XVIII.
“Thou shalt forget Hermione; forget
Thy lord, thy lofty palace, and thy kin;
Thy hand within a stranger’s shalt thou set,
And follow him, nor deem it any sin;
And many a strange land wand’ring shalt thou win,
And thou shalt come to an unhappy town,
And twenty long years shalt thou dwell therein,
Before the Argives mar its towery crown.
XIX.
“And of thine end I speak not, but thy name,—
Thy name which thou lamentest,—that shall be
A song in all men’s speech, a tongue of flame
Between the burning lips of Poesy;
And the nine daughters of Mnemosyne,
With Prince Apollo, leader of the nine,
Shall make thee deathless in their minstrelsy!
Yea, for thou shalt outlive the race divine,
XX.
“The race of Gods, for like the sons of men
We Gods have but our season, and go by;
And Cronos pass’d, and Uranus, and then
Shall Zeus and all his children utterly
Pass, and new Gods be born, and reign, and die,—
But thee shall lovers worship evermore
What Gods soe’er usurp the changeful sky,
Or flit to the irremeable shore.
XXI.
“Now sleep and dream not, sleep the long day through,
And the brief watches of the summer night,
And then go forth amid the flowers and dew,
Where the red rose of Dawn outburns the white.
Then shalt thou learn my mercy and my might
Between the drowsy lily and the rose;
There shalt thou spell the meaning of delight,
And know such gladness as a Goddess knows!”
XXII.
Then Sleep came floating from the Lemnian isle,
And over Helen crush’d his poppy crown,
Her soft lids waver’d for a little while,
Then on her carven bed she laid her down,
And Sleep, the comforter of king and clown,
Kind Sleep the sweetest, near akin to Death,
Held her as close as Death doth men that drown,
So close that none might hear her inward breath—