Page:Helen of Troy and Other Poems.djvu/34



WAS a queen, and I have lost my crown; A wife, and I have broken all my vows; A lover, and I ruined him I loved:— There is no other havoc left to do. A little month ago I was a queen, And mothers held their babies up to see When I came riding out of Camelot. The women smiled, and all the world smiled too. And now, what woman's eyes would smile on me? I still am beautiful, and yet what child Would think of me as some high, heaven-sent thing, An angel, clad in gold and miniver? The world would run from me, and yet am I No different from the queen they used to love. If water, flowing silver over stones, Is forded, and beneath the horses' feet Grows turbid suddenly, it clears again, And men will drink it with no thought of harm. Yet I am branded for a single fault.

I was the flower amid a toiling world, Where people smiled to see one happy thing, And they were proud and glad to raise me high; They only asked that I should be right fair, A little kind, and gownèd wondrously,