Helen Redeemed and Other Poems

by Maurice Hewlett

That same night, as she used, fair Helen went
Among the suppliants in the hall, and lent
To each who craved the bounty of her grace,
Her gentle touch on wounds, her pitiful face
To beaten eyes' dumb eloquence, that art
She above all could use, to stroke the heart
And plead compassion in bestowing it.
So with her handmaids busy did she flit
From man to man, 'mid outlaws, broken blades,
Robbed husbandmen, their robbers, phantoms, shades
Of what were men till hunger made them less
Than man can be and still know uprightness;
And whom she spake with kindly words and cheer
In him the light of hope began to peer
And glimmer in his eyes; and him she fed
And nourisht, then sent homeward comforted
A little, to endure a little more.
Now among these, hard by the outer door,
She marked a man unbent whose sturdy look
Never left hers for long, whose shepherd's hook
Seemed not a staff to prop him, whose bright eyes
Burned steadily, as fire when the wind dies.
Great in the girth was he, but not so tall
By a full hand as many whom the wall
Showed like gaunt channel-posts by an ebb tide
Left stranded in a world of ooze. Beside
His knees she kneeled, and to his wounded feet
Applied her balms; but he, from his low seat
Against the wall, leaned out and in her ear
Whispered, but so that no one else could hear,
"Other than my wounds are there for thy pains,
Lady, and deeper. One, a grievous, drains
The great heart of a king, and one is fresh,
Though ten years old, in the sweet innocent flesh
Of a young child."
Nothing said she, but stoopt
The closer to her task. He thought she droopt
Her head, he knew she trembled, that her shoulder
Twitcht as she wrought her task; so he grew bolder,
Saying, "But thou art pitiful! I know
That thou wilt wash their wounds."
She whispered "Oh,
Be sure of me!"
Then he, "Let us have speech
Secret together out of range or reach
Of prying ears, if such a chance may be."
Then she said, "Towards morning look for me
Here, when the city sleeps, before the sun."
So till the glimmer of dawn this hardy one
Keepeth the watch in Paris' house. All night
With hard unwinking eyes he sat upright,
While all about the sleepers lay, like stones
Littered upon a hill-top, save that moans,
Sighings and "Gods, have pity!" showed that they
By night rehearsed the miseries of day,
And by bread lived not but by hope deferred.
Grimly he suffered till such time he heard
Helen's light foot and faint and gray in the mist
Descried her slim veiled outline, saw her twist
And slip between the sleepers on the ground,
Atiptoe coming, swift, with scarce a sound,
Not faltering in fear. No fear she had.
From head to foot a sea-blue mantle clad
Her lovely shape, from which her pale keen face
Shone like the moon in frosty sky. No case
Was his to waver, for her eyes spake true
As Heaven upon the world. Him then she drew
To follow her, out of the house, to where
The ilex trees stood darkly, and the air
Struck sharp and chill before the dawn's first breath.
There stood a little altar underneath
An image: Artemis the quick deerslayer,
High-girdled and barekneed; to Whom in prayer
First bowed, then stood erect with lifted hands,
Palms upward, Helen. "Lady of open lands
And lakes and windy heights," prayed she, "so do
To me as to Amphion's wife when blew
The wind of thy high anger, and she stared
On sudden death that not one dear life spared
Of all she had—so do to me if false
I prove unto this Argive!"
Then the walls
And gates of Ilios she traced in the sand,
And told him of the watch-towers, and how manned
The gates at night; and where the treasure was,
And where the houses of the chiefs. But as
She faltered in the tale, "Show now," said he,
"Where Priam's golden palace is."
But she
Said, "Nay, not that; for since the day of shame
That brought me in, no word or look of blame
Hath he cast on me. Nay, when Hector died
And all the city turned on me and cried
My name, as to an outcast dog men fling
Howling and scorn, not one word said the King.
And when they hissed me in the shrines of the Gods,
And women egged their children on with nods
To foul the house-wall, or in passing spat
Towards it, he, the old King, came and sat
Daily with me, and often on my hair
Would lay a gentle hand. Him thou shalt spare
For my sake who betray him."
Odysseus said,
"Well, thou shalt speak no more of him. His bed
Is not of thy making, nor mine, but his
Who hath thee here a cageling, thy Paris.
Him he begat as well as Hector. Now
Let Priam look to reap what he did sow."
But when glad light brimmed o'er the cup of earth
And shrill birds called forth men to grief or mirth
As might afford their labour under the sun,
Helen advised how best to get him gone,
And fetched a roll of cord, the which made fast
About a stanchion, about him next she cast,
About and about until the whole was round
His body, and the end to his arm she bound:
Then showed him in the wall where best foothold
Might be, and watcht him down as fold by fold
He paid the cable out; and as he paid
So did she twist it, till the coil was made
As it had been at first. Then watcht she him
Stride o'er the plain until he twinkled dim
And sank into the mist.
That day came not
King Menelaus to the trysting spot;
But ere Odysseus left her she had ta'en
A crocus flower which on her breast had lain,
And toucht it with her lips. "Give this," said she,
"To my good lord who hath seen the flower in me."

