Page:Poems - Tennyson (1843) - Volume 1 of 2.djvu/137

 With rosy slender fingers backward drew From her warm brows and bosom her deep hair Ambrosial, golden round her lucid throat And shoulder: from the violets her light foot Shone rosy-white, and o'er her rounded form Between the shadows of the vine-bunches Floated the glowing sunlights, as she moved.

"Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die. She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes, The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh Half-whisper'd in his ear, 'I promise thee The fairest and most loving wife in Greece.' She spoke and laugh'd: I shut my sight for fear: But when I look'd, Paris had raised his arm, And I beheld great Here's angry eyes, As she withdrew into the golden cloud, And I was left alone within the bower; And from that time to this I am alone, And I shall be alone until I die.

"Yet, mother Ida, harken ere I die. Fairest—why fairest wife? am I not fair?