Helen of Troy and Other Poems Part 9

The other maidens raised their eyes to him Who stumbled in before them when the fight Had left him victor, with a victor's right.

I think his eyes with quick hot tears grew dim; He scarcely saw her swaying white and slim, And trembling slightly, dreaming of his might, Nor knew he touched her hand, as strangely light As a wan wraith's beside a river's rim.

The other maidens raised their eyes to see And only she has hid her face away, And yet I ween she loved him more than they, And very fairly fas.h.i.+oned was her face.

Yet for Love's shame and sweet humility, She dared not meet him with their queenlike grace.

To an Aeolian Harp

The winds have grown articulate in thee, And voiced again the wail of ancient woe That smote upon the winds of long ago: The cries of Trojan women as they flee, The quivering moan of pale Andromache, Now lifted loud with pain and now brought low.

It is the soul of sorrow that we know, As in a sh.e.l.l the soul of all the sea.

So sometimes in the compa.s.s of a song, Unknown to him who sings, thro' lips that live, The voiceless dead of long-forgotten lands Proclaim to us their heaviness and wrong In sweeping sadness of the winds that give Thy strings no rest from weariless wild hands.

To Erinna

Was Time not harsh to you, or was he kind, O pale Erinna of the perfect lyre, That he has left no word of singing fire Whereby you waked the dreaming Lesbian wind, And kindled night along the lyric sh.o.r.e?

O girl whose lips Erato stooped to kiss, Do you go sorrowing because of this In fields where poets sing forevermore?

Or are you glad and is it best to be A silent music men have never heard, A dream in all our souls that we may say: "Her voice had all the rapture of the sea, And all the clear cool quiver of a bird Deep in a forest at the break of day"?

To Cleis

"I have a fair daughter with a form like a golden flower, Cleis, the beloved."

Sapphic fragment.

When the dusk was wet with dew, Cleis, did the muses nine Listen in a silent line While your mother sang to you?

Did they weep or did they smile When she crooned to still your cries, She, a muse in human guise, Who forsook her lyre awhile?

Did you feel her wild heart beat?

Did the warmth of all the sun Thro' your little body run When she kissed your hands and feet?

Did your fingers, babywise, Touch her face and touch her hair, Did you think your mother fair, Could you bear her burning eyes?

Are the songs that soothed your fears Vanished like a vanished flame, Save the line where s.h.i.+nes your name Starlike down the graying years?

Cleis speaks no word to me, For the land where she has gone Lieth mute at dusk and dawn Like a windless tideless sea.

Paris in Spring

The city's all a-s.h.i.+ning Beneath a fickle sun, A gay young wind's a-blowing, The little shower is done.

But the rain-drops still are clinging And falling one by one-- Oh it's Paris, it's Paris, And spring-time has begun.

I know the Bois is twinkling In a sort of hazy sheen, And down the Champs the gray old arch Stands cold and still between.

But the walk is flecked with sunlight Where the great acacias lean, Oh it's Paris, it's Paris, And the leaves are growing green.

The sun's gone in, the sparkle's dead, There falls a dash of rain, But who would care when such an air Comes blowing up the Seine?

And still Ninette sits sewing Beside her window-pane, When it's Paris, it's Paris, And spring-time's come again.

Madeira from the Sea

Out of the delicate dream of the distance an emerald emerges Veiled in the violet folds of the air of the sea; Softly the dream grows awakening--s.h.i.+mmering white of a city, Splashes of crimson, the gay bougainvillea, the palms.

High in the infinite blue of its heaven a quiet cloud lingers, Lost and forgotten of winds that have fallen asleep, Fallen asleep to the tune of a Portuguese song in a garden.

City Vignettes

I Dawn

The greenish sky glows up in misty reds, The purple shadows turn to brick and stone, The dreams wear thin, men turn upon their beds, And hear the milk-cart jangle by alone.

II Dusk

The city's street, a roaring blackened stream Walled in by granite, thro' whose thousand eyes A thousand yellow lights begin to gleam, And over all the pale untroubled skies.

III Rain at Night

The street-lamps s.h.i.+ne in a yellow line Down the splashy, gleaming street, And the rain is heard now loud now blurred By the tread of homing feet.

By the Sea

Beside an ebbing northern sea While stars awaken one by one, We walk together, I and he.