Maurice Hewlett

“ And for their griefs wear beauty like a mask,
And answer heart's presaging with a song
On their brave lips, and render right for wrong.
Little, by outward seeming, do they know
Of doom at hand, of fate or blood or woe,
Nor how their children, playing by their knees,
Must end this day of busyness-at-ease
In shrieking night, with clamour for their bread,
And a red bath, and a cold stone for a bed
Under the staring moon.
Now sinks the sun
Blood-red into the heavy sea and dun,
And forth from him, as he were stuck with swords,
Great streams of light go upward. ”

“ And dreadful store of knowledge. As one shockt
To worse than death lookt she, with horror lockt
Behind her tremulous tragic-moving lips:
"O love, O love," saith he, and saying, slips
Out of the bed: "Who hath dared do thee wrong?"
No answer hath she, but she looks him long
And deep, and looking, fades. He sleeps no more,
But up and down he pads the beaten floor,
And all that day his heart's wild crying hears,
And can thank God for gracious dew of tears
And tender thoughts of her, not thoughts of shame.
So came the next night, and with night she came,
Dream-Helen ”

“ To know herself beloved, her lover by,
So near the consummation. Womanly
She dallied with the moment when, all wife,
Upon his breast she'd lie and cast her life,
Cast body, soul and spirit in one gest
Supreme of giving. Glorying in his quest
Of her, now let her hide what he must glean,
But not know yet. Ah, sweet to feel his keen
Long eye-search, like the touch of eager fingers,
And sweet to thrill beneath such hot blush-bringers;
To fence with such a swordsman hazardous
And sweet. "Belov'd, thou art glad of me!" Then thus
Antiphonal to him she breathes, "Thou sayest!" ”

“ Of Priam's regal crown for other brows—
She, though foredoomed she knew, held to her vows,
And duly paid the thankless evening rite—
There came to Paris' house late in the night
Deïphobus his brother, young and trim,
For speech with fair-tressed Helen, for whose slim
And budded grace long had he sighed in vain;
And found her in full hall, and showed his pain
And need of her. To whom when she draws close
In hot and urgent crying words he shows
His case, hers now, that here she tarry not
Lest evil hap more dread than she can wot:
"For this," he says, "is Troy's extremest hour." ”

“ Not warfaring as men fare to the mart,
To best a neighbour in some chaffering bout;
But honour is the prize wherefor they go out,
And having that, dishonoured are content
To leave the foe—that is best punishment.
Natheless since men there be, Argives of worth,
[55] Who needs must shed more blood ere they go forth—
As if of blood enough had not been spilt!—
Devise thou with my brother if thou wilt,
Noble Odysseus, seeking how compose
His honour with thy judgment. Well he knows
Thy singleness of heart, deep ponderer,
Lover of a fair wife, and sure of her. ”

“ Her child, as long ago I was
Before I lay burning in Ilios!
[They hide their faces in their knees.
Then one by one they sing.]
Let me sing an old sweet air,
Mother of Argos, to Thee,
For hope in my heart is fair
As light on the hills seen from afar at sea;
And my weary eyes turn there
As to the haven where my soul would be.
Rhodope
I will arise and make choice
The house of my tumbled breast,
For she cometh, I hear the voice
[181] Of her wings of healing, and she shall be my guest;
And my joys shall be her joys,
And my home her home, O wind of the South West! ”

“ I dare not love, fearing my poisonous thought!
Man is too vile for any such high grace,
For that he seeks to honour he can but mar;
So had I rather shun thy starry face
And fly the exultation to know thee near—
For if one glance from me wrought thee a scar
'Twould not be death, but life that I should fear.
[209] WAGES
Sometimes the spirit that never leaves me quite
Taps at my heart when thou art in the way,
Saying, Now thy Queen cometh: therefore pray,
Lest she should see thee vile, and at the sight
Shiver and fly back piteous to the light
That wanes when she is absent. ”

“ Frail as flowers were their faces, and all breath
Came short and quick, as on this dreadful show
Staring, they pondered it done far below
As on a stage where the thin players seem
Unkith to them who watch, the stuff of dream.
Nor else about the plain showed living thing
Save high in the blue where sailed on outspread wing
A vulture bird intent, with mighty span
Of pinion.
In the hush spake the dead man,
Hollow-voiced, terrible: "Ye tribes of Troy,
Here stand I out for death, and ye for joy
Of killing as ye will, by cast of spear,
By bowshot or with sword. ”

