And sadly bare him through the trampled field,
And lo! the deathless maidens of the main
Rose up, with Thetis, from the windy plain,
And round the dead man beautiful they cried,
Lamenting, and with melancholy strain
The sweet-voiced Muses mournfully replied.
XLV.
Yea, Muses and Sea-maidens sang his dirge,
And mightily the chant arose and shrill,
And wondrous echoes answer’d from the surge
Of the grey sea, and from the holy hill
Of Ida; and the heavy clouds and chill
Were gathering like mourners, sad and slow,
And Zeus did thunder mightily, and fill
The dells and glades of Ida deep with snow.
XLVI.
Now Paris was not sated with the fame
And rich reward Troy gave his archery;
But o’er the wine he boasted that the game
That very night he deem’d to win, or die;
“For scarce their watch the tempest will defy,”
He said, “and all undream’d of might we go,
And fall upon the Argives where they lie,
Unseen, unheard, amid the silent snow.”
XLVII.
So, flush’d with wine, and clad in raiment white
Above their mail, the young men follow’d him,
Their guide a fading camp-fire in the night,
And the sea’s moaning in the distance dim.
And still with eddying snow the air did swim,
And darkly did they wend they knew not where,
White in that cursed night: an army grim,
‘Wilder’d with wine, and blind with whirling air.
XLVIII.
There was an outcast in the Argive host,
One Philoctetes; whom Odysseus’ wile,
(For, save he help’d, the Leaguer all was lost,)
Drew from his lair within the Lemnian isle.
But him the people, as a leper vile,
Hated, and drave to a lone hut afar,
For wounded sore was he, and many a while
His cries would wake the host foredone with war.
XLIX.
Now Philoctetes was an archer wight;
But in his quiver had he little store
Of arrows tipp’d with bronze, and feather’d bright;
Nay, his were blue with mould, and fretted o’er
With many a spell Melampus wrought of yore,
Singing above his task a song of bane;
And they were venom’d with the Centaur’s gore,
And tipp’d with bones of men a long while slain.
L.
This wretch for very pain might seldom sleep,
And that night slept not: in the moaning blast
He deem’d the dead about his hut did creep,
And silently he rose, and round him cast
His raiment foul, and from the door he pass’d,
And peer’d into the night, and soothly heard
A whisper’d voice; then gripp’d his arrows fast
And strung his bow, and cried a bitter word:
LI.
“Art thou a gibbering ghost with war outworn,
And thy faint life in Hades not begun?
Art thou a man that holdst my grief in scorn,
And yet dost live, and look upon the sun?
If man,–methinks thy pleasant days are done,
And thou shalt writhe in torment worse than mine;
If ghost,–new pain in Hades hast thou won,
And there with double woe shalt surely pine.”
LII.
He spake, and drew the string, and sent a shaft
At venture through the midnight and the snow,
A little while he listen’d, then he laugh’d
Within himself, a dreadful laugh and low;
For over well the answer did he know
That midnight gave his message, the sharp cry
And armour rattling on a fallen foe
That now was learning what it is to die.
LIII.
Then Philoctetes crawl’d into his den
And hugg’d himself against the bitter cold,
While round their leader came the Trojan men
And bound his wound, and bare him o’er the wold,
Back to the lights of Ilios; but the gold
Of Dawn was breaking on the mountains white,
Or ere they won within the guarded fold,
Long ‘wilder’d in the tempest and the night.
LIV.
And through the gate, and through the silent street,
And houses where men dream’d of war no more,
The bearers wander’d with their weary feet,
And Paris to his high-roof’d house they bore.
But vainly leeches on his wound did pore,
And vain was Argive Helen’s magic song,
Ah, vain her healing hands, and all her lore,
To help the life that wrought her endless wrong.
LV.
Slow pass’d the fever’d hours, until the grey
Cold light was paling, and a sullen glow
Of livid yellow crown’d the dying day,
And brooded on the wastes of mournful snow.
