t a remnant
of the old days, except for the bitterness of longing and remembrance.
Out of this new life, and the unborn hours, wilt thou not give, what
never before thou gavest, one hour to me, to be my servant?"

The voice, as it seemed, grew softer and came nearer, till the Wanderer
heard it whisper in his very ear, and with the voice came a divine
fragrance. The breath of her who spoke seemed to touch his neck; the
immortal tresses of the Goddess were mingled with the dark curls of his
hair.

The voice spake again:

"Nay, Odysseus, didst thou not once give me one little hour? Fear not,
for thou shalt not see me at this time, but lift thy head and look on
The World's Desire!"

Then the Wanderer lifted his head, and he saw, as it were in a picture
or in a mirror of bronze, the vision of a girl. She was more than mortal
tall, and though still in the first flower of youth, and almost a child
in years, she seemed fair as a goddess, and so beautiful that Aphrodite
herself may perchance have envied this loveliness. She was slim and
gracious as a young shoot of a palm tree, and her eyes were fearless and
innocent as a child's. On her head she bore a shining urn of bronze,
as if she were bringing water from the wells, and behind her was the
foliage of a plane tree. Then the Wanderer knew her, and saw her once
again as he had seen her, when in his boyhood he had journeyed to the
Court of her father, King Tyndareus. For, as he entered Sparta, and came
down the hill Taygetus, and as his chariot wheels flashed through the
ford of Eurotas, he had met her there on her way from the river. There,
in his youth, his eyes had gazed on the loveliness of Helen, and his
heart had been filled with the desire of the fairest of women, and like
all the princes of Achaia he had sought her hand in marriage. But Helen
was given to another man, to Menelaus, Atreus's son, of an evil house,
that the knees of many might be loosened in death, and that there might
be a song in the ears of men in after time.

As he beheld the vision of young Helen, the Wanderer too grew young
again. But as he gazed with the eyes and loved with the first love of a
boy, she melted like a mist, and out of the mist came another vision. He
saw himself, disguised as a beggar, beaten and bruised, yet seated in a
long hall bright with gold, while a woman bathed his feet, and anointed
his head with oil. And the face of the woman was the face of the maiden,
and even more be