“ The wise Aineias stands, of steadfast heart
But not acceptable—for some old grudge
Inherited—Aineias, silent judge
Of folly, as he had been since the sin
Of Paris knelled the last days to begin.
But he himself, that Paris, came not out,
But kept his house in these his days of doubt,
Uncertain of his footing, being of those
[79] On whom the faintest breath of censure blows
Chill as the wind that from the frozen North
Palsies the fount o' the blood. He dared not forth
Lest men should see—and how not see? he thought—
That Helen held him lightlier than she ought. ”

“ These be your minstrels, lovers! Choose
From their winged choir your urgent Muse;
Let her your speechless joys relate
Which men with words sophisticate,
Striving by reasons make appear
To head what heart proclaims so clear
To heart; as if by wit to wis
What mouth to mouth tells in a kiss,
Or in their syllogisms dry
Freeze a swift glance's cogency.
Nay, but the heart's so music-fraught,
Music is all in love, words naught.
One heart's a rote, with music stored
[125] Though mute; but two hearts make a chord
Of piercing music. One alone
Is nothing: two make the full tone. ”

“ What comfort in their swords
Have they, robbed of the might of two such lords
As Peleus' son and Telamon's? What art
Can drive the blood back to the stricken heart?
Like huddled sheep cowed obstinate, as dull
As oxen impotent the wain to pull
Out of a rut, which, failing at first lunge,
Answer not voice nor goad, but sideways plunge
Or backward urge with lowered heads, or stand
Dumb monuments of sufferance—so unmanned
The Achaians brooded, nor their chiefs had care
To drive them forth, since they too knew despair,
And neither saw in battle nor retreat
A way of honour. ”

“ All Greek words have mouse-hover transliterations, Δῶρον, and appear as originally printed.
[v]
DEDICATION
Love owes tribute unto Death,
Being but a flower of breath,
Ev'n as thy fair body is
Moment's figure of the bliss
Dwelling in the mind of God
When He called thee from the sod,
Like a crocus up to start,
Gray-eyed with a golden heart,
Out of earth, and point our sight
To thy eternal home of light.
Here on earth is all we know:
To let our love as steadfast blow,
Open-hearted to the sun,
Folded down when our day's done,
As thy flower that bids it be
Flower of thy charity. ”

“ Fair woman for whose bosom and delight
Paris, as well he might,
Wrought all the woe, and held her to his cost
And Troy's, and won and lost
Perforce; for who could look on her or feel
Her near and not dare steal
One hour of her, or hope to hold in bars
Such wonder of the stars
Undimmed? As soon expect to cage the rose
[2] Of dawn which comes and goes
Fitful, or leash the shadows of the hills,
Or music of upland rills
As Helen's beauty and not tarnish it
With thy poor market wit,
Adept to hue the wanton in the wild,
Defile the undefiled! ”

“ And Paris kissed her breast
And slept; but her heart's riot gave no rest
As quaking there she lay, awaiting doom.
Then afar off rose clamour, and the room
Was fanned with sudden light and sudden dark,
As on a summer night in a great park
Blazed forth you see each tuft of grass or mound,
Anon the drowning blackness, while the sound
Of Zeus's thunder hardens every close:
So here the chamber glared, then dipt, and rose
That far confuséd tumult, and now and then
The scurrying feet of passion-driven men. ”

“ Many men running frantically, with feet
That slapt the stones, and voices in the street
Of question and call—"Oh, who are ye that run?
What of the night?" "O peace!" And some lost one
Wailed like a woman, and her a man did curse,
And there were scuffling, prayers, and then worse—
A silence. But the running ended not
While Paris lay alistening with a knot
Of Helen's loose hair twisting round his finger.
[117] "O love," he murmured low, "I may not linger.
The street's awake. Alas, thou art too kind
To be a warrior's bride." ”

