.OFCALlFOfiU/ N T IVER% ^OF-CALIFO%, <& AUiBRAR 1 C OF-CA11FO% s i Paris and Helen by W. J. Turner London Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd, 1921 T6 To J.C.S. LISRARjf Paris and Helen PART I UPON Mount Ida in a dark-watered glen Amid green forests far from living men Paris was nurtured. Cold, pure water springs Ripple in shadows and the ousel sings A tune shade-ruffled with each wandering cloud That fills the glade, wavering now low, now loud. In mossy stillness glide the tranquil days Whose light among the pebbles quietly plays With no companion. Arachne from the grass Hangs on a silver thread o'er running glass Where lies the image of the fronded Fern Spirit of water, arisen in rocky urn, A dripping shadow of the murmuring stream, Moist skeleton hanging in day's golden beam. All down the rocky gorge these frail forms lie Curled sunbeams fallen through the branch-roofed sky And turned to shadows or to shapes of mist Secluded from all winds. And ever hissed The scattered spray showering on leaf and stone Where bird or bright- winged dragon-fly alone Hovered and vanished with a noiseless light. Here silence with the voice of water bright Shone as there shines no Sun in all the world, And gloom-bound rocks in soft dark damp enfurled That silver sparkling stillness while the Moon Uprose and waned, and a phantasmal noon By bloom of orchis in the boughs was hung Plucked by pale Oreads as they slipped among The mossy trees. And in those silent woods Fungus, a grey creeping shadow, broods. The orioles' shadows flit from tree to tree, The nightingale on the monotony Of ever-falling water jet-like sings Dropping in murmuring pools bright silver rings. Or, far from water, dark-branched on a hill Invisible, shall the pale evening fill With stars' thin voices. Then the leopard goes A tiny shadow from the sparkling snows Hung o'er his cave creeping through floods of light On the black rocks below the silver night. Before the cold and pallid wave of Dawn A low white mist rolls from the dappled fawn Cropping the grass. The trees show one by one, And when above the snowy peaks the Sun Lifts his gold disc gold miniature ghosts arise In the green woods, and stare with golden eyes, 10 Turning their rapt still faces slowly round From East to West, following without a sound That radiant dream drowned in green lakes of light Sunken among the hills, whence in the night A pale, white-sheeted corpse 'twill reappear Floating upon the sky, and cold and clear The company of stars, slow following, Harmoniously with crystal voices sing. Deep in the shadows of a rocky glen The boy was playing, pausing now and then To hear a footfall in a neighbouring brake, Or a slow-moving stag the foliage shake, For hours he sat, or chased the butterflies, Or stared in shallows where the minnow lies Waving transparent fins against the stream. The years slipped by, shadows that pass in dream, Dappled with sunlight or in gleaming snow Coldly apparelled. The bright gods come and go On unknown errands bound among the trees. Often a Naiad's bright blown hair he sees Deep in the dark rock of a waterfall, And hears sad Echo from a far hill call Narcissus, pale stretched on a fountain's brim. Hidden in leaves Paris had gazed at him Till, frightened, on tip-toe he'd crept away, And wandered through the forest sunken all day ii In dreamy meditation. Later at eve, When the great trees in close communion weave Mysterious dimness, with a beating heart He would steal forth, and glimpse Orion start Up from his couch of violets faintly blue, And rooted in the dark lose his bright hue Fading, struck pale, with backward-gazing head Where the Moon rose : and all the forest lay dead Like cold plucked flowers upon a mortal's eyes Whose bier by mourning stars surrounded lies. Then by the river Paris made a reed And blew from it faint songs in sudden need Of a voice behind the loveliness that flew Before his eyes ; and year by year he grew Ever more skilful, till the shepherds came By night to sit around him in the flame Of many stars, clouded about by trees. And as he sang, swaying, a charmed breeze Rocked in the tree-tops and the lonely pines On mountain tops where the carved moon reclines Stirred with the voice of melancholy seas Buried in moonlight. There the Nereides Seated on rocks into the night complain Of their virginity, their shadows stain The silver ocean. Against the starry sky They lift dark arms in the bright melancholy Silence of moonlight. Silent in a ring The shepherds dream, to their dark faces bring Pale winds of earth forgetfulness. They drink The silver music and their bodies sink Into the trees. And in the silent night, Above the branches burns the moon's soft light. When the snows tumbling in their glimmering floods With cold bright Spring light filled the leafy woods, Paris met (Enone. She bore a spray Of pure white lilies plucked at break of day In a far glade where milk of Juno fell. Bare-armed she met him in a shady dell, Those snowy fountains branching from her hand, And on the green trees' verge he thought to stand For ever, fearing lest he might awake, And that snow-glimmer in the dark air break As breaks the