So from afar the music and the shout
Roll’d up to Ilios and the Scaean gate,
And at the sound the city folk came out
And bore sweet Helen—such a fairy weight
As none might deem the burden of Troy’s fate—
Across the threshold of the town, and all
Flock’d with her, where King Priam sat in state,
Girt by his elders, on the Ilian wall.
XXXII.
No man but knew him by his crown of gold,
And golden-studded sceptre, and his throne;
Ay, strong he seem’d as those great kings of old,
Whose image is eternal on the stone
Won from the dust that once was Babylon;
But kind of mood was he withal, and mild,
And when his eyes on Argive Helen shone,
He loved her as a father doth a child.
XXXIII.
Round him were set his peers, as Panthous,
Antenor, and Agenor, hardly grey,
Scarce touch’d as yet with age, nor garrulous
As are cicalas on a sunny day:
Such might they be when years had slipp’d away,
And made them over-weak for war or joy,
Content to watch the Leaguer as it lay
Beside the ships, beneath the walls of Troy.
XXXIV.
Then Paris had an easy tale to tell,
Which then might win upon men’s wond’ring ears,
Who deem’d that Gods with mortals deign to dwell,
And that the water of the West enspheres
The happy Isles that know not Death nor tears;
Yea, and though monsters do these islands guard,
Yet men within their coasts had dwelt for years
Uncounted, with a strange love for reward.
XXXV.
And there had Paris ventured: so said he,—
Had known the Sirens’ song, and Circe’s wile;
And in a cove of that Hesperian sea
Had found a maiden on a lonely isle;
A sacrifice, if so men might beguile
The wrath of some beast-god they worshipp’d there,
But Paris, ’twixt the sea and strait defile,
Had slain the beast, and won the woman fair.
XXXVI.