Page:Trojan Women (Murray 1905).djvu/14

12 The groves are empty and the sanctuaries

Run red with blood. Unburied Priam lies

By his own hearth, on God's high altar-stair,

And Phrygian gold goes forth and raiment rare

To the Argive ships; and weary soldiers roam

Waiting the wind that blows at last for home,

For wives and children, left long years away,

Beyond the seed's tenth fullness and decay,

To work this land's undoing.

And for me,

Since Argive Hera conquereth, and she

Who wrought with Hera to the Phrygians' woe,

Pallas, behold, I bow mine head and go

Forth from great Ilion and mine altars old.

When a still city lieth in the hold

Of Desolation, all God's spirit there

Is sick and turns from worship.—Hearken where

The ancient River waileth with a voice

Of many women, portioned by the choice

Of war amid new lords, as the lots leap

For Thessaly, or Argos, or the steep

Of Theseus' Rock. And others yet there are,

High women, chosen from the waste of war

For the great kings, behind these portals hid;

And with them that Laconian Tyndarid,

Helen, like them a prisoner and a prize.

And this unhappy one—would any eyes

Gaze now on Hecuba? Here at the Gates

She lies 'mid many tears for many fates

Of wrong. One child beside Achilles' grave

In secret slain, Polyxena the brave,

Lies bleeding. Priam and his sons are gone;

And, lo, Cassandra, she the Chosen One,