foam dying upon the wave. But Juno to her maiden votary gave Speech, and her voice trembling among the leaves Melodious waters for his parched soul weaves As weaves the soft voice of a waterfall In the day's heat, the star- wreathed dewy pall Of Evening, the clear pool, the crystal drink In calm repose upon the water's brink. And his lips framing : O never, never move, And I'll stay here, and I shall always love. He took her like a snow-pale cherry bough Plucked from the wood. Her white hand on his brow Banished love's fever, and her empty dress Fluttered its white folds in the green wilderness. Gaily together at each dawn they go To that quiet glade where Juno's lilies grow And pluck them for her altar in a grove Deep in a mountain valley. Their calm love Filled with a quiet worship her dark shrine. Tranquil they pour libations of red wine And lay the lilies on the dewy stone. Their marble limbs at last to stillness grown With linked hands mid the green trees adore Like two pale Winds snow-carved, the dark air's core. The white-armed goddess, healer of love's distress, Wreathed all their days in mellow happiness, And where by fountain or by rock they stood There fell a shaft of gold light in the wood. With married hands adream in tranquil bliss They stand in gorges where green waters hiss Through trembling shadows of dark maiden-hair, As though in Pluto's gloomy realm a pair Of white doves hovered. Under the clear sky Of evening's stars across the grass they fly, A shadow on the dim air chasing light Together sinking in the arms of night. There is a glen that none but Paris knows When in hushed air a bow of water blows And all the trees around in deep calm seem Profoundly still as in a timeless dream. To that still place, forgetful of his bride Bright as a Moon-dropped arrow by his side, Oft he would travel in the hush of night To gaze on that dark-hung, cascading light. It was as though to dead mid dead the roar Of life came tumbling down, the foaming core Of living matter smashing in earth's void room Filled with dead relics like a lover's tomb. He felt as though he stood watching the spawn Of some new world, thus had he watched at dawn The sun's expanding gold flow on the hills, And that same tense and brooding silence fills The air in autumn, when in one night lie The earth's dark peaks snow-white below the sky. Thus is the silence in a sun-filled glade When steps a fawn out of the forest shade And soundless as an errant sunbeam dies Among the tree-trunks where the sun's mottled eyes Noiselessly flicker. Upon the watching gloom Thus grows the storm-cloud's thunder-spotted bloom- The stillness of the world its slender stem, Pricked by far lightning on the earth's green hem. His heart quick-beating Paris steals away, And through the forest wanders alone all day, 15 And when night comes, sitting upon a stone Sings in the solitude of moonlight thrown Like a pure veil of water on the trees That wave the shadows of his melodies. He sees his happiness before him fade Like a bright bubble blown from a cascade Among the trees, shining it slowly falls, A phantom brightness no stretched hand recalls. And to the solitary Moon he sings : On his brow fall shadows from passing wings . The Moon is sinking to a distant hill ; In the moist air thousands of leaves sleep still ; The Eastern stars will soon pale in the skies, Their brothers watching them with silver eyes Drown one by one. A solitary pine Shows on an eastern ridge, whose purple line Borders a sky of palest, jade-like green. The last star twinkles and is no more seen. Through dewy grasses Paris homeward goes. No roving wind the topmost foliage blows, Bird, branch and leaf are an intense delight In the pure snow-peak-shadowed, cloud-washed light. Out of a shady tree a peacock flies An undulating blaze of golden eyes, Awaking in the heart of joy an ache 16 All present captive loveliness to forsake For some remoter beauty. Paris walks on. Now from the air the touch of snow is gone, And a gold shadow fills the denser shade. He pauses on the border of a bright glade Filled with a soft, serene, unearthly light. There, walking on the grass, plain to his sight Appeared the golden Venus, like a bloom Darkening the sunlight as a Moon in gloom Of midnight shining. Honey of golden bees Glimmered her hair among the sunny trees, And a pale froth of flame about her feet Foamed on the grass. A smile so languid sweet Lay like a full-blown rose upon her lips That in its faint light all the forest slips Into a placid dream. Its leafy boughs In yellow gold more pale than sunshine drowse, And Paris hears a voice that softlier calls His name than in the heat of cities falls Water among remembered mountains. Still As a basin which those waters fill Amid the ruins of an emptied town Stood Paris, his life to cold, dead fragments blown. Breathing no longer under mortal skies But, out of time, gazing with glassy eyes He sees pale Juno's lily deathly white Lying abandoned in the dew-cold light, Blue-eyed Athena's aegis faintlier hued From him forever fading unpursued. Frozen in wild and frantic grief he stood His joys like withered flowers dropped in a wood. That clear