Helen of Troy and Other Poems Part 1

Helen of Troy and Other Poems.

by Sara Teasdale.

Helen of Troy

Wild flight on flight against the fading dawn The flames' red wings soar upward duskily.

This is the funeral pyre and Troy is dead That sparkled so the day I saw it first, And darkened slowly after. I am she Who loves all beauty--yet I wither it.

Why have the high G.o.ds made me wreak their wrath-- Forever since my maidenhood to sow Sorrow and blood about me? Lo, they keep Their bitter care above me even now.

It was the G.o.ds who led me to this lair, That tho' the burning winds should make me weak, They should not s.n.a.t.c.h the life from out my lips.

Olympus let the other women die; They shall be quiet when the day is done And have no care to-morrow. Yet for me There is no rest. The G.o.ds are not so kind To her made half immortal like themselves.

It is to you I owe the cruel gift, Leda, my mother, and the Swan, my sire, To you the beauty and to you the bale; For never woman born of man and maid Had wrought such havoc on the earth as I, Or troubled heaven with a sea of flame That climbed to touch the silent whirling stars And blotted out their brightness ere the dawn.

Have I not made the world to weep enough?

Give death to me. Yet life is more than death; How could I leave the sound of singing winds, The strong sweet scent that breathes from off the sea, Or shut my eyes forever to the spring?

I will not give the grave my hands to hold, My s.h.i.+ning hair to light oblivion.

Have those who wander through the ways of death, The still wan fields Elysian, any love To lift their b.r.e.a.s.t.s with longing, any lips To thirst against the quiver of a kiss?

Lo, I shall live to conquer Greece again, To make the people love, who hate me now.

My dreams are over, I have ceased to cry Against the fate that made men love my mouth And left their spirits all too deaf to hear The little songs that echoed through my soul.

I have no anger now. The dreams are done; Yet since the Greeks and Trojans would not see Aught but my body's fairness, till the end, In all the islands set in all the seas, And all the lands that lie beneath the sun, Till light turn darkness, and till time shall sleep, Men's lives shall waste with longing after me, For I shall be the sum of their desire, The whole of beauty, never seen again.

And they shall stretch their arms and starting, wake With "Helen!" on their lips, and in their eyes The vision of me. Always I shall be Limned on the darkness like a shaft of light That glimmers and is gone. They shall behold Each one his dream that fas.h.i.+ons me anew;-- With hair like lakes that glint beneath the stars Dark as sweet midnight, or with hair aglow Like burnished gold that still retains the fire.

Yea, I shall haunt until the dusk of time The heavy eyelids filled with fleeting dreams.

I wait for one who comes with sword to slay-- The king I wronged who searches for me now; And yet he shall not slay me. I shall stand With lifted head and look within his eyes, Baring my breast to him and to the sun.

He shall not have the power to stain with blood That whiteness--for the thirsty sword shall fall And he shall cry and catch me in his arms, Bearing me back to Sparta on his breast.

Lo, I shall live to conquer Greece again!

Beatrice

Send out the singers--let the room be still; They have not eased my pain nor brought me sleep.

Close out the sun, for I would have it dark That I may feel how black the grave will be.

The sun is setting, for the light is red, And you are outlined in a golden fire, Like Ursula upon an altar-screen.

Come, leave the light and sit beside my bed, For I have had enough of saints and prayers.

Strange broken thoughts are beating in my brain, They come and vanish and again they come.

It is the fever driving out my soul, And Death stands waiting by the arras there.

Ornella, I will speak, for soon my lips Shall keep a silence till the end of time.

You have a mouth for loving--listen then: Keep tryst with Love before Death comes to tryst; For I, who die, could wish that I had lived A little closer to the world of men, Not watching always thro' the blazoned panes That show the world in chilly greens and blues And grudge the suns.h.i.+ne that would enter in.

I was no part of all the troubled crowd That moved beneath the palace windows here, And yet sometimes a knight in s.h.i.+ning steel Would pa.s.s and catch the gleaming of my hair, And wave a mailed hand and smile at me, Whereat I made no sign and turned away, Affrighted and yet glad and full of dreams.

Ah, dreams and dreams that asked no answering!

I should have wrought to make my dreams come true, But all my life was like an autumn day, Full of gray quiet and a hazy peace.

What was I saying? All is gone again.

