SIXTH CHORUS
Moon-Blossom.
After long years, when Helen was riding by night
In storm, in the Ida forest, alone, not knowing the road,
She saw a light in the blackness; she turned to the light,
She came to the fort on the crag, the panther-women’s abode.
Rose-Flower.
Hearing her horse’s stamp, they brought her into the yard,
Those women fierce from the killing of lion or boar or man;
They came with their torches round her, they stared at her hard,
They knew her for Helen the Queen from whom their sorrows began.
For years they had longed for her coming, to have her to kill,
Her beauty a throat for their knives, her body a prey—
Helen, who ruined their lovers, the root of their ill—
She said: “I am Helen. Avenge yourselves on me. You may.”
Moon-Blossom.
Still they stared at her there in the torchlight; then one of them said:
“God used you to bring things to be; evil things to our city,
Evil things to yourself, for your face declares you have paid;
You have come to the truth like ourselves; we take not vengeance, but pity.”
Then they welcomed her into their hold, and when morning broke clear,
They rode with her down to the ruins of what had been Troy;
There they left her alone in the wreck of the thing overdear
That the gods cannot grant to mankind, but unite to destroy.