth
And high observance can make sweet our days
When youth's swift joy is past, I did requite
With what I might, not love, the kindly care
Of him I loved not; pomps and robes of price
And chariots held me. But when Fate cut short
His life and love, his sons who were not mine
Reigned in his stead, and hated me and mine:
And knowing I was friendless, I sailed forth
Once more across the sea, seeking for rest
And shelter. Still I knew that in my eyes
Love dwelt, and all the baleful charm of old
Burned as of yore, scarce dimmed as yet by time:
I saw it in the mirror of the sea,
I saw it in the youthful seamen's eyes,
And was half proud again I had such power
Who now kept nothing else. So one calm eve,
Behold, a sweet fair isle blushed like a rose
Upon the summer sea: there my swift ship
Cast anchor, and they told me it was Rhodes.
There, in a little wood above the sea,
Like that dear wood of yore, I wandered forth
Forlorn, and all my seamen were apart,
And I, alone; when at the close of day
I knew myself surrounded by strange churls
With angry eyes, and one who ordered them,
A woman, whom I knew not, but who walked
In mien and garb a queen. She, with the fire
Of hate within her eyes, 'Quick, bind her, men!
I know her; bind her fast!' Then to the trunk
Of a tall plane they bound me with rude cords
That cut my arms. And meantime, far below,
The sun was gilding fair with dying rays
Isle after isle and purple wastes of sea.
And then she signed to them, and all withdrew
Among the woods and left us, face to face,
Two women. Ere I spoke, 'I know,' she said,
'I know that evil fairness. This it was,
Or ever he had come across my life,
That made him cold to me, who had my love
And left me half a heart. If all my life
Of wedlock was but half a life, what fiend
Came 'twixt my love and me, but that fair face?
What left his children orphans, but that face?
And me a widow? Fiend! I have thee now;
Thou hast not long to live. I will requite
Thy murders; yet, oh fiend! that art so fair,
Were it not haply better to deface
Thy fatal loveliness, and leave thee bare
Of all thy baleful power? And yet I doubt,
And looking on thy face I doubt the more,
Lest all thy dower of fairness be the gift
Of Aphrodité, and I fear to fight
Against the immortal Gods.'
Even with the word,
And she relenting, all the riddle of life
Flashed through me, and the inextricable coil
Of Being, and the immeasurable depths
And irony of Fate, burst on my thought
And left me smiling in the eyes of death,
With this deep smile thou seëst. Then with a shriek
The woman leapt on me, and with blind rage
Strangled my life. And when she had done the deed
She swooned, and those her followers hasting back
Fell prone upon their knees before the corpse
As to a goddess. Then one went and brought
A sculptor, and within a jewelled shrine
They set me in white marble, bound to a tree
Of marble. And they came and knelt to me,
Young men and maidens, through the secular years,
While the old gods bore sway, but I was here,
And now they kneel no longer, for the world
Has gone from beauty.
But I think, indeed,
They well might worship still, for never yet
Was any thought or thing of beauty born
Except with suffering. That poor wretch who thought
I injured her, stealing the foolish heart
Which she prized but I could not, what knew she
Of that I suffered? She had loved her love,
Though unrequited, and had borne to him
Children who loved her. What if she had been
Loved yet unloving: all the fire of love
Burnt out before love's time in one brief blaze
Of passion. Ah, poor fool! I pity her,
Being blest and yet unthankful, and forgive,
Now that she is a ghost as I, the hand
Which loosed my load of life. For scarce indeed
Could any god who cares for mortal men
Have ever kept me happy. I had tired
Of simple loving, doubtless, as I tired
Of splendour and being loved. There be some souls
For which love is enough, content to bear
From youth to age, from chesnut locks to gray,
The load of common, uneventful life
And penury. But I was not of these;
I know not now, if it were best indeed
That I had reared my simple shepherd brood,
And lived and died unknown in some poor hut
Among the Argive hills; or lived a queen
As I did, knowing every day that dawned
Some high emprise and glorious, and in death
To fill the world with song. Not the same meed
The gods mete out for all, or She, the dread
Necessity, who rules both gods and men,
Some to dishonour, some to honour moulds,
To happiness some, some to unhappiness.
We are what Zeus has made us, discords playing
In the great music, but the harmony
Is sweeter for them, and the great spheres ring
In one accordant hymn.
But thou, if e'er
There come a daughter of thy love, oh pray
To all thy gods, lest haply they should mar
Her life with too great beauty!"
So she ceased.
The fairest woman that the poet's dream
Or artist hand has fashioned. All the gloom
Seemed lightened round her, and I heard the sound
Of her melodious voice when all was still,
And the dim twilight took her.
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