wavered in the air--
As once before one wailed her Hector there.

SECOND STAVE

MENELAUS' DREAM: HELEN ON THE WALL

So he who wore his honour like a wreath
About his brows went the dark way of death;
Which being done, that deed of ruth and doom
Gave breath to Troy; but on the Achaians gloom
Settled like pall of cloud upon a land
That swoons beneath it. Desperate they scanned
Each other, saying: "Now we are left by God,"
And in the huts behind the wall abode,
Heeding not Diomede, Idomeneus,
Nor keen Odysseus, nor that friend of Zeus
Mykenai's king, nor that robbed Menelaus,
Nor bowman Teukros, Nestor wise, nor Aias--
Huge Aias, cursed in death! Peleides bare
Himself with pride, but he went raving there.
For in the high assembly Thetis made
In honour of her son, to waft his shade
In peace to Hades' house, after the fire
Twice a man's height for him who did suspire
Twice a man's heart and render it to Heaven
Who gave it, after offerings paid and given,
And games of men and horses, she brought forth
His regal arms for hero of most worth
In the broad Danaan host, who was adjudged
Odysseus by all voices. Aias grudged
The vote and wandered brooding, drawn apart
From his room-fellows, seeding in his heart
Envy, which biting inwards did corrode
His mettle, and his ill blood plied the goad
Upon his brain, until the wretch made mad
Went muttering his wrongs, ill-trimmed, ill-clad,
Sightless and careless, with slack mouth awry,
And working tongue, and danger in the eye;
And oft would stare at Heaven and laugh his scorn:
"O fools, think not to trick me!" then forlorn
Would gaze about green earth or out to sea:
"This is the end of man in his degree"--
Thus would he moralise in those bare lands
With hopeless brows and tossing up of hands--
"To sow in sweat and see another reap!"
Then, pitying himself, he'd fall to weep
His desolation, scorned by Gods, by men
Slighted; but in a flash he'd rage again
And shake his naked sword at unseen foes,
And dare them bring Odysseus to his blows:
Or let the man but flaunt himself in arms...!
So threatening God knows what of savage harms,
On him the oxen patient in the marsh,
Knee-deep in rushes, gazed to hear his harsh
Outcry; and them his madness taught for Greeks,
So on t