Then Paris whisper’d faintly, “I must go
And face that wild wood-maiden of the hill;
For none but she can win from overthrow
Troy’s life, and mine that guards it, if she will.”
LVI.
So through the dumb white meadows, deep with snow,
They bore him on a pallet shrouded white,
And sore they dreaded lest an ambush’d foe
Should hear him moan, or mark the moving light
That waved before their footsteps in the night;
And much they joy’d when Ida’s knees were won,
And ‘neath the pines upon an upland height,
They watch’d the star that heraldeth the sun.
LVII.
For under woven branches of the pine,
The soft dry needles like a carpet spread,
And high above the arching boughs did shine
In frosty fret of silver, that the red
New dawn fired into gold-work overhead:
Within that vale where Paris oft had been
With fair none, ere the hills he fled
To be the sinful lover of a Queen.
LVIII.
Not here they found none: “Nay, not here,”
Said Paris, faint and low, “shall she be found;
Nay, bear me up the mountain, where the drear
Winds walk for ever on a haunted ground.
Methinks I hear her sighing in their sound;
Or some God calls me there, a dying man.
Perchance my latest journeying is bound
Back where the sorrow of my life began.”
LIX.
They reach’d the gateway of that highest glen
And halted, wond’ring what the end should be;
But Paris whisper’d Helen, while his men
Fell back: “Here judged I Gods, here shalt thou see
What judgment mine old love will pass on me.
But hide thee here; thou soon the end shalt know,
Whether the Gods at length will set thee free
From that old net they wove so long ago.”
LX.
Ah, there with wide snows round her like a pall,
none crouch’d in sable robes; as still
As Winter brooding o’er the Summer’s fall,
Or Niobe upon her haunted hill,
A woman changed to stone by grief, where chill
The rain-drops fall like tears, and the wind sighs:
And Paris deem’d he saw a deadly will
Unmoved in wild none’s frozen eyes.
LXI.
“Nay, prayer to her were vain as prayer to Fate,”
He murmur’d, almost glad that it was so,
Like some sick man that need no longer wait,
But his pain lulls as Death draws near his woe.
And Paris beckon’d to his men, and slow
They bore him dying from that fatal place,
And did not turn again, and did not know
The soft repentance on none’s face.
LXII.
But Paris spake to Helen: “Long ago,
Dear, we were glad, who never more shall be
Together, where the west winds fainter blow
Round that Elysian island of the sea,
Where Zeus from evil days shall set thee free.
Nay, kiss me once, it is a weary while,
Ten weary years since thou hast smiled on me,
But, Helen, say good-bye, with thine old smile!”
LXIII.
And as the dying sunset through the rain
Will flush with rosy glow a mountain height,
Even so, at his last smile, a blush again
Pass’d over Helen’s face, so changed and white;
And through her tears she smiled, his last delight,
The last of pleasant life he knew, for grey
The veil of darkness gather’d, and the night
Closed o’er his head, and Paris pass’d away.
LXIV.
Then for one hour in Helen’s heart re-born,
Awoke the fatal love that was of old,
Ere she knew all, and the cold cheeks outworn,
She kiss’d, she kiss’d the hair of wasted gold,
The hands that ne’er her body should enfold;
Then slow she follow’d where the bearers led,
Follow’d dead Paris through the frozen wold
Back to the town where all men wish’d her dead.
LXV.
Perchance it was a sin, I know not, this!
Howe’er it be, she had a woman’s heart,
And not without a tear, without a kiss,
Without some strange new birth of the old smart,
From her old love of the brief days could part
For ever; though the dead meet, ne’er shall they
Meet, and be glad by Aphrodite’s art,
Whose souls have wander’d each its several way.
* * *
* *
LXVI.
And now was come the day when on a pyre
Men laid fair Paris, in a broider’d pall,
And fragrant spices cast into the fire,
And round the flame slew many an Argive thrall.
When, like a ghost, there came among them all,
A woman, once beheld by them of yore,
When first through storm and driving rain the tall