FIRST CHORUS
Rose-Flower.
Once long ago young Nireus was the King
In Syme Island, so the stories say,
And at his birth the gods made holiday,
And blessed the child and gave him each one thing,
Courage, and skill, and beauty, and bright eyes,
Wisdom, and charm, and many another power,
So that he grew to manhood like a flower
For beauty, and like God for being wise.
Now Nireus’ friend was Paris, out of Troy,
Paris, the prince, the archer, who had seen
The goddesses within the forest green;
King Priam’s son, a peacock of a boy.
Moon-Blossom.
At Sparta’s court, not far from Syme Isle,
Bright Helen lived, King Menelaus’ Queen,
The loveliest woman that has ever been,
Who made all mortals love her by her smile.
Nireus and Paris went together there
To Helen’s palace: and when Nireus saw
Helen the Queen, the lovely without flaw,
He loved her like her shadow everywhere.
And Paris, when he saw her with her mate,
Helen, the rose, beside that withered weed,
Loved her no less, but with a young man’s greed
That wants the moon from heaven and cannot wait.
Rose-Flower.
Straightway he wooed Queen Helen to be his,
And won her love, and cried to Nireus then,
“O Nireus, help to save us from this den,
Lend us your ship to bring us out of this.”
So Nireus, though his heart was torn with pain,
Well knowing what would come, yet took the pair
To many-towered Troy and left them there,
To live in love and be the city’s bane.
Moon-Blossom.
When Menelaus knew of Helen’s flight,
He led all Greece in arms to punish Troy,
Nireus went with him in the fleet, and joy
Ceased in the world, for all men went to fight.
Nine years they fought there in the tamarisk field,
And in the tenth, in some blind midnight stour,
Nireus killed Paris underneath the tower.
Men bore him back to Helen on his shield.
Rose-Flower.
Then Troy was sacked and Menelaus took
Beautiful Helen as his prisoner home,
And locked her in his castle as a gnome
Might lock a gem on which no man might look.
Thus Nireus lost his love, and killed his friend,
And knew despair; so going to his ship,
He sailed to where the constellations dip,
In the great west, to look for the world’s end.