“HELEN’S TOWER.”
Who hears of Helen’s Tower, may dream, perchance,
How the Greek Beauty from the Scæan Gate
Gazed on old friends unanimous in hate,
Death-doom’d because of her fair countenance.
Hearts would leap otherwise at thy advance,
Lady, to whom this Tower is consecrate!
Like hers, thy face once made all eyes elate,
Yet, unlike hers, was blessed by every glance.
The Tower of Hate is outworn, far and strange;
A transitory shame of long ago,
It dies into the sand from which it sprang;
But thine, Love’s rock-built Tower, shall fear no change;
God’s self laid stable earth’s foundation so,
When all the morning stars together sang.
—Robert Browning.
The traces of human deeds fade swiftly away from the sun-lighted earth, as the transient shade of thought from the brow, but nothing is lost and dissipated, which the rolling hours, replete with secrets, have received into their dark creative bosom. Time is a blooming field; nature is ever teeming with life, and all is seed, and all is fruit.—Schiller.