SEVENTH STAVE

THEY BUILD THE HORSE AND ENTER IN

What weariness of wind and wave and foam
Was to be for Odysseus ere his home
Of scrub and crag and scanty pasturage
He saw again! What stress of pilgrimage
Through roaring waterways and cities of men,
What sojourn among folk beyond the ken
Of mortal seafarers in homelier seas,
More trodden lands! Sure, none had earned his ease
As he, that windless morning when he drew
Near silent Ithaca, gray in misty blue,
And wondered on the old familiar scene,
Which was to him as it had never been
Aforetime. Say, had he but had inkling
That in this hour all that long wandering
Of his was self-ensured, had he been bold
To plan and carry what must now be told
Of this too hardy champion? Solve it you
Whose chronicling is over. Mine's to do.
All day until the setting of the sun,
Devising how to use what he had won
Odysseus stood; for nothing within walls
Was hid, he knew the very trumpet-calls
Wherewith they turned the guard out, and the cries
The sentries used to hearten or advise
The city in the watches of the night.
Once in, no hope for Ilios; but his plight
No better stood for that, since no way in
Could he conceive, nor entry hope to win
For any force enough to seize the gate
And open for the host.
But then some Fate,
Or, some men say, Athené the gray-eyed,
Ever his friend, never far from his side,
Prompted him look about him. Then he heeds
A stork set motionless in the dry reeds
That lift their withered arms, a skeleton host,
Long after winter and her aching frost
Are gone, and rattle in the spring's soft breeze
Dry bones, as if to daunt the budding trees
And warn them of the summer's wrath to come.
Still sat the bird, as fast asleep or numb
With cold, her head half-buried in her breast,
With close-shut eyes: a dead bird on the nest,
Arrow-shot—for behold! a wound she bore
Mid-breast, which stooping to, to see the more,
Lo, forth from it came busy, one by one,
Light-moving ants! So she to her death had gone
These many days; and there where she lost life
Her carrion shell with it again was rife.
So teems the earth, that ere our clay be rotten
New hosts sweep clean the hearth, our deeds forgotten.
But stooping still, Odysseus saw her not
Nor her brisk tenantry; afar his thought,
And after it his vision, crossed the plain
And lit on Ilios, dim and lapt in rain,
Piled up like blocks which Titans rear to mark
Where hero of their breed sits stiff and stark,
Spear in dead hand, and dead chin on dead knees;
And "Ha," cried he, "proud hinderer of our ease,
Now hold I thee within my hollowed hand!"
Straightway returning, Troy's destruction planned,
He sends for one Epeios, craftsman good,
And bids him frame him out a horse in wood,
Big-bellied as a ship of sixty oars
Such as men use for traffic, not in wars,
Nor piracy, but roomy, deep in the hold,
Where men may shelter if needs be from cold,
Or sleep between their watches. "Scant not you,"
He said, "your timber not your sweat. Drive through
This horse for me, Epeios, as if we
Awaited it to give the word for sea
And Hellas and our wives and children dear;
For this is true, without it we stay here
Another ten-year shift, if by main force
We would take Troy, but ten days with my horse."
So to their task Epeios and his teams
Went valiantly, and heaved and hauled great beams
Of timber from far Ida, and hacked amain
And rought the framework out. Then to it again
They went with adzes and their smoothing tools,
And made all shapely; next bored for their dools
With augurs, and made good stock on to stock
With mortise and with dovetail. Last, they lock
The frames with clamps, the nether to the upper,
And body forth a horse from crest to crupper
In outline.
Now their ribbing must be shaped
With axe to take the round, first rought, then scraped
With adzes, then deep-mortised in the frame
To bear the weight of so much mass, whose fame
When all was won, the Earth herself might quake,