voice ceased, bathed in a golden calm She half -upraised her dim-white ivory palm Shedding a creamy shadow on the groves Of violets where rose her fluttering doves. Then in soft clouds of light melting away She left the glade bright with transparent day. In the late sultry afternoon he came Upon two strangers, calling him by name They stopped him. All around the thunder rolled In distant rumbling as their tale they told, A tale of I lion and her white-haired King. From hanging clouds faintly illumining Their faces zagged the lightning palely bright, While their dark cloaks flapped in dim yellow light. They were two messengers sent up from Troy To search the mountains for that shepherd boy Who was King Priam's son. The lightning blazed On their white shining eyes as Paris gazed Into their faces. Down in the valley stood Stiff in the murky glare a still-leafed wood. Ever more dim flapped the last rags of day While Paris led them down the forest way Into a sheltering cave. Then like a pall 18 Upon the trees dropped stillness, as a fall Of snow drops softly from a shadowed sky. Through the dim trunks silent they hurried by, A few big drops of rain splashing their hands, Until with his companions Paris stands Within the cave. In crashing glimmering rain The silence burst, they tell their tale again. Their w r ords were little sounds that fell like leaves When rocks are falling and the lightning cleaves The purple sky, yet in their whispering noise The people flocked into the streets of Troy's Sun- towering city, and their faces grew Vivid to Paris gazing. Then the wind blew Into the cave blotting against the walls Their dark loose capes. Once more silence falls. Some breathing soul in face and rock to find Vainly essays his restless, wandering mind, He could say nothing they would understand : They had such empty eyes ; and what they planned He heeded not, for a great weariness Weighed on his spirit, and his loneliness Stood up within the cave and gazed at him And he at it until his sight grew dim And all his passion slowly ebbed away, Leaving his body clay outstretched on clay. On the cave's floor asleep three figures lie. Above the roof, in the night's dark clear sky 19 Hang in unfathomable gulfs the stars, ablaze With revolution. Down their secret ways Spinning in icy solitudes they go Where no loud winds through the deep silence blow ; And there no spirits adrift on silver wings With ardent faces touch Aeolian strings ; There are no gathered votaries rapt and pale, No wild-eyed congregations to cry " hail ! ' To Gods of stream or forest, moon or sun Gods in that everlasting cold are none : Nor men, nor beasts, nor streams, nor trees, nor flowers, No dawn nor evening, winter or summer hours, No young Nymphs raising warm white arms of love Among dark myrtles in the Cyprian's grove, But myriad constellations in a vice Of frozen speed through dark transparent ice Within a million forest rain-drops gleam Glittering above three figures stretched in dream. Paris awoke as the faint orange green Of morning washed the east. In its serene And paling azimuth the last stars sank, And avidly the hills and tall trees drank Calm floods of light, and lay like liquid gems Bedded in reefs of darkness. Shadowy stems Emerged from cloudy forests ; dim and white Buried cascades glimmered in bands of light Along the valleys. Through high sunlit shades 20 The twittering birds flew into deeper glades, Their songs lost in moist darkness, and the ridge Of Ida lay a snowy glittering bridge Across the sky climbed by an orb of gold. Into a world immensely still and old Three figures came, descending silently To Ilion's towers beside the glimmering sea. 21 PART II The helmsman dozed, the ship ran lightly on To Western hills where the Sun, quarrying, shone, And at the prow in tranquil poise, alone, The love-child gazed on floors of bright green stone, Its face reflected in the polished pools Of its warm image, which no salt spray cools. But sunk from peaks cold in the spring-time sky Sea-wandering airs touched vainly with a sigh That painted Amor carved upon the prow, To whose fixed smile the Dolphins under the bow Turn their eyes upwards in the glassy weather. A brightness palpable as a snowy feather Lay on the gulf. All day they had been drawn Through strange smooth water of a haze-still dawn, Like men who waking wake into a dream Wherein they move, and all their movements seem Oddly familiar, yet uncomprehended With gestures half begun fading unended. A spirit drew them through resistless water Zoned with deep calm. Nereus' fairest daughter Sailing her shell on the horizon saw Those Trojans voyaging to fulfil the law 22 That led them from the dark, unknowing East To a most subtle splendour in the West. Deep violet Mountains cut in the hyaline Of the green sky in agate stillness shine As though the Winds like fallen Titans lay Huge emerald rocks piled up by tranquil day. Thin puffs of smoke upon each terraced hill Thousands of olives with grey softness fill The wild hard brightness of the glittering sea ; And the carved, lovely, strange anemone Whose hair is like a cold jewel cut by water Stands on the cliff where the tired Zephyr brought her, Awaiting in a stiff and dream-like trance Till at her feet the wavelets sparkling dance. 