Page:An epic of women and other poems (IA epicofwomenother00osha).pdf/137

 VI

HELEN.

After long years of all that too sweet sin That held her ever in the far strange land, She felt her heart was stricken, felt begin Great strokes of sorrow smiting like a hand.

She turned away from all the long delight Which had so filled and blinded all the past; The sweet sin rose up bitter in the night And turned the love to sickness at the last.

She and her lover in their goodly halls Gazed on each other no more the old way; About the face of each clung shadowy palls Of sadness all unchanged through many a day.