ent and intense
To a strange-figured Goddess, to his sense
Who knew but Aphrodite. "Love, what now?
Who is thy God? What secret rite hast thou?"
For grave and stern above that altar stood
Here the Queen of Heaven.
In dry mood
She answered him, "Chaste wives to her do pray
Before they couch, Blest be the strife! You say
We are to be new-wedded. Pour with me
Libation that we love not fruitlessly."
So said, she took the well-filled cup and poured,
And prayed, saying, "O Mother, not abhorred
Be this my service of thee. Count it not
Offence, nor let my prayers be forgot
When reckoning comes of things done and not done
By me thy child, or to me, hapless one,
Unloving paramour and unloved wife!"
"Here, to thee for issue of the strife!"
Cried Paris then, and poured. So Helen went
And let her maids adorn her to his bent.

Then took he joy of her, and little guessed
Or cared what she might give or get. Possest
Her body by his body, but her mind
Searcht terribly the issue. As one blind
Explores the dark about him in broad day
And fingers in the air, so as she lay
Lax in his arms, her fainting eyes, aglaze
For terror coming, sought escape all ways.
Alas for her! What way for woman fair,
Whose joy no fairer makes her than despair?
Her burning lips that kisses could not cool,
Her beating heart that not love made so full,
The surging of her breast, her clinging hands:
Here are such signs as lover understands,
But fated Paris nowise. Her soul, distraught
To save him, proved the net where he was caught.
For more she anguisht lest love be his bane
The fiercelier spurred she him, to make him fain
Of that which had been ruinous to all.
But all the household gathered on the wall
While these two in discordant bed were plight,
And watcht the Achaian fires. No beacon-light
Showed by the shore, but countless, flickering, streamed
Innumerable lights, wove, dipt and gleamed
Like fireflies on a night of summer heat,
Withal one way they moved, though many beat
Across and back, and mingled with the rest.
Anon a great glare kindled from the crest
Of Ida, and was answered by a blaze
Behind the ships, which threw up in red haze
Huge forms of prow and beak. Then from the Mound
Of Ilos fire shot up, f