'Twas such a day that Aphrodite came Into the world. Pale as a torch's flame In still bright sunlight foamed the crystal wave ; So white she was, the sea as in a cave Darkened, and in the brightness of her gaze Olympus' snow seemed an obsidian glaze. Silent the mariners gazed upon the coast To which they moved, and each man at his post Marvelled. A spirit ever unsatisfied Had driven them on when many a man had died With eyes fixed on the horizon where Troy faded, His heart with bitter homesickness invaded. All felt the spell, but he beside the mast Moved not, wondering if he had sailed at last Into the Gods' calm, secret dwelling-place. But from the hills She looked with tranquil face Whose loveliness had cast on earth and sea The strange cold brightness of the trumpet lily, Lonelily dwelling in a dark orange garden. As soft winds mountain contours slowly harden And on the bright sky carve in delicate line Titanic sculpture, thousands of lovers refine The human body ; and whence that wonder came The songs of Kings and Shepherds, could they name That which on earth they vainly sought, had told Of Helen's beauty that profile pure and cold Faintlier drawn than shells graved by the sea And how like clouds moored in wild harmony Upon the unruffled azure of the sky Passion sleeps in her lovely, tranquil eye. She sat, and all the birds of earth were still In her noonday, the shadow of her hill Fell like a Dream upon the narrow bay In which that ship dawned, errandless as the day. Swift the sails sank, plunging the anchor fell, Sound ebbed and left the ship, as though a spell Had breathed that word and printed it on those seas Serifed with hanging rocks and thin calm trees. The sailors made fast to the little quay, Then sank upon the smooth deck sleepily ; 24 Strange in Greek waters, furled, blunt-nosed and dark, Her masts just stirring, rode the Trojan bark. Paris, a guest in Menelaus' hall That night, amazed, sat marvelling at all The cold, strange beauty of the foreign race. A virginal, fresh, unambiguous grace Lived in each amphora, each painted dish. On one he saw, riding a curious fish, A maiden with carved, wind-blown, streaming hair, Whose small and delicate profile left the air Filled with wild calm, as a bright tropic bloom A mirage heat casts in a northern room. The metal goblet whence he drank his wine Was chased with figures ; under a twisting vine Sat an old King, to him a lovely Youth Offered a cup. 'Twas all, and yet in truth Such tranquil loveliness was in their shapes Paris with hot hands gripped the clustered grapes, And madly gazed at the boy's faint sweet smile For ever fixed. He drank. Softly meanwhile Two flutes on Time shadows of music made As upon light life casts a trembling shade Earth's mountains in the tranquil wave of Day As wings reflected in a small bright bay From a migrating bird. He gazed around And on still faces sculptured he saw sound As one might see, dream -faced, a bright, gold Hour With lidded eyes float on a sun-lit flower. As shines the oleander in the gloom Of waters which the pale evening stars illume, So in that music Helen's beauty pale. On a dark rock he sat, a fading sail Glimmered above the music's falling wave. He looked into her eyes. Dark yawned Troy's grave. The flutes died down. A youth lovely as He Who stood immortal under the vineyard tree Arose with harp, his hand upon the strings Carved a deep stillness. Softly, far-off, he sings : Now let Love come. And bring his lute and touch a simple strain, A song to charm a Thracian village maid. Some smooth-worn antique story, Fit to express true lovers' sweet and pain, Bewitching Pan within his sylvan glade, Or Siren on her rocky promontory ! Long, long ago, In Heaven's unsullied calm and silence deep, When Beauty unadmired sat with bright wing In languor golden, The young Love came, sliding in Jove's clear sleep ; By him the joy fullest and the fairest thing In dream beholden. There fell a light Upon the gold tranquillity of Time, And on the marble Silence music jell Like sparkling water, Its brightness playing in the shades sublime Of the old Gods that in Olympus dwell As an old man's daughter Plays at life's eve. There was no memory of joy in heaven, There was no shadow in the ambrosial air Of earthly sorrow, No beauty of the Morn and of the Even, No sigh of mortal maid combing her hair For song to borrow. Perplexed Love stood, Then turned and wooed the lonely ear of Death, In soft tones such as Life had never heard Calling him brother. Nor did Death frost him with his icy breath, But, glittering, in dark Loveliness interred Embraced the other. 