Helen Redeemed and Other Poems. Maurice Hewlett

As once before one wailed her Hector there.

SECOND STAVE

       Table of Contents

      MENELAUS' DREAM: HELEN ON THE WALL

      So he who wore his honour like a wreath

       About his brows went the dark way of death;

       Which being done, that deed of ruth and doom

       Gave breath to Troy; but on the Achaians gloom

       Settled like pall of cloud upon a land

       That swoons beneath it. Desperate they scanned

       Each other, saying: "Now we are left by God,"

       And in the huts behind the wall abode,

       Heeding not Diomede, Idomeneus,

       Nor keen Odysseus, nor that friend of Zeus

       Mykenai's king, nor that robbed Menelaus,

       Nor bowman Teukros, Nestor wise, nor Aias—

       Huge Aias, cursed in death! Peleides bare

       Himself with pride, but he went raving there.

       For in the high assembly Thetis made

       In honour of her son, to waft his shade

       In peace to Hades' house, after the fire

       Twice a man's height for him who did suspire

       Twice a man's heart and render it to Heaven

       Who gave it, after offerings paid and given,

       And games of men and horses, she brought forth

       His regal arms for hero of most worth

       In the broad Danaan host, who was adjudged

       Odysseus by all voices. Aias grudged

       The vote and wandered brooding, drawn apart

       From his room-fellows, seeding in his heart

       Envy, which biting inwards did corrode

       His mettle, and his ill blood plied the goad

       Upon his brain, until the wretch made mad

       Went muttering his wrongs, ill-trimmed, ill-clad,

       Sightless and careless, with slack mouth awry,

       And working tongue, and danger in the eye;

       And oft would stare at Heaven and laugh his scorn:

       "O fools, think not to trick me!" then forlorn

       Would gaze about green earth or out to sea:

       "This is the end of man in his degree"—

       Thus would he moralise in those bare lands

       With hopeless brows and tossing up of hands—

       "To sow in sweat and see another reap!"

       Then, pitying himself, he'd fall to weep

       His desolation, scorned by Gods, by men

       Slighted; but in a flash he'd rage again

       And shake his naked sword at unseen foes,

       And dare them bring Odysseus to his blows:

       Or let the man but flaunt himself in arms … !

       So threatening God knows what of savage harms,

       On him the oxen patient in the marsh,

       Knee-deep in rushes, gazed to hear his harsh

       Outcry; and them his madness taught for Greeks,

       So on their dumb immensity he wreaks

       His vengeance, driving in the press with shout

       Of "Aias! Aias!" hurtling, carving out

       A way with mighty swordstroke, cut and thrust,

       And makes a shambles in his witless lust;

       And in the midst, bloodshot, with blank wild eyes

       Stands frothing at the lips, and after lies

       All reeking in his madman's battlefield,

       And sleeps nightlong. But with the dawn's revealed

       The pity of his folly; then he sees

       Himself at his fool's work. With shaking knees

       He stands amid his slaughter, and his own

       Adds to the wreck, plunging without a groan

       Upon his planted sword. So Aias died

       Lonely; and he who, never from his side

       Removed, had shared his fame, the Lokrian,

       Abode the fate foreordered in the plan

       Which the Blind Women ignorantly weave.

      But think not on the dead, who die and leave

       A memory more fragrant than their deeds,

       But to the remnant rather and their needs

       Give thought with me. 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.

       And the plain grew sweet

       Again with living green; the spring o' the year

       Came in with flush of flower and bird-call clear;

       And Nature, for whom nothing wrought is vain,

       Out of shed blood caused grass to spring amain,

       And seemed with tender irony to flout

       Man's folly and pain when twixt dead spears sprang out

       The crocus-point and pied the plain with fires

       More gracious than his beacons; and from pyres

       Of burnt dead men the asphodel uprose

       Like fleecy clouds flushed with the morning rose,

       A holy pall to hide his folly and pain.

       Thus upon earth hope fell like a new rain,

       And by and by the pent folk within walls

       Took heart and ploughed the glebe and from the stalls

       Led out their kine to pasture. Goats and sheep

       Cropt at their ease, and herd-boys now did keep

       Watch, where before stood armèd sentinels;

       And battle-grounds were musical with bells

       Of feeding beasts. Afar, high-beacht, the ships

       Loomed through the tender mist, their prows—like lips

       Of thirsty birds which, lacking water, cry

       Salvation out of Heaven—flung on high:

       Which marking, Ilios deemed her worst of road

       Was travelled, and held Paris for a God