“ Beset and in this tenth in blood and tears
And havocry to fall, old Priam's sons
[4] Guard still their gods, their wives and little ones,
Guard Helen still, for whose fair womanhood
The sin was done, woe wrought, and all the blood
Of Danaan and Dardan in their pride
Shed; nor yet so the end, for Heré cried
Shrill on the heights more vengeance on wrong done,
And Greek or Trojan paid it. Late or soon
By sword or bitter arrow they went hence,
Each with their goodliest paying one man's offence.
Goodliest in Troy fell Hector ”

“ FIRST STAVE THE DEATH OF ACHILLES
Where Simoeis and Xanthos, holy streams,
Flow brimming on the level, and chance gleams
Betray far Ida through a rended cloud
And hint the awful home of Zeus, whose shroud
The thunder is—'twixt Ida and the main
Behold gray Ilios, Priam's fee, the plain
About her like a carpet; from whose height
The watchman, ten years watching, every night
Counteth the beacon fires and sees no less
Their number as the years wax and duress
Of hunger thins the townsmen day by day—
More than the Greeks kill plague and famine slay. ”

“ Laugh at thy eld, strong lover, whose blood flows
Clear from the fountain, singing as it goes,
"She loves, and so I live and shall not die!
Love on, love her: 'tis immortality."
[36] Once more before the sun he greeted her:
She glowed her joy; her mood was calm and clear
As mellow evening's whenas, like a priest,
Rain has absolved the world, and golden mist
Hangs over all like benediction. ”

“ The Greeks press, burning, slaying, and the rout
Screameth to Heaven. As at sea the mews
Pack, their wings battling, when some fresh wrack strews
The tideway, and in greater haste to stop
Others from prey, will let their morsel drop,
And all the while make harsh lament—so here
The avid spoilers bickered in their fear
To be manœuvred out of robbery,
And tore the spoil, and mangled shamefully
Bodies of men to strip them, and in haste
To forestall ravishers left the victims chaste.
Ares, the yelling God, and Até white
Swept like a snow-storm over Troy that night ”

“ Still see athwart the dusk her shy half-smile
And that sweet trust wherein I most rejoice.
Then in her self-same tones I heard, "Go thou,
Set to that work appointed thee to do,
Remembering I am with thee here and now,
Watchful as ever. See, my eyes shine true!"
I lookt, and saw the concourse of clear stars,
Steadfast, of limpid candour, and could discover
Her soul look on me thro' the prison-bars
Which slunk like sin from such an honest Lover:
And thro' the vigil-pauses of that night
She beam'd on me; and my soul felt her light. ”

“ Perpending and perpending. So frail, so fair,
So faint she seemed, a wraith you had said there,
A woman dead, and not in lovely flesh.
But all the while she writhed within the mesh
Of circumstance, and fiercely flamed her rage:
"O slave, O minion, thing kept in a cage
For this sleek master's handling!" So she fumed
What time her wide eyes sought all ways, or loomed
Like winter lakes dark in a field of snow,
And still; nor lifted they their pall of woe
Responsive to her heart, nor flashed the thrill
[61] That knew, which said, "A true man loveth me still." ”

“ Lax in his arms, her fainting eyes, aglaze
For terror coming, sought escape all ways.
Alas for her! What way for woman fair,
Whose joy no fairer makes her than despair?
Her burning lips that kisses could not cool,
Her beating heart that not love made so full,
The surging of her breast, her clinging hands:
Here are such signs as lover understands,
[114] But fated Paris nowise. Her soul, distraught
To save him, proved the net where he was caught.
For more she anguisht lest love be his bane
The fiercelier spurred she him, to make him fain
Of that which had been ruinous to all. ”

“ The child was well. She fingered in her dress
And watched her hand at play there.
"Here," she said,
"There is no child," and sighed. Into his dead
And wasted heart there leaped a flame and caught
His hollow eyes. "Rememberest thou naught,
Nothing regrettest, nothing holdst in grief
Of all our joy together ere that thief
Came rifling in?" For all her answer she
Lookt long upon him, long and earnestly;
And misty grew her eyes, and slowly filled.
Slowly the great tears brimmed, and slowly rilled
Adown her cheeks. So presently she hid
Those wells of grief, and hung her lovely head ”