It seemed but now I was the little child Who played within a garden long ago.

Beyond the walls the festal trumpets blared.

Perhaps they carried some Madonna by With tossing ensigns in a sea of flowers, A painted Virgin with a painted Child, Who saw for once the sweetness of the sun Before they shut her in an altar-niche Where tapers smoke against the windy gloom.

I gathered roses redder than my gown And played that I was Saint Elizabeth, Whose wine had turned to roses in her hands.

And as I played, a child came thro' the gate, A boy who looked at me without a word, As tho' he saw stretch far behind my head Long lines of radiant angels, row on row.

That day we spoke a little, timidly, And after that I never heard the voice That sang so many songs for love of me.

He was content to stand and watch me pa.s.s, To seek for me at matins every day, Where I could feel his eyes the while I prayed.

I think if he had stretched his hands to me, Or moved his lips to say a single word, I might have loved him--he had wondrous eyes.

Ornella, are you there? I cannot see-- Is every one so lonely when he dies?

The room is filled with lights--with waving lights-- Who are the men and women 'round the bed?

What have I said, Ornella? Have they heard?

There was no evil hidden in my life, And yet, and yet, I would not have them know--

Am I not floating in a mist of light?

O lift me up and I shall reach the sun!

Sappho

The twilight's inner flame grows blue and deep, And in my Lesbos, over leagues of sea, The temples glimmer moonwise in the trees.

Twilight has veiled the little flower face Here on my heart, but still the night is kind And leaves her warm sweet weight against my breast.

Am I that Sappho who would run at dusk Along the surges creeping up the sh.o.r.e When tides came in to ease the hungry beach, And running, running, till the night was black, Would fall forespent upon the chilly sand And quiver with the winds from off the sea?

Ah, quietly the s.h.i.+ngle waits the tides Whose waves are stinging kisses, but to me Love brought no peace, nor darkness any rest.

I crept and touched the foam with fevered hands And cried to Love, from whom the sea is sweet, From whom the sea is bitterer than death.

Ah, Aphrodite, if I sing no more To thee, G.o.d's daughter, powerful as G.o.d, It is that thou hast made my life too sweet To hold the added sweetness of a song.

There is a quiet at the heart of love, And I have pierced the pain and come to peace.

I hold my peace, my Cleis, on my heart; And softer than a little wild bird's wing Are kisses that she pours upon my mouth.

Ah, never any more when spring like fire Will flicker in the newly opened leaves, Shall I steal forth to seek for solitude Beyond the lure of light Alcaeus' lyre, Beyond the sob that stilled Erinna's voice.

Ah, never with a throat that aches with song, Beneath the white uncaring sky of spring, Shall I go forth to hide awhile from Love The quiver and the crying of my heart.

Still I remember how I strove to flee The love-note of the birds, and bowed my head To hurry faster, but upon the ground I saw two winged shadows side by side, And all the world's spring pa.s.sion stifled me.

Ah, Love, there is no fleeing from thy might, No lonely place where thou hast never trod, No desert thou hast left uncarpeted With flowers that spring beneath thy perfect feet.

In many guises didst thou come to me; I saw thee by the maidens while they danced, Phaon allured me with a look of thine, In Anactoria I knew thy grace, I looked at Cercolas and saw thine eyes; But never wholly, soul and body mine, Didst thou bid any love me as I loved.

Now I have found the peace that fled from me; Close, close, against my heart I hold my world.

Ah, Love that made my life a lyric cry, Ah, Love that tuned my lips to lyres of thine, I taught the world thy music, now alone I sing for one who falls asleep to hear.

Marianna Alcoforando

(The Portuguese Nun--1640-1723)

The sparrows wake beneath the convent eaves; I think I have not slept the whole night through.

But I am old; the aged scarcely know The times they wake and sleep, for life burns down; They breathe the calm of death before they die.

The long night ends, the day comes creeping in, Showing the sorrows that the darkness hid, The bended head of Christ, the blood, the thorns, The wall's gray stains of damp, the pallet bed Where little Sister Marta dreams of saints, Waking with arms outstretched imploringly That seek to stay a vision's vanis.h.i.+ng.

I never had a vision, yet for me Our Lady smiled while all the convent slept One winter midnight hushed around with snow-- I thought she might be kinder than the rest, And so I came to kneel before her feet, Sick with love's sorrow and love's bitterness.