XXIII.
So close no man might tell she was not dead!
And then the Goddess took her zone,—where lies
All her enchantment, love and lustihead,
And the glad converse that beguiles the wise,
And grace the very Gods may not despise,
And sweet Desire that doth the whole world move,—
And therewith touch’d she Helen’s sleeping eyes
And made her lovely as the Queen of Love.
XXIV.
Then laughter-loving Aphrodite went
To far Idalia, over land and sea,
And scarce the fragrant cedar-branches bent
Beneath her footsteps, faring daintily;
And in Idalia the Graces three
Anointed her with oil ambrosial,—
So to her house in Sidon wended she
To mock the prayers of lovers when they call.
XXV.
And all day long the incense and the smoke
Lifted, and fell, and soft and slowly roll’d,
And many a hymn and musical awoke
Between the pillars of her house of gold,
And rose-crown’d girls, and fair boys linen-stoled,
Did sacrifice her fragrant courts within,
And in dark chapels wrought rites manifold
The loving favour of the Queen to win.
XXVI.
But Menelaus, waking suddenly,
Beheld the dawn was white, the day was near,
And rose, and kiss’d fair Helen; no good-bye
He spake, and never mark’d a fallen tear,—
Men know not when they part for many a year,—
He grasp’d a bronze-shod lance in either hand,
And merrily went forth to drive the deer,
With Paris, through the dewy morning land.
XXVII.
So up the steep sides of Taygetus
They fared, and to the windy hollows came,
While from the streams of deep Oceanus
The sun arose, and on the fields did flame;
And through wet glades the huntsmen drave the game,
And with them Paris sway’d an ashen spear,
Heavy, and long, and shod with bronze to tame
The mountain-dwelling goats and forest deer.