“ Hypsipyle, to whose fond sprite
I vow my praise while I have light.
Dumbly she wandered there, as pale
With lack of light, with form as frail
As those poor hollow congeners
Whose searching eyes encountered hers,
Petitioning as mute as she
Some grain of hope, where none might be,
Daring not yet to voice their moan
To her whose case was not their own;
For where they go like breath in a shell
That wails, my love goes quick in Hell.
Alas, for her, the sweet and slim!
Slowly she pines; her eyes grow dim
With seeking; her smooth, sudden breasts
[140] Hang languidly ”

“ And enough women's tears? Is not the sting
Sharp enough of the knife within my side?"
No more she could.
Then he, "Think not to avoid
The lot of man, who payeth the full price
For each deed done, and riddeth vice by vice:
Such is the curse upon him. The doom is
By God decreed, that for thy forfeit bliss
In Sparta thou shalt pay the price in Troy,
Dishonour for lost honour, pain for joy;
By what hot thought impelled, by that alone
Win back; by violence violence atone. ”

“ Of dawn among the wide-eyed flowers,
While gentian, crocus, asphodel
(With rosy star in each white bell) ,
Anemone, blood-red with rings
Of paler fire, that plant that swings
A crimson cluster in the wind
They pluck, or sit anon to bind
Of these earth-stars a coronet
For their smooth-tresséd Queen, who yet
Strays with her darling interlaced,
Hypsipyle the grave, the chaste—
Her whose gray shadow-life with his
Who singeth now for ever is. ”

“ Fought its death-grapple, and the windy height
Of Pergamos became a shambles. White
The holy shrines stared on a field of blood,
And with blank eyes the emptied temples stood
While murder raved before them, and below
[118] And all about the city ran the woe
Of women for their children. Then the flame
Burst in the citadel, and overcame
The darkness, and the time seemed of broad day.
And Helen stared unwinking where she lay
Pillowing Paris.
Now glad and long and shrill
The second trumpet sounds. They have the hill—
High Troy is down, is down! ”

“ For longer joy, joy such as never
Hath man but in the mind. But what
Men do without, that I know not
Who see them but as shadows thrown
Upon a screen. I see them blown
Like clouds of flies about the plain
Where the winds sweep them and make vain
Their panoplies. They hem the verge
Of this high wall to guard us—urge
Galloping horses into war
And meet in shock of battle, far
Below us and our dreams: withal
Ten years have past us in this thrall
Since Helen came with eyes agleam
To Troy, and trod the ways of dream.
[175]
Gorgo
Men came about us, crying, "The Greeks! ”

“ For imminent Death, Kassandra croucht beneath
Her very doom, herself the bride of Death;
For in the temple's forecourt reared the mass
Of that which was to bring the woe to pass,
And hidden in him both her murderers
Wrung at their nails.
And slow the long day wears
While all the city broods. The chiefs keep house,
Or gather on the wall, or make carouse
To simulate a freedom they feel not ”

“ At dawn in dewy brakes to spy
The rapture of their flying feet—
Follow me now those coursers fleet,
Sucked in their wake, down ruining
Through channelled night, where only sing
The shrill gusts streaming through the hair
Of them who sway and bend them there,
And peer in vain with shielded eyes
To rend the dark. Clinging it lies,
Thick as wet gossamer that shrouds
[135] October brushwoods, or low clouds
That from the mountain tops roll down
Into the lowland vales, to drown
Men's voices and to choke their breath
And make a silence like to death. ”

“ That same night, as she used, fair Helen went
Among the suppliants in the hall, and lent
To each who craved the bounty of her grace,
Her gentle touch on wounds, her pitiful face
To beaten eyes' dumb eloquence, that art
She above all could use, to stroke the heart
And plead compassion in bestowing it.
So with her handmaids busy did she flit
From man to man, 'mid outlaws, broken blades,
Robbed husbandmen, their robbers, phantoms, shades
Of what were men till hunger made them less
Than man can be and still know uprightness ”

“ Swallowed up Troy, and Horse, and them who stark
Abode within it. And the great stars shone
Out over sea and land; and speaking none,
Nursing his arms, nursing within his breast
His enterprise, each hero sat at rest
Ignorant of the world of day and night,
Or whether he should live to see the light,
Or see it but to perish in this cage.
Only Odysseus felt his heart engage
The blithelier for the peril. He was stuff
That thrives by daring, nor can dare enough.
Three days, three nights before the Skaian Gate
[75] Sat they within their ambush, apt for fate ”