Supporting on her broad breast. Now they take
Planks sawn and smoothed, and set them over steam
Of cauldrons to be supple. These to the beam
Above they rivet fast, and bend them down
Till from the belly more they seem to have grown
Than in it to be ended, so well sunk
And grooved they be. There's for the horse's trunk.
But as for head and legs, these from the block
Epeios carved, and fixed them on the stock
With long pins spigotted and clamps of steel;
And then the tail, downsweeping to the heel,
He carved and rivetted in place. Yet more
He did; for cunningly he made a door
Beneath the belly of him, in a part
Where Nature lends her aid to sculptor's art,
And few would have the thought to look for it,
Or eyes so keen to find, if they'd the wit.
Greatly stood he, hogmaned, with wrinkled néck
And wrying jaw, as though upon the check
One rode him. On three legs he stood, with one
Pawing the air, as if his course to run
Was overdue. Almost you heard the champ
And clatter of the bit, almost the stamp
And scrape of hoof; almost his fretful crest
He seemed to toss on high. So much confest
The wondering host. "But where's the man to ride?"
They askt. Odysseus said, "He'll go inside.
Yet there shall seem a rider—nay, let two
Bespan so brave a back," Epeios anew
He spurred, and had his horsemen as he would,
Two noble youths, star-frontletted, but nude
Of clothing, and unarmed, who sat as though
Centaurs not men, and with their knees did show
The road to travel. Next Odysseus bid,
"Gild thou me him, Epeios"; which he did,
And burnisht after, till he blazed afar
Like that great image which men hail for a star
Of omen holy, image without peer,
Chryselephantine Athené with her spear,
Shining o'er Athens; to which their course they set
When homeward faring through the seaways wet
From Poros or from Nauplia, or some
From the Eubœan gulf, or where the foam
Washes the feet of Sounion, on whose brow
Like a white crown the shafts burn even now.
Such was the shaping of the Horse of Wood,
The bane of Ilios.
Ordered now they stood
Midway between the ships and Troy, and cast
The lots, who should go in from first to last
Of all the chieftains chosen. And the lot
Leapt out of Diomede, so in he got
And sat up in the neck. Next Aias went,
Clasping his shins and blinking as he bent,
Working the ridges of his villainous brow,
Like puzzled, patient monkey on a bough
That peers with bald, far-seeing eyes, whose scope
And steadfastness seem there to mock our hope;
Next Antiklos, and next Meriones
The Cretan; next good Teukros. After these
Went Pyrrhos, Agamemnon, King of men,
Menestheus and Idomeneus, and then
King Menelaus; and Odysseus last
Entered the desperate doorway, and made fast.
And all the Achaian remnant, seeing their best
To this great venture finally addrest,
Stood awed in silence; but Nestor the old
Bade bring the victims, and these on the wold
In sight of Troy he slew, and so uplift
The smoke of fire, and bloodsmoke, as a gift
Acceptable to Him he hailed by name
Kronion, sky-dweller, who giveth fame,
Lord of the thunder; to Heré next, and Her,
The Maid of War and holy harbinger
Of Father Zeus, who bears the Ægis dread
And shakes it when the storm peals overhead
And lightning splits the firmament with fire;
Nor yet forgat Poseidon, dark-haired sire
Of all the seas, and of great Ocean's flow,
The girdler of the world. So back with slow
And pondered steps they all returned, and dark
Swallowed up Troy, and Horse, and them who stark
Abode within it. And the great stars shone
Out over sea and land; and speaking none,
Nursing his arms, nursing within his breast
His enterprise, each hero sat at rest
Ignorant of the world of day and night,
Or whether he should live to see the light,
Or see it but to perish in this cage.
Only Odysseus felt his heart engage
The blithelier for the peril. He was stuff
That thrives by daring, nor can dare enough.