27 With clasped hands In calm, more beautiful than Night and Day, From the immortal brightness of the Gods They flew together. A shepherd saw them when the dawn was grey Float o'er the hills to which, dream-eyed, he plods, A white, and ebon feather. The marble Gods Into eternal quietness return, Hearing no more Love's music gently rain ; And they will never Recumbent in their golden slumber learn How Death pledged Love, his brother, to remain On earth for ever. The singer raised a goblet to his mouth ; On all the faces round he saw a drouth Like to his own ; such, on a summer day, Steals upon children wearying of play, And makes the fountain sunk in earth's monotone Suddenly high and bright speak out alone. And all the company to Helen turned Who, like the Moon in earth's dark water, burned Lovely and pure, shedding immortal light Into that hall oblonged from ebon night. Paris in grief drank on ; he would drink in His cup the dazzling fairness of her skin. 28 But She, remote, sat in his fevered eye As the Moon sits in the illumined sky Frantic with that strange beauty, so wild and calm, So unattainable. Her lovely arm Glinting like marble moonlight in the brain, Unseizable as the cold silver stain That lies upon night's mountains ! What was she But moonlight sparkling on the blood's dark sea ? 'Twas evening. The Trojan ship still lay Quiet as a rock fallen into the bay. Spring from the dark hills long ago had fled, And summer in thick-leafed vines made her dry bed Among the stones brought by a torrent's fall. In the dim moonless sky the stars were small, And on the darkling sea Sirius cast The faint light of a thousand ages past. Upon the promontory's pine-clad side Flowering against the rocks that amianth tide Tossed the white petals of its dying bloom Where Helen sat. The water's wasting gloom In the clear night shadowed her lovely brow That charmed a sea-air-cradled cherry-bough Above her head into a crystal calm. The shores around diffused a broken balm Of ambergris from the soft coralline foam That glitters, encrusting many a Nereid's home In sparkling grots among far-famed isles 29 Whose witchery the mirroring sea beguiles. What thoughts were in her heart as with bright gaze Inscrutable she watched the faint thin rays Shower from the stars ? Love leans across the night, A starry Bough in Ethiop's deserts bright Whereto dark Kings and multitudes in dream Do travel slowly. A constellation's gleam Lighting its flames within the hearts of men To build up civilizations, and unpen Old savage hordes to cease their banqueting, Pull up their tent pegs, murder every weakling And leave the plains their generation knew To march into dim lands whence Rumour blew Stories of temples built into the stars, And Gods more strange and beautiful than Mars. Where lie their bones ? In valleys where the grass Pastures the sheep. On lonely hills where pass None but the stars. And where lost treasures gleam On the sea's bottom. Does She know the theme Of all the voyages and songs of men ? Whisper to her what shall befall them when The loveliness they seek lies in their hands And, looked at nearly, vanishes in the sands Of disillusioning Time : O tell her this, Sea-wandering breeze, ere Paris with a kiss Stand at her side, and taking her white hand Lead her this night to grieve in a far land ! 3 Up from the little bay now Paris leaps And climbs the hillside, brushing beside the heaps Of dry sticks in the vineyards. Overhead The faint stars crusted in their azure bed Mark the pale milk-dim Way. Great cherry boughs Close to his arm within the darkness drowse, And cypresses that all the day-time stand In soft, green grass rock-like upon the land Now sleep like angels from a darker world With wings to tall thin bodies closely furled. On the warm, moonless air the orange glows A dull ghost orb, and from its still leaf throws A spectral sunshine on the smooth dark stem Of its own branches Strangest of trees that hem The dark green borderland of conscious life Where Plant with Plant maintains an eyeless strife, Casting wild arms into the azure deep Of space, and struggling to throw off the sleep That chains it down to valley and to hill O'er which man seems to wander at his will ! But what strange power thrusting pale Paris up Clomb on the hill ? Toward that precious cup Of Greek-won loveliness, with burning eye Among the sprawling serpent-figs that lie Pinned to the ground eating their great wide leaves, Paris pressed on. The branching olive weaves An airy veil of shadow overhead And a moist Shadow sleeps in the stream's dry bed, 3 1 Her lover led her down the steep hill-side. In the dark ship he hid his lovely bride : Darker the hills and the sea's surface grew, And on the stars a sudden darkness blew. A boy awaking in the hot summer night Sole in the palace saw the Trojan's flight, Hearing the clanking of the anchor chain Upon the deck. He watched, as the stars wane, The ropes cast off, the sailors in a boat Row the ship out ; he saw her gently float Toward the headland, saw her great, moth-like wings Dim in the dark. Dreaming of journeyings That he would take when he was grown a man He stayed there, motionless, until a span Of Eastern cloud grew purple on the bright Wave of the dawn that drowned the stars' faint light ; Then shivering sought his bed. The empty bay Filled slowly with the glittering flood of day. PART III Hoary with winds and with uncounted time, The w r alls of Troy stood in that summer clime By Tenedos, like some sublime sea-wrack Lifted from ocean's floor. Fissure and crack Witnessed eternity's slow-ebbing wave Of sun and moonlight, whose