Page:Trojan Women (Murray 1905).djvu/62

60 Have being, are Aphroditê; and the name

She bears in heaven is born and writ of them.

Thou sawest him in gold and orient vest

Shining, and lo, a fire about thy breast

Leapt! Thou hadst fed upon such little things,

Pacing thy ways in Argos. But now wings

Were come! Once free from Sparta, and there rolled

The Ilian glory, like broad streams of gold,

To steep thine arms and splash the towers! How small,

How cold that day was Menelaus' hall!

Enough of that. It was by force my son

Took thee, thou sayst, and striving. Yet not one

In Sparta knew! No cry, no sudden prayer

Rang from thy rooms that night. Castor was there

To hear thee, and his brother: both true men,

Not yet among the stars! And after, when

Thou camest here to Troy, and in thy track

Argos and all its anguish and the rack

Of war—Ah God!—perchance men told thee 'Now

The Greek prevails in battle': then wouldst thou

Praise Menelaus, that my son might smart,

Striving with that old image in a heart

Uncertain still. Then Troy had victories:

And this Greek was as naught! Alway thine eyes

Watched Fortune's eyes, to follow hot where she

Led first. Thou wouldst not follow Honesty.

Thy secret ropes, thy body swung to fall

Far, like a desperate prisoner, from the wall!

Who found thee so? When wast thou taken? Nay,

Hadst thou no surer rope, no sudden way

Of the sword, that any woman honest-souled

Had sought long since, loving her lord of old?