Three days, three nights before the Skaian Gate
Sat they within their ambush, apt for fate;
Three days, three nights, the Trojans swarmed the walls
And towers or held high council in their halls
What this portended, this o'erweening mass
Reared up so high no man stretching could pass
His hand over the crupper, of such girth
Of haunch, to span the pair no man on earth
Could compass with both arms. But most their eyes
Were for the riders who in godlike guise
Went naked into battle, as Gods use,
Untrammel'd by our shifts of shields and shoes,
As if we dread the earth whereof we are.
Sons of God, these: for bore not each a star
Ablaze upon his forelock? Lo, they say,
Kastor and Polydeukes, who but they,
Come in to save their sister at the last,
And war for Troy, and root King Priam fast
In his demesne, him and his heirs for ever!
Now call they soothsayers to make endeavour
With engines of their craft to read the thing;
But others urge them hale it to the King—
"Let him dispose," they say, "of it and us,
And order as he will, from Pergamos
To heave it o'er the sheer and bring to wreck;
Or burn with fire; or harbour to bedeck
The temple of some God: of three ways one.
Here it cannot abide to flout the sun
With arrogant flash for every beam of his."
Herewith agreed the men of mysteries,
Raking the bloodsick earth to have the truth,
And getting what they lookt for, as in sooth
A man will do. So then they all fell to't
To hale with cords and lever foot by foot
The portent; and as frenzy frenzy breeds,
And what one has another thinks he needs,
So to a straining twenty other score
Lent hands, and ever from the concourse more
Of them, who hauled as if Troy's life depended
On hastening forward that wherein it ended.
So came the Horse to Troy, so was filled up
With retribution that sweet loving-cup
Paris had drunk to Helen overseas—
The cup which whoso drains must taste the lees.