strong waters lave From King to King those buttresses and towers Winter to winter glazed with dull sea-flowers, And coated over with encrusted foam From the salt waves ; lichen on roof and dome Throwing no sparkle in the burning light Of Asian deserts nor in the greyness bright Of the pale silver sand below the Moon Whose ripples like the ribs of dead winds strewn Summon the glimmer of a pebbled noise Out of the cavernous past, whence rose up Troy's Foundations to the touch of trembling tone, And hands invisible placed stone on stone. Enormous age has smoothed her stones away And the soft giant hands of Night and Day Have crumbled mountain dust upon her walls, And her dust on the mountains. Slowly falls The new bright glory of that citadel 33 Into the dull, dim sand ; and they that dwell In kingdoms far, travelling across the plain As used their sires, lift up their gaze and strain Amazed eyes at that dim hoary ghost Whose huge mossed walls jut like a foam-veiled coast Into the blazing sun. Those aged crags Time-bleached, and bare of young war's coloured flags, Not one gay pennant fluttering to the sky, No scarf or bond of love to catch the eye Waved secretly from window or from roof, But as a grave of gods, sublime, aloof. Thus Ilion stood, from unknown quarries sprung And shining on her towers the stars looked young. Down from the mountains like a gleaming wind Blowing pale tracks on olive foliage thinned, Her streaming hair a bright pursuing flame, Into the Phrygian town Cassandra came. Mounting a wall she seaward gazing stood, Her garments fluttering, restless as her mood. It was late afternoon. The blood of day From the sky's silver pool dwindling away Suddenly glimmered in a low, red sail Upon the horizon. Then came a far, faint hail From Paris' sailors at the sight of Troy, And from blind walls floated faint shouts of joy. Cassandra heard that long expected call Of doom foretold, and rushed into the hall 34 Of Priam throned in council. All around Sat the great lords in stillness. Not a sound Disturbed the solemn, century-laden air. Deep in the chamber shone the snowy hair Of Priam, the pale ghost of many kings Whose buried eyes looked out from scattered things The spoils of ancient wars with a still gaze, The very heat and dust of those dead days Engrimed upon the squat, wide-staring heads Of conquered gods in whose glazed eyes Fear treads With soft tramp muffled from all living ears. Huge painted masks and great barbaric spears Were hung around ; the peacocks' hundred eyes In beaten gold enamelled. Purple skies Ablaze with stars arched o'er those Trojan lords Who sat bejewelled grasping their jewelled swords, Their faces like old rocks pitted and hewn And with the growth of time hap -hazard strewn About the sockets where their bright eyes lay Like age-dimmed rubies bedded deep in clay. What wind could move them from their seats of gold ? For time had sunk from them, life's tide had rolled Out of their hearts and left them and their griefs Desolate and bare, like sea-deserted reefs Glinting at times with light, a memory Beneath those stars of the wide-glimmering sea From whose deep murmuring life at last emerged They faintly ring, and with their feet submerged 35 In ebbing time incline their souls to hear Life's music faint receding in their ear. The pillars of that hall were purple stone, The capitals a cup-flower now unknown Painted bright gold. Of lapis-lazuli With shimmering wings a glittering dragon-fly Crawled upon every flower. With wearied gaze Amid magnificence Hector's glance strays To one small panel by an unknown hand Showing that Prince to whom from the far land Of Persia travellers brought a pale grey rose ; Holding it in his hand he dreaming goes For ever with slow steps and pale face bent Over the lovely bloom . Astonishment At their young Prince's passion for a flower Dim as the dawn, whose dew-clad, silver hour Blooms on dark hills and dies in the gold Sun, Fell on the court. In all the land was none Who, watching, understood why the warm blush Of life died in his cheek. That wondering hush, So long ago begun, to Hector seemed Present and deepening, raising his eyes he dreamed The portals of the hall were opening wide, There stood Prince Paris with his heavenly bride. Upon King Priam and those silent lords Then fell the glance that drew ten thousand swords To flash on Ilion. Slowly in that blaze 36 The Phrygian Princes rose. The darkening day's Pale beams flickered bright arms and left the room Cassandra shrieked, and fled across the gloom. 'Twas summer, and such brightness filled the land That, working in the vineyards, men would stand And gaze at one another as in dream, Their faces bright as gods'. The tranquil gleam Day after shining day of some still light Within the sunshine shadowed upon their sight The brilliancy of tree, rock, flower and stone. Such beauty on the earth had not been known As in those days. The bloom upon the grape Was purple as the night when from a cape Fire-cragged in heaven the lightning leaves its cloud, And, black upon purple, trees together crowd Distinct upon earth's shoulder. On the hills Puffed from the burning ground a thousand rills Of pale smoke-spirals, the bright olive-trees Hung motionless. A glaze upon the sea's Calm azure stone made the coast mountains seem Slumber-pale jade, smoke of an orient dream. Wild fragile flowers, bright-coloured crowds at noon And dying heaps of shadows under the moon, Thin painted flames burning on earth inch-high Still as the gold orb motionless in the sky Wreathed on the air a soft mysterious light. 