EIGHTH STAVE

THE HORSE IN TROY; THE PASSION OF KASSANDRA

High over Troy the windy citadel,
Pergamos, towereth, where is the cell
And precinct of Athené. There, till reived,
They kept the Pallium, sacred and still grieved
By all who held the city consecrate
To Her, as first it was, till she learned hate
For what had once been lovely, and let in
The golden Aphrodité, and sweet sin
To ensnare Prince Paris and send him awooing
A too-fair wife, to be his own undoing
And Troy's and all the line's of Dardanos,
That traced from Zeus to him, from him to Tros,
From Tros to Ilos, to Laomedon,
Who begat Priam as his second son.
But out of Troy Assarakos too came,
From whom came Kapys; and from him the fame
Of good Anchises, with whom Kypris lay
In love and got Aineias. He, that day
Of dreadful wrath, safe only out did come,
And builded great Troy's line in greater Rome.
Now to the forecourt flock the Trojan folk
To view the portent. Now they bring to yoke
Priam's white horses, that the stricken king
Himself may see the wonder-working thing,
Himself invoke with his frail trembling voice
The good Twin Brethren for his aid and Troy's.
So presently before it Priam stands,
Father and King of Troy, with feeble hands
And mild pale eyes wherein Grief like a ghost
Sits; and about him all he has not lost
Of all his children gather, with grief-worn
Andromaché and her first, and last, born,
The boy Astyanax. And there apart
The wise Aineias stands, of steadfast heart
But not acceptable—for some old grudge
Inherited—Aineias, silent judge
Of folly, as he had been since the sin
Of Paris knelled the last days to begin.
But he himself, that Paris, came not out,
But kept his house in these his days of doubt,
Uncertain of his footing, being of those
On whom the faintest breath of censure blows
Chill as the wind that from the frozen North
Palsies the fount o' the blood. He dared not forth
Lest men should see—and how not see? he thought—
That Helen held him lightlier than she ought.
But Helen came there, gentle as of old,
Self-held, sufficient to herself, not bold,
Not modest nor immodest, taking none
For judge or jury of what she may have done;
But doing all she was to do, sedate,
Intent upon it and deliberate.
As she had been at first, so was she now
When she had put behind her her old vow
And had no pride but thinking of her new.
But she was lovelier, of more burning hue,
And in her eyes there shone, for who could see,
A flickering light, half scare and half of glee,
Which made those iris'd orbs to wax and wane
Like to the light of April days, when rain
And sun contend the sovereignty. She kept
Beside the King, and only closer crept
To let him feel her there when some harsh word
Or look made her heart waver. Many she heard,
And much she saw, but knew the King her friend,
Him only since great Hector met his end.
And while so pensive and demure she stood,
With one thin hand just peeping at her hood,
The which close-folded her from head to knee,
Her heart within her bosom hailed her—"Free!
Free from thy thralldom, free to save, to give,
To love, be loved again, and die to live!"
So she—yet who had said, to see her there,
The sweet-faced woman, blue-eyed, still and fair
As windless dawn in some quiet mountain place,
To such a music let her passion race?

Now hath the King his witless welcome paid,
And now invoked the gods, and the cold shade
Which once was Hector; now, being upheld
By two his sons, with shaking hands of eld
The knees of those two carved and gilded youths
He touches while he prays, and praying soothes
The crying heart of Helen. But not so
Kassandra views him pray, that well of woe
Kassandra, she whom Loxias deceived
With gift to see, and not to be believed;
To read within the heart of Time all truth
And see men blindly blunder, to have ruth,
To burn, to cry, "Out, haro!" and be a mock—
Ah, and to know within this gross wood-block
The fate of all her kindred, and her own,
Unthinkable! Now with her terror blown
Upon her face, to blanch it like a sheet,
Now with bare frozen eyes which only greet
The viewless neighbours of our world she strips
The veil and shrieketh Troy's apocalypse:
"Woe to thee, Ilios! The fire, the fire! And rain,
Rain like to blood and tears to drown the plain
And cover all the earth up in a shroud,
One great death-clout for thee, Ilios the proud!
Touch not, handle not——" Outraged then she turned
To Helen—"O thou, for whom Troy shall be burned,
O ruinous face, O breasts made hard with gall,
Now are ye satisfied? Ye shall have all,
All Priam's sons and daughters, all his race
Gone quick to death, hailing thee, ruinous face!"
Her tragic mask she turned upon all men:
"The lion shall have Troy, to make his den
Within her pleasant courts, in Priam's high seat
Shall blink the vulture, sated of his meat;
And in the temples emptied of their Gods
Bats shall make quick the night, and panting toads
Make day a loathing to the light it brings.
Listen! Listen! they flock out; heed their wings.
The Gods flee forth of this accursèd haunt,
And leave the memory of it an old chant,
A nursery song, an idle tale that's told
To children when your own sons are grown old
In Argive bonds, and have no other joy
Than whispering to their offspring tales of Troy."
Whereat she laught—O bitter sound to hear!
And struggled with herself, and grinned with fear
And misery lest even now her fate
Should catch her and she be believed too late.
"Is't possible, O Gods! Are ye so doomed
As not to know this Horse a mare, enwombed
Of men and swords? Know ye not there unseen
The Argive princes wait their dam shall yean?
Anon creeps Sparta forth, to find his balm
In that vile woman; forth with itching palm
Mykenai creeps, snuffing what may be won
By filching; forth Pyrrhos the braggart's son
That dared do violence to Hector dead,
But while he lived called Gods to serve his stead;
Forth Aias like a beast, to mangle me—
These things ye will not credit, but I see."
Then once again, and last, she turned her switch
On Helen, hissing, "Out upon thee, witch,
Smooth-handed traitress, speak thy secrets out
That we may know thee, how thou goest about
Caressing, with a hand that hides a knife,
That which shall prove false paramour, false wife,
Fair as the sun is fair that smiles and slays"—
And then, "O ruinous face, O ruinous face!"
But nothing more, for sudden all was gone,
Spent by her passion. Muttering, faint and wan
Down to the earth she sank, and to and fro
Rocking, drew close her hood, and shrouded so,
Her wild voice drowning, died in moans away.
But Helen stood bright-eyed as glancing day,
Near by the Horse, and with a straying hand
Did stroke it here and there, and listening stand,
Leaning her head towards its gilded flank,
And strain to hear men's breath behind the plank;
And she had whispered if she dared some word
Of promise; but afraid to be o'erheard,
Leaned her head close and toucht it with her cheek,
Then drew again to Priam, schooled and meek.
But Menelaus felt her touch, and mum
Sat on, nursing his mighty throw to come;
And Aias started, with some cry uncouth
And vile, but fast Odysseus o'er his mouth
Clapt hand, and checkt his foul perseverance
To seek in every deed his own essence.

Now when the ways were darkened, and the sun
Sank red to sea, and homeward all had gone
Save that distraught Kassandra, who still served
The temple whence the Goddess long had swerved,
Athené, hating Troy and loving them
Who craved to snatch and make a diadem
Of Priam's regal crown for other brows—
She, though foredoomed she knew, held to her vows,
And duly paid the thankless evening rite—
There came to Paris' house late in the night
Deïphobus his brother, young and trim,
For speech with fair-tressed Helen, for whose slim
And budded grace long had he sighed in vain;
And found her in full hall, and showed his pain
And need of her. To whom when she draws close
In hot and urgent crying words he shows
His case, hers now, that here she tarry not
Lest evil hap more dread than she can wot:
"For this," he says, "is Troy's extremest hour."
But when to that she bowed her head, the power
Of his high vision made him vehement:
"Dark sets the sun," he cried, "and day is spent";
But she said, "Nay, the sun will rise with day,
And I shall bathe in light, lift hands and pray."
"Thou lift up hands, bound down to a new lord!"
He mocked; then whispered, "Lady, with a sword
I cut thy bonds if so thou wilt."
Apart
She moved: "No sword, but a cry of the heart
Shall loose me."
Then he said, "Hear what I cry
From my heart unto thine: fly, Helen, fly!"
Whereat she shook her head and sighed, "Even so,
Brother, I fly where thou canst never go.
Far go I, out of ken of thee and thy peers."
He knew not what she would, but said, "Thy fears
Are of the Gods and holy dooms and Fate,
But mine the present menace in the gate.
This I would save thee."
"I fear it not," said she,
"But wait it here."
He cried, "Here shalt thou see
Thy Spartan, and his bitter sword-point feel
Against thy bosom."
"I bare it to the steel,"
Saith she. He then, "If ever man deserved thee
By service, I am he, who'd die to serve thee."
Glowing she heard him, being quickly moved
By kindness, loving ever where she was loved.
But now her heart was fain for rest; the night
Called her to sleep and dreams. So with a light
And gentle hand upon him, "Brother, farewell,"
She said, "I stay the issue, and foretell
Honour therein at least."
Then at the door
She kissed him. And she saw his face no more.