37 In shining silence birds took curving flight From tower to tower. The solitary palm Dropped slowly its ripe fruit into the calm. On the still sunlight the huge cactus sprawls Its monstrous brood, as though from Ilion's walls The dark miasma of a nightmare dream Crept forth by day to gaze into the stream That slowly wandered, crazed with secret light Mirrored from Trojan turrets, when by night A shutter opens, and the silver hand Of Helen gleams across the shadowed land. Down by the sea, among the wave-worn crags Gathering up fuel, an ancient Woman drags Her weary feet. She does not raise her eyes Across the sea, or to the milky skies ; Bent almost double she goes up and down Putting dry weeds into her tattered gown. Often she pauses by strange lovely shells, She sees them not, nor thinks to hear what dwells Within their coils, a music soft and wild Which oft had made her heart beat when a child She picked them up ; but this she has forgot, Her awe, her joy, her life she has forgot. Only the fire upon her hearth remains And for its feeble heat are all her pains. Therefore the Grecian fleet she did not see 38 When round the headland it came silently. It was a hazy, dream-like afternoon ; In the pale milky sky a paler Moon Shone wanly as each ghostly dromond came, Its sail a slanting lemon-coloured flame On the pale sea against the hills of jade. Cleaving the calm their prows no white foam made But onward to that sleeping coastline drew ; And on each deck in shining brass the crew Stood and gazed speechless at the silent coast, As if to hills of dream sailed a dream host. They landed, and they seized that ancient crone. Her lifeless body into the sea was thrown At evening, as the stars began to shine Upon the water ; past the low dark line Of ships she floated, drifting out to sea, Turning and spinning, slowly, silently, On the cold twilight brightness of the waves, Far travelling from the low ancestral graves Clustered under the hill Death's little town, Silvered with stars under its cypress crown In whose dark rock-repose she thought to lie. Her head, deep-drowned, hung downward from the sky, And in the waves her feet with soles upturned The stars' pale glimmer to the stars returned. Soon the deep sea grew dark, and, like a shroud, Wrapping the graves of stars, low- ridged in cloud 39 The silence of the heavens deeper grew ; A wandering bird darker than darkness flew As the Moon rose on the sky's furrowed snow Glinting the pale tents of the Greeks below. There Agamemnon and Ulysses stand, Their shadows on the beach, gazing inland On the dim hills that ring their glimmering camp Up-tossed like foam to shine in Heaven's lamp For ten long years, and then to fade away As hoar-frost fades in the warm breath of day. All through the night the sentries paced the shore, A faint light sparkling on the arms they bore From the sky's arch of snow down -fallen. Soon In Ilion Helen's shutter closed. The Moon Shone in a shell of silence. Meander and Scamander bright with blood Through Springs and Winters roll into the flood Of Ocean. Many a green wave laid on shore A sudden foam-wreath sanguined with the gore Of heroes whose rags flutter in the wind Under a whitening rib or hip-bone pinned On which by Moon or Sun the shadow falls Of the white Neophron that haunts the walls Of cataracts, gloom-bound, in Idalian glen, Its beating wings drawn with bright eyes of men To Troy's towers, vanning out of each dark ravine 40 White as a Moon by sunlight faintly seen In dying Greek or Trojan's glazing eye A floating doom down-dropping from the sky. Great names are fading into little pools Of humble blood the dew of evening cools, And pale torn bodies that no longer tent The tortured spirit, in grief and passion bent To suffering angles lie upon the plain. Bleeding the wounded warrior rises again And on dim enemies redouble blows From dawn till eve. And there is no man knows In all the warring hosts of Greece and Troy Why they stay there fighting with bitter joy Among the summer flowers and the bright rains Of winter. Simoiseus' brains Stain the white sand. Iphidamus a boy Who left his marriage feast to fight at Troy With Coon his brother lies. They had not seen Helen, but dreaming in dark tents had been Drawn into battle for a shining name. And many an obscure Greek unknown to fame Stayed fighting on that shore to which he'd steered Long years ago, when in day-dream appeared Glad, bright-eyed visions even from sleep now flown. Dreamless each stands there and each fights alone. Even the bright gods no man ever saw Flash through the azure air, but some grim law Keeps him dull-eyed still fixed in that hard place 4 1 Where in his youth he came. The lovely face Sung by the messenger among the isles Of Greece, years gone, no more his heart beguiles ; But still the sun goes down day after day, And faces of friends in battle fade away, And from the dust and wind and clashing swords, Flies the sweet dream he had when on the boards Of his first ship he lay, watching the stars, The prey of beauty and heroic wars. In Ilion's citadel in deepest gloom The sons of Priam walk as in a tomb, The walls are hung with darkness, and black clouds Rest upon all its streets. The stars in shrouds Of sombre winds shudder and flash through veils Of gusty moonbeams in whose radiance pales Cassandra's torch, as she comes from the hall Where Hector's body lay, wrapped in its pall. And as she passes, noiseless, on the stone The shadow of her fluttering robe is blown Below that chamber in the moonlit tower Where Helen sits, remembering the sad hour When after years of battle the Greeks sent A herald to bewail the brave blood spent So fruitlessly, and swearing they would burn Their tents and go would the King but return To Menelaus his abducted Queen ! 42 And mid the Trojan lords Paris had been Silent, but Hector, looking on the man, Wearily smiled ; and she'd no need to scan Those faces further, for she straightway knew Hector was Hector, and to Hector true. He had not seen that perfect loveliness Which ached in Paris, knew not his weariness, Nor could he guess the meaning of their eyes ; For Paris looked on Helen as on skies Of charted stars astronomers have gazed Lost in their little knowledge. No more blazed Torrents of magic lightning in the air, But on his eyeballs she lay coldly fair. And he forgot her as he turned away And left the council. Staring upon the day, As he had stared upon that cave's dumb walls In Ida's forest where the water falls In the still golden Sun making a cry Of lonely misery, he wondered why In love's bright bubble of the Moon men crept To sleep and die. Helen softly wept. Hector was dead, and yet the bright stars shone, And wandering in the night, her gaze fell on The flood of Xanthus silver in the moon Noiselessly bubbling through night's sombre noon, Carrying a pale light from the tops of hills Like a swift thief who in the dark mine fills 43 His hands with jewels, and, running, drips with light Yet is as poor as Paris in his flight Among the nations with the jewel of maids. And utter weariness her soul invades, As if the moon were weary of its light And its idolaters, who with their bright Uplifted hands in woods and gardens sing Hymns to a nothing that can only bring Empty illumination to a world Of shadows. Slowly her soul unfurled Its sable wings and backward flew through time And forward through the future with sublime Pang of imagination for the dust That drifts upon all living things. So must The stars themselves upon the mind grow dim And lovers lose their idols, foiled like him Of some diviner essence, growing cold To all the beauty that their bride's eyes hold And w r andering through earth with a madman's eye Fixed on a light behind all lights that lie In stars or pools, or falling from Moon or Sun Shine on bright bodies from dark chaos won. High in her lonely tower she leans all night On gloom and darkness a pale cloud of light. Troy's fallen, and her name become a tale. Now one by one the Grecian ships set sail, Softly they steal all the long afternoon 44 Out of the bay. Once more a ghostly moon Hangs in the sky, once more their bronze prows made No white foam on the pale sea where the jade Calm mountains lie, smoke of an orient dream. Dromond on dromond, trireme on trireme, They stole away, disturbing on his wing No bee among the flowers. Far off, the ring Of cataracts falling in Idalian gloom Faint shook the air, filling it with the bloom Of myriad flowers. In silence hung the grape Its purple thunder, and the soaring shape Of Neophron, dark-shadowed in the flood Of bright Scamander, from dried fields of blood Fades silently away to where cold spills That silver source in the rock-chasmed hills. When evening came half of the fleet was gone ; All through the night they vanished one by one, Until King Menelaus' ship, the last, Awoke at dawn. Against the thin black mast The Wind hung dead ; a little Moon gold-bowed Warmed in the Southern sky. The sailors rowed On the calm water towards dawn's sheet of green With small quick motions making earth more serene Around that small dark ship where Helen lay ... The Sun's bright gold danced in the empty bay. 45 The Moon, grown cold, hung o'er the rocky coast To which the sea foamed like another ghost. Deep in the mountains sang a shepherd boy An ancient song, older than Greece or Troy : Across the day from hill to hill My flock and I are wandering, And we like you are never still Until from cold We creep to fold. Where is your house, O Sun ? Where do you go When the stars creep like flocks of sheep Across the pastures of the sky ? Where do you lie ? Where do you lie ? Tra-la-la, Tra-la-la, Where do you lie ? Tra-la-la-la la-la-la-la, Tra-la-la-la la-la la-la. THE WESTMINSTER PRESS UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. *** ^ SftuRL oc ^01986 tC D LU-UIJI u> **. JUN 9-1 375 JUN 71975 DIVERS/A m Form L9-32m-8,'58(5876s4)444 L1BHAKY